Construction went forward rapidly in 1880. Ground was broken for the east side branch at Silverton, April 19, 1880, by the wife of Governor W. W. Thayer. The line was opened from Ray's Landing, on Willamette River, near Saint Paul, to Silverton via Woodburn, October 4, of that year: to Scio, November 4, and to Brownsville, December 28. The line reached Coburg in July, 1882. William Reid offered to build to Albany, if that city would erect a river bridge and pay a bonus of $45,000, but the total outlay to Albany of between $100,000 and $140,000 was deemed excessive, and so the narrow gauge passed by Albany to the eastward.[1] The west side branch of the road was extended from Dallas to Monmouth in June, 1881, and to Airlie in the following September: from Lafayette to Dundee and Fulquartz Landing, on Willamete River, opposite Ray's Landing, September 16, 1881. To connect the east side and the west side branches a bridge was to be built between Ray's Landing and Fulquartz Landing. The Earl of Airlie, president of the railroad, when in Portland in October, 1880, directed the chief engineer Major Alfred F. Sears, to begin at once construction of this viaduct. This work began the following month but was halted next year by Henry Villard.[2]
↑These operations were conducted by the Oregonian Railway Company, Limited, a corporation of Dundee, Scotland, formed April 30, 1880. This company succeeded the Oregon Railway Company, Limited, of Oregon, incorporated at Portland, February 20, 1880, by William Reid, Donald Macleay and Ellis G. Hughes, and formally took over the railroad from the earlier company, December 11, 1880. The Oregon Railway had been preceded by the Willamette Valley Railroad Company, which conveyed to it, April 2, 1880, and which has been referred to earlier in this article as the successor of the original Dayton, Sheridan and Grand Ronde Railway. The chief and the longest lived of these companies was the Oregonian Railway Company. Its officers in 1881 were William Reid, president, and Ellis G. Hughes, secretary. (Hughes vs. Oregonian Ry. Co., 11 Oregon 159.) It is the view of Mr. Richard Koehler that the Central Pacific project, from Winnemucca, Nevada, to the Willamette Valley, in the period 1880–81, was not seriously considered by the Huntington interests, and that their advantage and their preference lay along the land-grant route of the Portland-Sacramento line. "lf there was in Mr. Reid's mind at that time," writes Mr, Koehler in a recent letter to the writer, "a vision of a railroad to Winnemucca, it was in connection with a similar vision of Mr. B. J. Pengra, who maintained from the earliest planning of railroad enterprises that the most practicable and cheapest route was from Winnemucca, via the Pengra Pass and the Middle Fork of the Willamette .... I also firmly believe that while Mr. Reid may have spoken and written about this grand system of narrow gauge lines, reaching from Portland to Winnemueca, to Yaquina Bay and to Astoria, he based his action in taking over and extending the narrow gauge system upon the belief that by building nearer to the foothills on both sides of the river, than the then existing lines of the Oregon and California Railroad. he could gather a very substantial part of the valley business, and thus make the narrow gauge lines pay."
