The Struggle for the Snake River
The Open River Association works to break a railroad-backed monopoly on river traffic.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A letter received from the Open River Association states that the 'Mountain Gem' will be brought down the Snake River just as soon as the water rises sufficiently high, probably within ten days. Connection will be made at Celilo with the Portage road and at the Dalles with a boat on the lower river. Desperate efforts have been made by the railroad companies to block the river traffic by subsidizing all boats on the lower Columbia. These attempts have been checkmated by the Open River Association. No wonder that work is being pushed on the North Bank road.
“Desperate efforts have been made by the railroad companies to block the river traffic... These attempts have been checkmated.”
This reflects the ongoing tension between public access to waterways and the efforts of large corporations to maintain transport monopolies. It highlights a critical era where the fight for river navigation rights helped define the economic landscape of the Pacific Northwest.
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