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GRAND DALLES, WASHINGTON

Grand Dalles, Washington, was an illusion that arose from the sand dunes and rock piles along the north bank of the Columbia River directly opposite The Dalles, Oregon, in 1890. Although several hundred city lots were sold and a number of business and manufacturing companies were formed to engage in business there, the "city" existed only on paper and in the fertile mind of its chief promoter, O.D. Taylor.
The Rev. O.D. Taylor arrived in The Dalles in December 1881 from Orange, New Jersey, to assume his duties as Pastor of the First Baptist Church of The Dalles. How soon Taylor became involved in real estate is unclear, but in August 1886 he and his wife Sarah, Donald Ross of Portland (also a Baptist minister) and his wife Catherine bought nearly 800 acres of land adjacent to the Tumwater fishery on the north side of the Columbia. Taylor and Ross operated the Tumwater Fishing Company until Taylor bought his partner's interest in 1889.
As early as 1887, Taylor's aggressive business methods had led to disputes with Indians fishing at Tumwater in accordance with provisions of treaties made with the United States Government in 1855. An assistant Indian Agent was appointed at The Dalles by the Indian Bureau, special agents were sent to the scene several times to investigate and settle the problem, but assaults on Indians continued. An attempt was made to "jump" an Indian's land claim and Taylor persisted in putting up fences to keep the Indians from reaching their fishing sites. In November 1890, Taylor was acquitted of charges that he had violated a court order prohibiting interference with Indian fishing at Tumwater. The acquittal seems to have resulted from perjured testimony.
The Rev. Taylor was soon too involved in other matters to devote much time to his Tumwater Fishing Company. He had recently purchased several hundred acres of land a few miles from the fishery as a site for a projected city that he claimed would soon be larger, wore important and richer than any others in the region.
In July of 1890 Taylor formed the Interstate Investment Company with a capital stock of $150,000. He retained slightly wore than half the stock and placed the remainder on sale for $5,000 a share. Taylor then sold the Investment Company his heavily mortgaged land for $150,000 -- $50,000 in cash and the remainder in notes due in 1895 and 1900. He also arranged to receive commissions on the sale of both company stock and lots in the new city which was originally named North Dalles.
Taylor also seems to have been instrumental in the establishment of the Boston Shoe and Leather Company. The shoe company sold several thousand dollars worth of stock, and received sizable subsidies from local communities and from the Interstate Improvement Company in return for building a factory at Grand Dalles.
Construction of the building for the shoe factory began in September 1890, and production of shoes began the following February with management personnel and skilled workers brought from the east coast. The factory closed its doors within a few weeks, however, amidst a flurry of law suits demanding payment for construction of the building, for the equipment and for the wages of the employees.
Taylor formed the Interstate Improvement Company in March 1891 and it acquired the assets of the Interstate Investment Company in return for notes and stock in the improvement company. The Rev. J. F. Ellis was elected president of the new company, but Taylor retained control of a majority of the stock and served as sales manager with S.L. Skeels as his assistant. Sales offices were opened in Saginaw, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York.
When traveling through eastern States --apparently on church related business -- Taylor publicized his city, sold stock in the Improvement Company and sold Grand Dalles city lots. Everywhere he journeyed, Taylor distributed circulars describing opportunities offered by Grand Dalles and displaying a painting much more artistic than accurate. It showed broad tree-lined avenues, city parks, a trolley system and a bridge spanning the Columbia River -- none of which in fact existed. The circulars were equally deceptive. They referred to three railroads running into "the Imperial Gateway of Oregon, Washington and Idaho." Deposits of coal, iron ore and asbestos, said to be abundant near Grand Dalles, would soon be developed. All of this was accompanied by Taylor's very enthusiastic, persuasive oral descriptions.
By the summer of 1893, O.D. Taylor was the target of increasingly bitter criticism and personal attacks -- not all of which were verbal. He was publicly whipped on the streets of The Dalles on July 21 by a young lady. She claimed that, as president of the board of directors of the Wasco Independent Academy, Taylor had promised to pay her room-mate $700 for teaching the 1892-93 school year, but he had refused to pay her more than $600. Members of the crowd which quickly gathered to view the whipping shouted encouragement to the irate defender of honesty and integrity as she whipped Mr. Taylor. The city marshal arrested the girl. A judge ordered her to post a bond of $250 as a guarantee that she would not engage in further such lawless activities.
Citizens of The Dalles who approved of the whipping contributed sufficient money within five minutes for the bond. Gifts of flowers, a new dress and other tokens of appreciation were presented to the young lady by merchants of the town anxious to express their gratitude to the one who had publicly humiliated the Rev. O.D. Taylor. A final gesture of contempt for the creator of the Grand Dalles scheme was given a few days later when the teacher and her friend were presented $106.50 raised by raffling off the now famous whip.
Serious legal problems had begun more than two years earlier in 1891 when Taylor convinced Dr. Daniel Cornell of Saginaw, Michigan, and Jacob Rorick of Bad Axe, Michigan, that Grand Dalles would be a good investment for them. Rorick bought $5,000 of Interstate Investment Company stock; Cornell invested $10,000, bought several lots and agreed to pay in excess of $30,000 for additional land in Grand Dalles.
Rorick decided to move to Grand Dalles with his wife and four young children and establish a newspaper in the metropolis. Cornell decided at about the same time to inspect his land investments, perhaps because he bad become suspicious, or maybe because he was simply growing wiser.
Both Cornell and Rorick were shocked and angered when they discovered that the beautiful painting they had seen and that the glowing descriptions they had read and heard bore no resemblance to the barren, rocky, sandy waste that was "Grand Dalles." The city consisted of only three buildings; the defunct shoe factory, a small corset factory soon fated to go out of business, and a large structure said to be built to house a newspaper.
Rorick and Cornell went east and induced the Investment Company's assistant sales manager to confess all he knew about the Grand Dalles promotion. They then returned to Oregon and presented their information to the authorities. A grand jury in Portland indicted Taylor on about sixty counts of embezzlement. For his defense, Taylor obtained the services of George H. Williams, former H.S. Senator and Attorney-General during the Grant Administration. Williams apparently earned the large fees paid to him, for the charges against Taylor were dismissed several months later because the prosecution had failed to bring the case to trial within the time limits established by law.
Charges were then filed against Taylor in Michigan accusing him of having obtained money by false pretenses. Parker Owen, a detective on the Saginaw police force, arrived at The Dalles in July 1895, apprehended Taylor and took him to Saginaw for trial. The case was heard in December, but proceedings were delayed for several months because of Taylor's contention that the Michigan law against obtaining money by false pretenses did not apply in his case. When the trial was finally held, O.D. Taylor was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. The conviction was reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court, however, reportedly because of a technicality.
Taylor's attorneys later urged the Michigan Supreme Court to reverse its decision, after they had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain their legal fees and money they had loaned to their client. A Saginaw man who had attended the trial was so captivated by Taylor's charm and persuasiveness that he loaned the perpetrator of the Grand Dalles fraud $20,000. Predictably, this gullible man was $20,000 poorer but wiser when Taylor left Saginaw and returned to The Dalles.
There were no further criminal prosecutions, but Taylor was involved for several years in civil suits arising from his Grand Dalles promotion activities. He retained his position as Pastor of the First Baptist Church, but seldom did anyone except members of his own family come to hear him preach.
O.D. Taylor became involved in the promotion and sale of mining property about 1900. He and his eldest son filed several gold mining claims near Baker, Oregon, in 1901. Baker city directories of 1903 and 1909 list Taylor as an insurance agent, real estate dealer and mining specialist. Very likely he was involved, at least part of that time, with Jonathan Bourne's large-scale mining promotional efforts which were of questionable honesty.
Taylor's wife and children moved to Baker from The Dalles in 1903 and the family seems to have been socially well received. One of his daughters, Anna Faith Taylor, was very active in a civic club that established a library for the public. This library was donated to the city in 1905 and Anna served as the first librarian of the Baker City Public Library. She and the youngest Taylor girl, Eleanor, were frequently mentioned in the society columns of the Baker City Evening Herald between 1906 and 1909. Burnside Taylor moved back to The Dalles in 1907 to become the local manager of the Pacific States Telephone Company.
In 1907, O.D. Taylor, his wife Sarah, four of their six children and one other woman sold the property of the First Baptist Church of The Dalles, claiming that they were the only surviving members of the congregation. Eleanor Burnside of Buffalo, New York, acquired the church property in return for payment of unspecified debts of the First Baptist Church. She was the wife (or widow) of the Rev. George R. Burnside of Buffalo, who had been involved for many years in various business transactions with O.D. Taylor, including the incorporation of the Columbia River Glass Works in 1892. The Burnsides seem to have been either related to the Taylors or at least very close friends, for their second son was named Burnside Taylor. Some evidence suggests that Sarah Taylor may have been a daughter of the Burnsides.
Two years after acquiring the land of the First Baptist Church, Mrs. Burnside transferred title to it to Sarah Taylor in return for notes totaling $2,000. In 1911, Wasco County purchased the property for $2,600 as the site for a new court house.
Mrs. Taylor seems to have moved to Portland sometime between 1909 and 1911. Whether O.D. Taylor was stilt alive at that time is not now known. The Oregon office of vital statistics has no record of the death of Orson Daton Taylor or of his wife Sarah K. where and when they died remain unknown, as do many of the details concerning their lives.