THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 173
of the other company) was organized at Spokane, promi- nent capitalists there being associated with Mr. Mohr. Much grading was done and three steamboats were purchased or built, named the Frederick Billings, the Klickitat and the Uma- tilla, and plans were laid to transport the wheat crop of 1900. But in July of that year the Billings was wrecked, and with it any further progress of the Company ceased. According to the Oregonian of May 2/th, 1892, about eight hundred thousand dollars was expended on the Mohr Projects, five hundred thousand before 1900 and three hundred thousand after. The right of way fell into> the possession of the Northern Pacific Railway in July, 1902, and became the first graded portion of the North Bank Road of today.
But with this same increase in the wealth and production and population of the Inland Empire came the demand of the people for an open river to the ocean and the Open River Association came into being. In July, 1901, the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the National House of Representatives visited the River, under the chairmanship of Theodore E. Burton of Ohio. The verdict of Mr. Burton after this visit seemed to be that the opening of a way through the Dalles- Celilo Portage must wait until the bar at the mouth of the river had been permanently deepened. Largely as a protest against this decision and as an attempt to show in a practical way what an open river would mean the leaders in the Open River Association capitalized themselves to build and maintain steamer service on both the Upper and the Lower Rivers, and the State of Oregon erected a Portage Railroad from Celilo to Big Eddy at a cost of $165,000.00, which amount had to be supplemented by public subscription and later by further appropriation by the State. This Portage Railroad was for- mally opened on June 3rd, 1905, and was operated until leased by the government engineers for use in the construction of the Canal which is now completed.
Commercially this enterprise did not measure up to expecta- tions, and financially it was a loss to both the State of Oregon
