The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., August 9, 1912, page 1
REPORT POWER IS FOR S.P. CO.
San Francisco Dispatch is to that Effect -- Field Here for R.R.
A "special" from San Francisco to the Portland Journal
reports that there is a connection between the hydro electric development
on the White Salmon river and the Southern Pacific Railway Co. It is said
that the railway company has bought electric lines down the Willamette valley,
and plans an extensive electric system out of Portland.
Meanwhile the Northwestern Electric Co. is trying to
get the Portland city council to grant it a franchise to operate in Portland
for municipal purposes. It is seemingly so necessary that the franchise be
granted immediately that Banker Fleischacker is hurrying north from Frisco
to quicken action on the franchise.
Mr. Campbell, of the S.P. office in Portland, denies
there is a connection between the railway and the Northwestern Electric.
With the development of its 20,000 horse power dam on
the White Salmon, a 30,000 horse power dam on the Klickitat, a still greater
dam on the Lewis river, and a 500,000 sub-station in Portland, the company
is piling up a lot of development, the aggregate power from which the city
of Portland alone cannot begin to use.
It is unnecessary to run it down the Willamette. Right
here in the district through which the White Salmon river runs is a promising
field for an electrical line. With 8000 acres of fruit trees and, hundreds
of acres going in and thousands of acres more orchardable land including
the great stretch from Bristol postoffice on the upper side to Camas valley,
townships of fertile land; millions of feet of standing merchantable timber
which a dozen mills make little inroad on; Trout Lake valley with its 75
families and 25,000 acres of cultivable land; Camas valley with its 125 families,
and thousands of new acres coming under plow as a result of drainage, and
still more susceptible of cultivation with irrigation; here is a veritable
inland empire of opportunities, it is a promising field for a railway.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer