its main highway in conducting its widely extended operations in this section. It had, as we have seen, been the sole reliance in their need of transportation facilities of the widely scattered but exceedingly thriving Oregon communities down to about 1880. And though the railways, fortified as they were with monopoly privileges at the portages along the Columbia, and reinforced through the policy of the private canal company at Oregon City, won out against the upper river traffic; on the lower Columbia the ocean export trade was steadily growing with the general community growth induced by the recently completed railway connections with the East.
But whether the commerce on the different sections of the river waxed or waned, certain influences were promoting the inception of projects of improvement. The pressure of the people in this direction and the activities of their representatives in Congress may always be taken for granted. It is rather the progress of their interests with the engineers of the United States army and the standing the movement was thus getting in administrative circles to which I refer. At the mouth of the Columbia the charts of Admiral Vancouver, of 1792, that of Sir Edward Belcher, of 1839, that of Captain Wilkes, of 1841, the United Coast Survey chart of 1851, and those from periodical surveys thereafter accumulated data from which the problem of widening and deepening the channel across the bar couldbe solved. The tonnage crossing the bar was increasing year by year. In 1882 the engineers were ready with the details of a project for permanently improving this feature of the river. The value and availability of the waterway from Portland down could never be questioned. Its improvement to navigation by deep-water craft was of utmost importance to the entire Northwest. Not until 1884 was any considerable portion of the produce of this section diverted by the railroads to Puget Sound. The original project for improvement was adopted in 1877.
