The waterways of the Pacific Northwest ..

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HENRY MORSE STEPHENS COLLECTION

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PAMPHLETS ON

ALASKA
AND THE PACIFIC.

1. Altamira y Crevea, Rafael*

The Share of, Spain in the
history of the Pacific
Ocean. 1917

2. Bagley, Clarence B. The

Waterways of the Pacific
Northwest. 1917

3. Balch, Thomas Willing. The

Alasko-Canadian frontier.
1902.

4. Bolton, Herbert E. The Early

explorations of Father
Garces on the Pacific Slope.
1917

5. Bolton, Herbert E. New light

on Manuel Lisa and the Spanish
fur trade.

6. Dunning, William A. Paying for

Alaska, 1912.

7. Howay, F. W. The Fur trade in

northwestern development. 1917

8. Morrow, William W. "The Spoilers11

1916

868600

9. Stephens, Henry Morse. The
Conflict, of European
nations in the Pacific.
1917

10. Teggart, Frederick J. The
Approaches to the Pacific
Coast. 1915

THE WATERWAYS OF THE
PACIFIC NORTHWEST

BY

CLARENCE B. BAGLEY

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

REPRINTED FROM "THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY"
BY H. MORSE STEPHENS AND HERBERT E. BOLTON.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1917, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
CLARENCE B. BAGLEY

RECENTLY, as I have studied this subject its magnitude has
grown more apparent. The space allotted my paper will permit
little more than a historical sketch. It has been my life work to
gather together the written and printed history of the Pacific
Northwest, but I am not a professional writer of it.

For my purpose this caption refers to the Columbia River and
its tributaries, and Puget Sound and the rivers emptying into it,
including the Fraser, and their watersheds. The Columbia and
Eraser are the only rivers that break through the great mountain
ranges which parallel the shore of Washington and Oregon. With
the Pacific Ocean only a few miles away, with its intricate network
of great and lesser rivers, and its inland tidal waters whose aggre-
gate littoral exceeds the distance between Cape Cod and Cape
Flattery, it is remarkable how much of the exploration and indus-
trial and commercial development of the Pacific Northwest has
come from the East towards the West.

Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, when he discovered the upper
reaches of the Great River; Lewis and Clark in 1805; Simon
Fraser and John Stuart in 1805-6 ; Daniel W. Harmon in 1810 ;
David Thompson in 1811, and a little later Wilson Price Hunt,
and thereafter nearly all the leading men of the Northwest Com-
pany and the Hudson's Bay Company, braved the hardships and
dangers of the trip over the Rocky Mountains and down the tur-
bulent waters of the Columbia or the Fraser.

John McLoughlin, James Douglas and Peter Skene Ogden,
Nathaniel J. Wyeth and the first missionaries, John C. Fremont,
B. L. E. Bonneville, all led expeditions westward. Astoria was
founded from the sea, and the expeditions of Astor's party to
establish inland posts went up the river from the west, but they

298

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 299

were all failures. For nearly seventy years the canoe and the
bateau, the ox team or the horse team attached to the prairie
schooner, were the instruments whereby the pioneers searched out
the country and peopled its valleys and plains.

During the period between 1842 and 1855, old Oregon was
mostly peopled by immigrants from the Mississippi valley, who
came overland. After the completion of the railroad across the
Isthmus in 1855, immigrants from near the Atlantic seaboard
took steamer at New York City for Aspinwall, crossed the Isthmus
by rail, thence to San Francisco by steamer and to Oregon and
Washington by sailing craft or steamer. Troubles with Indians
between the Missouri and Columbia, of frequence in the later
'fifties, followed closely by the great Civil War period, materially
checked the influx of population overland. In fact, not until
the completion of the Northern Pacific in 1883, and soon afterward
of the Oregon Shortline, did the real development of Oregon and
Washington begin.

In 1850 there were in old Oregon only 13,000 white settlers,
1049 of whom lived north of the Columbia River ; in 1860 Oregon
had 52,000, Washington, 11,500; in 1870, Oregon 91,000, Wash-
ington 24,000 ; in 1880, Oregon 175,000, Washington 75,000 ; in
1890, Oregon 314,000, Washington 349,000. The Northern
Pacific Railroad had been completed in 1883, quickly followed
by the Oregon Shortline, and Washington had gained nearly five-
fold in a decade and had passed her older sister in population.
In 1900 Oregon had 414,000, Washington 518,000 ; in 1910 Ore-
gon had 673,000, with Washington 1,142,000, or a gain by the
latter of more than 100 per cent in ten years. Oregon had an
assessed valuation of 905 millions and Washington, 1025 millions.
Neither had a bonded debt.

The Canadian Pacific, Great Northern, Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul, Northern Pacific, Oregon Shortline and Southern
Pacific railroads had all reached Pacific coast terminals, and
in consequence the great Northwest had gained remarkably in
population, wealth and volume of trade and commerce.

In the Willamette valley the water power afforded by the
streams of the Cascades and Coast ranges served to operate the
early wood working and flouring mills, the woolen mills and small

300 THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY

manufacturing plants, but on Puget Sound it was more econom-
ical to operate the saw-mills by steam where the ships could
reach the docks easily and quickly.

Almost immediately after their arrival at Tumwater, the first
American settlers began building a saw-mill and a grist-mill on
the bank of the Des Chutes River. The irons were bought from
the Hudson's Bay Company and the millstones were made from
a large granite boulder near by. Both mills were run by water
power. A few other small mills were constructed elsewhere on
the Sound, but all were financial failures.

No large city has grown up in the Northwest on the site of
the great water powers of the Columbia, Fraser, Willamette or
smaller streams. Also, excepting Victoria and New Westminster,
no large city has grown up on the site of the trading posts of the
Hudson's Bay Company or the villages first started by the
American settlers in the Willamette valley or on Puget Sound.
Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Tacoma, and Vancouver in British
Columbia, appeared on the map years after a dozen of their early
rivals had been thriving little towns, and the most successful were
founded by farmers from the Mississippi valley who, perhaps,
had never seen a large city.

A regular transportation line was established on the Lower
Columbia in 1843 ; and in 1845, deep sea vessels began to frequent
the harbor of Victoria and the Columbia River. These included
many war vessels of the United States and Great Britain. Steam-
ship communication, more or less irregular, began between San
Francisco and the Columbia River in 1850, and between the former
city and Puget Sound about 1857, though the Otter and other
steamers had made occasional trips on the latter route long before
that time. Also, about 1850, steamers began to operate on the
Lower Willamette and on the Columbia below the Cascades.

After Vancouver's day little is reported of the Puget Sound
region for about thirty years. As early as 1827 the schooners
Vancouver and Cadboro, owned and operated by the Hudson's
Bay Company, are known to have sailed from the Columbia River
to Puget Sound and engaged in traffic with the natives as far
north as Sitka. In 1836 the Steamer Beaver arrived in the
Columbia River from England, but in a short time she left the

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 301

Columbia and began running up and down the coast in and out
of the rivers, bays, and inlets between Puget Sound and Alaska,
carrying grain and other food stuffs northward and bringing
back furs and skins and at times towing sailing vessels to and fro.

During all the early years, down the waters of the Willamette
and Columbia came considerable wheat and other grains, but
freight rates were so high that little profit was realized by the
grower and the acreage in consequence increased but slowly.
The lumber exports of the Columbia River region also were large.
On Puget Sound, until metal supplanted wood in shipbuilding,
numerous cargoes of ships' spars went to the Atlantic seaboard
and to Europe, but sawed lumber and piles, with shingles and lath
to complete the stowage, were the chief articles of export. Good
coal was mined on Vancouver Island earlier than on the American
side of Puget Sound, but no considerable shipments abroad began
until after 1870. For more than thirty years thereafter the coal
mining industry of the Puget Sound country ranked closely after
the lumber business and a large fleet of seagoing vessels was con-
stantly employed in the trade. During recent years the use of
oil in competition with coal for fuel has curtailed greatly the
output of the northern coal mines.

It is more than 1650 miles from the mouth of the Columbia
to the uppermost point of navigation, but rapids and falls occur
at frequent intervals. Until quite recently no continuous navi-
gation of more than three hundred and fifty miles was practicable.
Traffic between Portland and Lewiston, Idaho, required the oper-
ation of three separate steamers on as many stretches of the
stream and still another on the upper Willamette. This made
necessary artificial methods of getting freight and passengers
around the breaks in the river, and it was not long before an
absolute monopoly was held by one company on the Columbia
and by another on the upper Willamette, though attempts at
independent operation of boats on the latter were frequent.
To-day, a steamer can run from Lewiston to Astoria, or, if of
light enough draught, to Eugene on the Willamette.

In 1850 a wooden tramroad was built on the north side and
later another on the south side around the cascades of the Co-
lumbia. Late in the 50's the Oregon Steam Navigation Com-

302 THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY

pany gained control of them and installed a steam railroad on
the north side.

About 1860 that company began the construction of a railroad
from The Dalles to Celilo, which commenced operations in 1862,
during a period of intense mining activity in Idaho, Eastern
Oregon and Northern Washington. Thereafter it practically
owned the Columbia above the Cascades. The history of its
operations and exactions and of the colossal fortunes it piled up
for its stockholders reads like fiction.

The first actual improvement of a waterway that I remember
was at Oregon City. In 1860, at the west side of the Willamette
River, the local transportation company constructed basins above
and below the falls, so that a long warehouse covered both land-
ing places, making it a comparatively easy matter to transfer
freight up and down, while passengers walked. About 1870, the
company replaced this system by a short canal with locks.

For a great many years the United States has made liberal
appropriations to be used in overcoming the difficulties of navi-
gation of the Columbia River and its main tributaries. Under
date of August 6, 1915, Major Arthur Williams, United States
Engineer of the First Oregon district, furnished the following
list of original expenditures :

Snake River, in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, including
$85,000 appropriated by the state of Washington, $338,786.43 ;
Columbia River and tributaries above Celilo Falls to the mouth of
Snake River, Oregon and Washington, including $25,000 from the
state of Washington, $494,600.84 ; Columbia River at The Dalles,
Oregon and Washington (Dalles-Celilo Canal), $4,685,855.79 ; canal
at the Cascades of the Columbia River, Oregon and Washington,
$3,912,473.33 ; Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington,
and the mouth of the Willamette River, $97,532.16; Oregon
Slough (North Portland Harbor), Oregon, $34,437.60. In addi-
tion to the foregoing $390,921.58 have been expended in operation
and maintenance.

In a letter of recent date from Chas. L. Potter, Lieutenant Colo-
nel, Corps of United States Engineers, are tabulated the amounts
heretofore expended in the second district on all river and
harbor improvements to June 30, 1915, as follows :

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 303

Willamette River above Portland, and Yamhill River, Oregon,
$857,671.92; operating and care of lock and dam in Yamhill
River, Oregon, $43,426.95 ; Willamette River at Willamette Falls,
Oregon, $83,441.71 ; operating and care of canal and locks in
Willamette River, near Oregon City, Oregon, $344.22 ; Columbia
and Lower Willamette rivers below Portland,Oregon,$3,577,958.35 ;
mouth of Columbia River, Oregon and Washington,$13,156,162.52 ;
Clatskanie River, Oregon, $18,867.34 ; Cowlitz River, Washington,
$102.208.63; Lewis River, Washington, $39,587.19; Cowlitz and
Lewis rivers, Washington, and Clatskanie River, Oregon, dredge
and snagboat, $36,138.04; Grays River, Washington, $3,857.23.

Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the
building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across
the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the
tributary country, but until its present population shall have
increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall
be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall
be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation
of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be imprac-
ticable. Steamboat service up the swift current with little cargo
will fully offset any cheapening that may be possible down stream,
so that most of the business will continue to be done by the rail-
roads. However, the open river will undoubtedly be a check
upon the railroads.

A few weeks ago, at Lewiston, during the rejoicings over the
opening of the upper Columbia to free navigation, one of the
leading speakers remarked that the party in steaming up the
river had seen but one other boat and she was tied to the dock.

The state of Washington was in some measure benefited jointly
with Oregon by the work in the Columbia basin noted above.
The actual expenditures by the United States in Washington have
been small in comparison. On Willapa Harbor they have been
$241,878.39; at Gray's Harbor $3,231,906.78; on Puget Sound
they have been, at Olympia, $197,701.35; at Tacoma,
$324,784.10; at Everett and Snohomish, $664,752.59 ; at Belling-
ham, $149,834.69; Skagit River, $101,455.54; Swinomish,
$217,652.29. In addition to the work done at Tacoma by the
United States, the railroads and the municipality have spent

304 THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY

large sums in providing docks and other shipping facilities, and
it is equipped to handle its full share of the Sound and sea-
going traffic. The foregoing figures were furnished me from
the office of the resident United States Engineer, Major J. B.
Cavanaugh.

Portland is the overshadowing city of the Columbia basin,
and has always handled most of its business, while on'Puget
Sound trade and commerce have been divided. It is all a vast
harbor and its cities have had access almost equally to the sea.
Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Everett,
Bellingham, Anacortes, Olympia, and Port Townsend are credited
with an aggregate of nearly three-quarters of a million of inhab-
itants.

During the last ten years there has been expended in Seattle
more than fifteen millions of dollars in harbor improvements.
By the operations of the Seattle & Lake Washington Waterway
Co. there have been 1400 acres of land filled, much of it now cov-
ered with buildings of a most substantial character. When this
company began operations these lands were covered twice a day
from six to sixteen feet with tidal water. Through them it dug
waterways forty and fifty feet deep at low tide two and one half
miles long, 1000 feet wide, and two miles additional five hundred
feet wide. This has required the construction of seven miles of
bulkheads, all at a cost of a little more than five millions of
dollars, all paid by the owners of the filled-in lands. Some four
hundred additional acres of land, at times covered by the tides
or by high waters of the Duwamish River, have been reclaimed.

A ship canal between the waters of Puget Sound and Lake Union
and Washington is now nearing completion and is expected to be
in use during the current year. It will admit the passage of ships
drawing thirty feet of water, directly into the lakes.

The locks at the outer entrance have been constructed by the
United States government. The larger is 850 feet long and is
the second in size on the American continent, being exceeded in
size by one of the locks of the Panama Canal. They cost
$2,275,000. The state of Washington, county of King and city
of Seattle contributed $1,250,000 to pay for condemnation of the
necessary land and dredging and digging of the canals. Add to

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 305

this $6,000,000, raised by the sale of longtime bonds voted by the
people and expended by the Port Commission of Seattle for docks
and warehouses, refrigerator plants and other facilities for speedy
and economical handling of cargoes of grain, fruit, fish, lumber,
coal, etc., and the above aggregate of $15,000,000 has been passed.

John W. B. Blackman, Esq., City Engineer of New Westminster,
B.C., has supplied information regarding Victoria, Vancouver,
and New Westminster, British Columbia, as follows : Expenditures
in Fraser River in opening, deepening, straightening, etc.,
$1,399,645.05 ; in Vancouver, mostly in widening the Narrows,
$2,174,148.45; at Victoria in recent years, $750,000 in round
numbers, has been spent in blasting and removing rock from the
inner harbor, and a new break-water is now being constructed at
an estimated cost of $3,000,000.

The canoe and bateau gave place to the steamboat, the steam
cars took away from the steamboat much of its business, and in
the last quarter century the city and interurban electric cars have
taken over much of the short haul traffic, while to-day the motor
car is dividing the passenger service and almost monopolizing the
transportation of garden and dairy products into and about the
cities. Who shall predict how soon some other method of trans-
portation shall make the land and water traffic of to-day seem as
archaic as the ox team compared with a high power racing car?

The streams of Oregon and Washington afford one-third of the
available water power of the United States. A small part of this
is now being used to develop electric energy, transmitted at long
distances at high voltage, though not comparable with one line
in California that is transmitting electricity at a voltage of 150,000
a distance of about 250 miles. The potential possibilities are so
vast they can scarcely be estimated. In the North one of the
transcontinental railroad lines is formulating plans to operate
its trains electrically between the Rocky Mountains and Puget
Sound. The first cost will be great, but when the new service
begins its greater economy and comfort will undoubtedly compel
all competing lines to follow the lead of their rival.

The Panama Canal has been in operation only a year and it is
too soon even to predict its influence upon the .pcean commerce
of the North Pacific, but so far little of the lumber, fish, or other

306 THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY

commodities from the Northwest have gone through it eastward.
Its influence has been almost negligible, and while considerable
freight has gone from the Middle States eastward fifteen hundred
miles to Atlantic ports and thence around by water, the railroads
of the Pacific Northwest have not as yet seen cause to alter their
tariffs because of it. Doubtless, when the great war in Europe
is ended, and normal conditions are regained, the Pacific North-
west will enjoy in full measure the benefit of this great ocean
waterway.

To-day passenger ships leave Puget Sound for Alaska ports on
an average of every eighteen hours, and nearly as many freighters
ply on the same route.

The ocean commerce of the North Pacific with eastern Siberia,
Japan, China, the Indies, and the Philippines across the Pacific,
and with San Francisco, Hawaiian Islands and through the Panama
Canal has, in the last few years, reached enormous proportions.
Already the resources of six great transcontinental railroad sys-
tems are taxed to the uttermost to handle their part of it.

On the floor of the United States Senate, January 24, 1843, in
the course of debate upon "The Oregon Bill/' participated in by
Senators Archer, Benton, Calhoun, Choate, Linn, Morehead,
McRoberts and Woodbury, Calhoun gave utterance to the fol-
lowing :

"But it may be asked, 'what then? Shall we abandon our
claim to the territory?' I answer, no. I am utterly opposed
to that ; but, as bad as that would be, it would not be as much
so as to adopt a rash and precipitate measure, which, after great
sacrifices, would finally end in its loss. But I am opposed to
both. My object is to preserve and not to lose the territory. I
do not agree with my eloquent and able colleague that it is worth-
less. He has under-rated it, both as to soil and climate. It
contains a vast deal of land, it is true, that is barren and worth-
less ; but not a little that is highly productive. To that may be
added its commercial advantages, which will, in time, prove to
be great. We must not overlook the important events to which
I have alluded as having recently occurred in the eastern portion
of Asia. As great as they are, they are but the beginning of a

THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 307

series of a similar character, which must follow at no distant day.
What has taken place in China, will, in a few years, be followed
in Japan, and all the eastern portions of that continent. Their
ports, like the Chinese, will be opened ; and the whole of that por-
tion of Asia, containing nearly half of the population and wealth
of the globe, will be thrown open to the commerce of the world and
be placed within the pales of European and American intercourse
and civilization. A vast market will be created, and a mighty
impulse will be given to commerce. No small portion of the share
that would fall to us with this populous and industrious portion
of the globe is destined to pass through the ports of the Oregon
Territory to the valley of the Mississippi, instead of taking the
circuitous and long voyage around Cape Horn ; or the still longer,
around the Cape of Good Hope. It is mainly because I place this
high estimate on its prospective value that I am so solicitous to
preserve it, and so adverse to this bill, or any other precipitate
measure which might terminate in its loss. If I thought less of its
value, or if I regarded our title less clear, my opposition would be
less decided."

The present witnesses the culmination of this remarkable pro-
phecy made by one of America's ablest statesmen more than
seventy years ago.

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