Type in a query for ‘railroad wars’ and you will find three events under the Wikipedia entry for “railroad wars”.  The last event was the “Deschutes Railroad War”.  Of the three, this is the shortest entry.  The entry focuses on the actual building difficulties of the two Deschutes railroads erected on either side of the river.   But to really understand the real reason for the enmity between the competing rail companies, we need to go further back before the 1912 construction of the two lines.

PRELUDE

By the turn of the 19^th century, two railroads led by two men, emerged as the main carriers in the Pacific Northwest.  In Oregon, the Union Pacific with Edward Harriman while across the Columbia River to the north in Washington, James J. Hill’s machine rolled center stage with the Northern Pacific and Great Northern lines controlling transportation.  Hill looked at connecting his network and the Puget Sound to California.  To do so, he needed to bypass the Union Pacific rail system in western Oregon.

The Northwest was not the only region where interests of Hill and Harriman clashed.  Further to the east, the main battlefield existed.  Both the Union Pacific and the Northern Pacific-Great Northern lines were interested in gaining a direct route into Chicago.  To do so, Harriman tried to buy the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad – the Burlington Route – but controlling interest went to Hill who quicker and liked more by those in power at the CB&Q.

WALL STREET PANIC

In response, Harriman attempted to secretly buy up controlling interest in Northern Pacific stock.  Northern Pacific was controlled by J.P. Morgan working in concert with Hill.  Morgan retired to southern France each spring to rejuvenate at mineral baths in order to continue his frenetic work pace during the rest of the year.  Taking advantage of Morgan’s absence, Harriman and others attempted the stock buy almost succeeding.  Only at the last moment, Morgan and Hill turned back the move.  The fascinating roll of events is covered excellently by Larry Haeg’s Harriman vs. Hill; Wall Street’s Great Railroad War.

The whole affair caused a short-lived panic on Wall Street – stock prices on 8 May 1901for Northern Pacific shot up from $143.50 to $200 a share.  At the same time, CB&Q stocks dropped from $196.88 to $100.75 in two hours.  Other stocks, rail companies, US Steel among them fell as well driven by panicking investors.  The demand for Northern Pacific stocks, on the other hand, increased to the point where stockbrokers sold far more shares than existed – selling the shares short. 

On 9 May NP stock climbed astronomically from $170 to $1000 as brokers tried to cover the stocks they sold the previous day.  Wall Street was faced with a huge insolvency problem – brokers buying stocks for prices much more than what they had agreed to pay.  The panic subsided quickly, defused by a truce between Harriman and Morgan. They cancelled most of the trades and brought the price back to $150 per share.

PROTAGONISTS

Both Hill and Harriman rose to become experts at bringing financially challenged rail companies back from insolvency to profit.  Harriman, originally working on Wall Street with his own seat at the young age of 21, married into a railroad family.  Three years later, he bought the bankrupt Lake Ontario Southern Railway turning the little railway into a profitable line as the Sodus Bay & Southern Railroad.  He sold the line two years later for a profit and he was off.

Next was the Illinois Central Railroad which turned under his direction into a solid Midwest player, one of the few rail companies to come through the Panic of 1893 financially solvent.  In 1897, he gained control of the not-so-solvent Union Pacific.  Restructuring debt and spending millions to upgrade the railroad created another winner.  By 1901, he controlled the Union Pacific, Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific.  The Southern Pacific had control of the Oregon & Washington Navigation Company meaning the rails along the south bank of the Columbia River.

NORTHWESTERN MOVES

By 1905, Hill decided to gain better access to Portland instead of using Harriman’s rails on the south side of the Columbia.  NP and GN together created a subsidiary line, what became the Spokane, Portland & Seattle line.  Harriman responded by trying to legally tie up construction of the rail line along the north bank of the river.   The two worked a trade in 1908 with a new line built together by NP and UP between Tacoma and Portland eliminated the rail ferry then used at Kalama with a rail bridge across the Columbia River at Vancouver – and another across the Willamette in North Portland – constructed as a vital part of the new line.  GN gained track rights over NP and the joint line as UP built its own line from Tacoma into Seattle.  Harriman quit his efforts to block the North Bank Railroad which finished in 1908.

CENTRAL OREGON ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA

Another subsidiary company arose in 1906.  The Oregon Trunk Railway was monied by Seattle investors.  The road aimed at the timber country in central Oregon.  The line planned to run from the confluence of the Deschutes and Columbia Rivers to the new community of Bend.  At the same time. While the Oregon Trunk looked to build down the west side of the Deschutes Canyon. Harriman was looking at the east side.  Harriman hoped to tie the central Oregon market to his UP line along the Columbia and to the SP line in the Willamette Valley.  His vehicle, a new subsidiary the Des Chutes Railway.

Hill quickly became interested, as well. He gained control the Oregon Trunk and its initial Deschutes surveys through an SP&S purchase (The Trunk became a subsidiary of a subsidiary) in 1908.  By gaining the Oregon Trunk, Hill looked beyond to potentially expanded the line to California. Publicly, he maintained only opening the timber trade in central Oregon was his goal.  Harriman, sick with stomach cancer by this time in 1908, could see through Hill’s smoke. A series of legal and physical blocking efforts worked out in the Deschutes canyon until Harriman died 9 September 1909.

WORK IN THE CANYON

The work crews for both railroads worked hard through 1909 mostly on opposite sides of the river.  Supplying the efforts proved a difficult task.  One case affecting the efforts of the Oregon Trunk related to an attempt by the Des Chutes side of blocking a road which helped supply their opposites.  The road in question lie in a particularly difficult to reach section of the canyon.  On the canyon rim, the ranch through which the road ran became purchased by Harriman’s men.  They then closed the road posting “No Trespassing” signs and gates.

While occasional rocks were traded between the sides, supplies and gunpowder for blasting went missing or blown up.  The closest the two camps came to each other was at Twin Tunnels.  This gooseneck loop in the Deschutes canyon saw the Oregon Trunk line cross over briefly to the east side where the Des Chutes men were working.  Both sides built tunnels through the base of the gooseneck. Tunnels kept the lines straight meaning more efficiency for train travel than big curves seriously impeding speeds.

SILLINESS SUBSIDES

With the death of Harriman, a lot of the spite went out of the struggle.  His successor, Robert S. Lovett, quickly reached an agreement with Hill to stop the silliness.  They even worked out joint operation of Oregon Trunk lines over ten miles in the canyon twenty miles south of Maupin and over Des Chutes lines from Metolius to Bend – over forty miles.  By late 1911, service to Bend began.

In 1923, the Oregon Trunk abandoned its line from South Junction – at the southern end of the northern section of joint operation – into Metolius.  Three tunnels existed on this section of which one can still visit one of them – the other two blasted away for practice by the Army during World War 2.

TWO LINES BECOME ONE

The entire east side line became abandoned from the confluence on the Columbia to the section where both trains ran to Bend by then on the same tracks – North Junction twenty miles south of Maupin.  The two lines became one with both rail companies sharing maintenance costs.  The parent companies absorbed the subsidiaries over the years with the line belonging today to Burlington Northern Santa Fe – BNSF – and the UP.

In 1912, the Wishram rail bridge crossed the Columbia River just below Celilo Falls to link the Oregon Trunk into the SP&S-GN-NP world on the north bank of the river.  Even though Hill would die in 1916, the idea of linking south to California continued.  By 1926-1928, GN acting alone without their normal partner, the NP, extended the rails south from Bend to Klamath Falls. The 144-mile route used 75 miles of SP tracks between Chemult and Klamath Falls.  Finally, in 1931, Western Pacific Railroad (A railroad developed in 1903 to compete with the SP) came north from the Keddie Wye in northern California to link up with the GN line. The new route developed as the High Line aka Inside Gateway route between California and Seattle.

VISITING TODAY

FROM THE NORTH

Much of the abandoned rail routes can be visited by mountain bike or foot.  From the Deschutes River State Recreation Area just off I-84 at the Deschutes confluence with the Columbia. You must exit the freeway either at Celilo to the west (exit 97) or Biggs to the east (exit 104) and follow the signs to the State Park on the east side of the river.  The old rail trail takes off to the left just as you enter the park.  There is a small parking area there.

For 19 miles to the south, the trail winds above the river on the old Des Chutes Railroad bed.  In this area of the canyon, the rail bed is isolated from the world above.  Eventually, the road part of the trail ends abruptly next to cliffs with rockfall and the site of where a couple of former trestle bridges no longer stand.  On foot, rough paths allow you to continue.  But this next 4.5 miles is better tackled separately from the south.

FROM THE SOUTH

Access here reaches north from the end of the 17-mile gravel road – unlike the “road” coming down from the Deschutes Park, this one allows cars – heading north from the east side of the Sherar’s Falls Bridge off Oregon 216 – from the east, approach from Grass Valley on US 97 and from the west, approach from Tygh Valley off US 197.  The road is signed “Deschutes R. Access Rd. Dead End 17”.

TUNNEL ONE

Only about one mile to the north – past the Buck Hollow Boat Landing – you come to the point where the two lines worked side by side.  Here, the Oregon Trunk line crosses from the west side cutting a gooseneck bend at its base.  The road exists above the former Des Chutes line and tunnel. Debris from road construction cover up much of the rail bed here.  A small turnout exists atop the gooseneck. Little paths wander over for views of the northern tunnel entrance of the Oregon Trunk line with its bridge.  Other paths lead up to the top of the mountain making up the gooseneck.  Supposedly, a small cemetery existed here probably for those who died from accident or manmade occurrences.

TUNNEL TWO

Ten miles up this road brings you to Beavertail Recreation Site.  This is where another gooseneck loop in the river was cut at the base by a tunnel along the Des Chutes line.  The north entrance to the tunnel can be somewhat experienced just below the road past the turnoff to the Beavertail Campground.  To the south, the tunnel was obliterated by the building of the access road. Sidenote – the picture below shows an area farthest north where incense cedar trees are found.

THE HIKE

At 17 miles, you leave your car just the Macks Canyon Campground. For a great overview of the hike, pick up a copy of Scott Cook’s Curious Gorge and look for hike D-12.

The trail along the old rail bed takes off the last turn into the campground.  A couple hundred feet into the trail and you reach the first abandoned trestle bridge.   Boot paths lead down into Macks Canyon and back up onto the rail bed on the other side. 

Continuing along, you come to abandoned rails lying as they have for over a hundred years in the deep canyon.  Moving north, you cross several smaller culverts where the trestles are long gone as you dip in and out.

A mile into the hike, is a long straight stretch. A fence on the right side of the path lines the route. Soo, you come to another significant missing trestle bridge at Sixteen Mile Canyon.  Dip down and back up as the interest now increases with the river canyon walls steepening.  Another sweeping curve brings you to a point where several washes – Harris Canyon – come down from the east, steep rock walls rising high above.  Here, two more missing trestles separate you from the end of the bike road heading off to the north.

Hike back to your car the way you came.

EXPLORING THE DES CHUTES LINE BEYOND

The BLM River Access Road continues to the south of Sherars Bridge all the way to North Junction. Here the Oregon Trunk crosses the river to the east side where both lines proceeded south on the same tracks.  The road meets a locked gate a quarter mile past the Nena Campground.  Continuing on the road is possible only by foot accessing private land. You need to check into a Deschutes Club gatekeeper house 2.5 miles south of the gate.  North Junction is another ten or eleven miles.