Smith, Benjamin Young, E. A. Seeley (Oregonian, April 23, 1891). Surveys were made in August, 1891, by W. H. Kennedy, who estimated the cost of the line at $26,000 or $27,000 a mile, for fifty-eight miles (Oregonian, December 7, 1891), to connection with the Northern Pacific at Goble. The Northern Pacific line from Portland to Goble, built by Villard, had been opened in 1883. Citizens of Astoria now made up a subsidy of 1,000 acres of land. To build the line, the Astoria Improvement & Construction Company was organized July 23, by J. H. Smith, Ezra and Walter C. Smith, D. K. Warren, Benjamin Young, H. G. Van Dusen. This scheme also collapsed; negotiations with the Northern Pacific were fruitless, and very soon the Nehalem route was revived by C. W. Schofield and George Goss, of Salt Lake, early in 1892.

These men had been in the Gould service in the building of the Rio Grande System, and it was a natural guess that Gould was aiming at Astoria for a terminus. They were received with great enthusiasm at Astoria; a subsidy was pledged, $300,000 cash and lands for right of way and terminals to the probable additional value of $200,000. As the Astorians had more land than cash and land was easier to get for a subsidy, the bounty raisers formed a special company to take the land pledged for the Goble project and convert it into money-The Astoria Subsidy Guarantee Company, incorporated March 10, 1892, by C. R. Thompson, George Hill, J. A. Fulton, G. W. Sanborn, James W. Welch and F. L. Parker. To the new projectors was handed over the Seaside line, which had been sold by the sheriff February 26, 1892, for its debts, $55,550. These debts the new promoters assumed (Oregonian, May 4, 1892). A new company, The Astoria & Portland Railway, was incorporated at Portland, March 16, 1892, by Henry Failing, T. F. Osborn, J. Frank Watson, Charles H. Dodd, of Portland; D. K. Warren, I. W. Case, M. M. Ketchum, of Astoria; J. M. Schultz and Thomas H. Tongue, of Hillsboro. Officers of the company were: John Sheehan, the New York Tammany leader, president;

C. W. Schofield, vice-president; E. M. Watson, treasurer; George Goss, chief engineer and manager; H. Goss, superintendent.

The new project did not follow the Reid route to Clatsop City. It rounded Smith Point, at Astoria, crossed Young's River and ascended Lewis and Clark River from Stavebolt Landing (Oregonian, April 21, 1892). Some 14,000 feet of trestle was constructed round Smith Point and up Young's Bay, costing $90,000; seventeen miles of grading was built up to Saddle Mountain ready for the rails, a tunnel was started in Saddle Mountain—all this in the summer of 1892. Between 900 and 1,100 men were employed by the contractors (work described in Oregonian, August 21, 1892; September 26, 1892). The vigor of Schofield and Goss delighted the people of Astoria; now at last the pet railroad was assured; there could be no doubt; the builders had much money, perhaps Gould's.

Suddenly, in September, 1892, construction stopped. There was no money. Goss disappeared over night, nobody knew whither. Contractors resorted to liens. To finish the road $1,500,000 was needed. The awakening was sudden and rude. The project went to ruin. Its remains still lie bleaching in the rain and sun.

The Astorians were shocked, but not dismayed. They went to work on their subsidy again-to make it bigger than ever. They sent invitations broadcast over the land, to wouldbe railroad builders, announcing their tempting offer. In the ensuing two years "promoters," "agents," "capitalists" of many stripes and of high and low degree hied to Astoria to capture the bounty prize. Like heroes of mythology, they offered themselves as candidates for the venture and the fair reward. The Astoria custodians of the county were now wise in their generation and turned off the fortune hunters one after another each time, however, giving a fair trial.

At this juncture a rival to Astoria sprang up—Flavel— "boomed" by S. H. Brown, Jr., L. B. Seeley, N. G. Read and E. L. Dwyer, who incorporated the Flavel Land & Development Company at Salem, September 1, 1892, to build a rail

road from Salem to Flavel via Sheridan and Tillamook; also to sell town lots on the peninsula adjoining Fort Stevens, where the Hill roads are now building a terminal for connections with their fast new steamships soon to ply to and from San Francisco. Flavel, from that day to this, has been an ambitious rival of Astoria, without as yet, however, upbuilding itself or trenching upon Astoria. Here the townsite company laid big plans for railroad terminals and shipping. Astoria was to be but a way-station. In 1897 a fine hotel was opened there, which was attended during the summer of that year by the "society" elite of Portland.

After the Schofield-Goss fiasco, Astoria reverted to the Goble route. G. L. Blackman and W. H. Milliken appeared and then vanished; ditto a so-called Astoria & Eastern Railway, incorporated November 10, 1892, capitalization $3,000,000.

A new pair of promoters arrived at Astoria, January 19, 1893-P. P. Dickinson and R. B. Hammond, of New York, accompanied by their attorney, Milliken. Hammond was said to be president of the New York & Long Island Railroad. On December 15, 1892, these men entered into a contract with the Subsidy Guarantee Company to begin construction of the Goble road before April 1, 1892, and to finish the fifty-eightmile road before October 1, 1892. They were to receive a bonus of 2,000 acres of land at Astoria (Oregonian, January 14, 1893). The estimated cost of the line was $1,500,000. They were also to build from Goble to Portland, the cost of which division was estimated at $2,000,000 additional. Their supposed backers were William H. Steinway, of New York, the piano manufacturer, and John Hudson, a London capitalist. But like its predecessors, this project fell by the wayside and Astoria had to forget these promoters also.

Two months later William H. Remington and W. H. Wattis arrived at Astoria from Salt Lake (April 25, 1893) in quest of the golden fleece. Their backer was the same Hudson who had favored Dickinson and Hammond; it was even guessed that Gould had sent forth these two latest Jasons. Their scheme was to finish the old project of the Astoria and South

Coast, which had been attempted by Reid and then by Schofield and Goss. They entered into a contract with the Subsidy Company to begin construction within ninety days after July 6, 1894. But in September Remington dashed the Astoria hopes by wiring that he could not proceed (Oregonian, September 2, 1893.)

But next month Astoria's drooping spirits were revived by J. C. Stanton and J. S. Smith, who came to Astoria, offering to build two railroads-both the Nehalem and the Goble routes --for a subsidy of 3,000 acres of land and forty-foot right of way through the river front of Astoria. These hopeful visitors had already formed a construction company in New York to do the job, capital $1,000,000. But they, too, soon faded away. Next came E. L. Dwyer, M. Robinson and St. John Robinson, who at Astoria, January 20-22, 1894, representing “English capital" said they could build Astoria a railroad in twelve months.

Shortly afterward a project of substantial promise developed, supported by the Union Pacific, and authorized by its Board of Directors. The general manager of the Union Pacific, Edward Dickinson, caused to be incorporated in March, 1894, to build the road, The Columbia River Railroad Company, by R. W. Baxter, general superintendent of the Pacific Division of the Union Pacific; A. J. Borie, superintendent of the Oregon Division, and E. S. Van Kuran. The capital was to be $3,000,000. The route was from Goble to Astoria and to Tillamook and Nehalem. Work of securing right of way began at once. On March 16, 1894, Baxter asked Astoria citizens to meet him at Portland to sign the subsidy contract. Financial depression soon ended the negotiations.

Another promoter, attracted by the subsidy, was Edward Browne, a New York attorney, who came to Astoria in May, 1894, offering to put up $300,000 to be secured by mortgage of the land subsidy and saying he had $350,000 in hand. But in June a more substantial offer came from J. C. Stanton and J. T. Campbell, professing to have $2,000,000 in New York for immediate construction and to be supported by large stockholders of the Union Pacific (Oregonian, June 22, 1894.)

Next in line came M. Lutz and E. L. Dwyer, "representing French capital," and offering the Goble line. In September, 1894, Campbell, a Detroit contractor, took an option on the subsidy, but let it lapse.

In November, 1894, came the climax of all these protracted negotiations, in an agreement with A. B. Hammond, who built the Goble road. He was preceded by two parties of promoters, the one headed by C. T. Karr of Chicago, the other by J. C. Stanton, of New York; H. I. Kimball, of Atlanta, Ga.; John H. Bryant, of New York, and J. T. Campbell, of Detroit. All three parties were at Astoria together in November and negotiated with the subsidy company at the same time. Karr offered to put up $500,000 within fifteen days and $500,000 more within fifteen days thereafter, and all the additional money needed to build the road, with the subsidy trustees, but he talked too big and the latter declined November 22, 1894, after advices from New York. Soon afterward Stanton withdrew his offer, in favor of Hammond.

The way was now open to accept the terms of A. B. Hammond, who, with E. L. Bonner, of Missoula, was the most satisfactory of the prospective railroad builders. Hammond had built the Bitter Root and the Drummond branches of the Northern Pacific, and had supplied the ties, lumber and bridge materials for the Rocky Mountain division of that railroad. He had come to Oregon to inspect the Yaquina Railroad, a property that had cost $5,250,000, and which Hammond bought a month late, at sheriff's sale, December 22, 1894, for $100,000. Pending the sale he went to Astoria out of curiosity, or for information, and soon found himself launched in the Astoria enterprise. He told the writer twenty years afterward that he had made no plans to go into this enterprise, accepted it dubiously and then, on account of "hard times" and money stringency, wished himself out of it. Whereupon he demanded more stringent terms, in the hope that the Astorians would refuse them and release him, but they yielded and held him.

The subsidy contract with Hammond, as first executed on December 1, 1894, required him to begin construction not later