in general features resembles the old one, where the Hudson's Bay Company had its fort,—once called Fort Nez Perce, but more commonly Fort Walla Walla. It is now fallen into ruins. Could these tumbling old walls speak, strange, tragical, and humorous, often, would be the stories they would tell. Here McKinlay, to avert a massacre, sat on the keg of powder with a lighted match, and threatened to touch it off, if the sullen Walla Walla chief failed on the instant to cease from his insolent demands and lay down his arms. Here Peter Skeen Ogden related his amusing but not always very dainty adventures; and Tom McKay recalled the death of his father, when the northern Indians seized the Tonquin.
Here, also, in the palmy days of the O. S. N. Company, was a large floating wharf; and here was the terminus of Hr. Baker's railroad to Walla Walla. This road causes Dr. D. S. Baker, of Walla Walla, to be classed among the founders, he having built the first railroad in East Washington, from Walla Walla to the Columbia River, about 1876. It was a narrow-gauge, and treated its patrons to nothing more luxurious than a wooden seat in a box-car. But then it was not built so much for passenger service as for the transportation of wheat from the Walla Walla Valley to the Oregon Steam Navigation Company's boats. Wheat, in sacks, was piled up six feet high, for an eighth of a mile along the beach, just after harvest, and it was a pretty sight to watch the loading of the steamers for Portland. A good deal of mirthful comment was provoked by some of the doctor's devices, as, for instance, the use of old tin oil-cans to water the engine, the service not yet having reached the dignity of tanks and hose. It was effort and not money which made the founders worthy, and therefore we honor them, recognizing that
"The attempt
Is all the wedge which splits its knotty way
Betwixt the possible and the impossible."
This road was finally sold to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and made standard gauge. It is still the only direct route to Walla Walla from the Columbia River, although from Hunt's Junction that city may be reached by the devious
