for the Oregfon Steamship Company, and $2,000,000 stock and $2,500,000 bonds
to raise the cash required for Ainsworth. Leaving $1,800,000 stock and $1,500,-
000 bonds for the purchase of thirty-five miles of Walla Walla railroad and
Willamette Valley Transportation & Lock Company. $1,200,000 stock and
$800,000 bonds were reserved for new steamers. He submitted his plans to
jay Gould, but got a cool reception. He therefore laid the proposition before
his friends in the east. His plan was to unite all the transportation facilities
in Oregon. He asked his friends to join in exchanging Oregon Steamship for
Oregon Railroad & Navigation securities, and to subscribe for the required cash
payments for bonds at ninety with a bonus of seventy per cent in stock. He
received a prompt response. Thus the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Com-
pany grew out of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and the Oregon
Steam Navigation Company, after a score of years, of prosperity unparalleled in
the annals of steam navigation, passed out of existence in 1879. The Oregon
Railroad & Navigation Company was incorporated July 13, 1879, with a capi-
talization of $6,000,000, divided into $100 shares. Mr. Villarcl was president.
The reference to Jay Gould above, revives the story circulated at the time
that when the United States was proceeding by judicial proceedings in the
U. S. district court to appropriate a right of way for the canal at the Cascades,
and the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was resisting the proceeding, that
David P. Thompson, who had no love for the Navigation Company, sat by and
listened to the testimony of Captain Ainsworth, and prompted the government
attorneys to compel Ainsworth to tell about all the immense profits of the com-
pany. And that after getting it on record, Thompson sent the figures to Vil-
lard, and Villard took them to Gould, and that Gould, instead of encouraging
Villard, telegraphed a sensational story to the western papers saying that the
Union Pacific Railroad, which Gould then controlled, would immediately take
steps to extend its road to the Columbia river, and down to Portland, thereby
expecting and intending to buy out the O. S. N. Company for a song. But,
that after Gould had thus flushed the game, Villard scurried around Wall
Street, got cash from other parties, and rushed to Oregon and bought out Ains-
worth & Company before (jould could get his agent out here; making a good
illustration of one railroad sharp shaking the plum tree while another, just a
little quicker on foot, picks up the plums.
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES.
When the great field of virgin soil, rich mines, and great forests are con- sidered, it is no wonder that this great monopoly so greatly prospered. No syndicate of capitalists ever had greater opportunities. And while they made millions and retired with great fortunes, yet what they achieved and what they took away was but a drop in the bucket of what they might have accomplished and gained. They were absolute masters of all the country east of the Cascade mountains in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. A region embracing every va- riety of soil, climate, timber and natural resources, and comprising an area equal to that of the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. And yet they barely touched the resources of wealth along the margin of the great river, and made no attempt to penetrate the rich valleys of the interior with cheap and easily constructed feeder railways. They made so much money out of so small an effort that the glamor of the great wealth blinded their eyes to the greater possibilities beyond their vision.
INDEPENDENT BOATS.
But not all the enterprise in steamboating was put forth by the rich corpo- ration. There were others with less money, but even more enterprise and public
