Clark County history: J. J. Hill’s 1905 visit to Clark County

On Oct. 1, 1905, railroad baron James J. Hill and a party of executives arrived in Vancouver about noon. Residents greeted them with whistles, bells, cheers and the 14th Infantry band played. President Charles M. Levey of the Portland & Seattle Railway organized the party. Hill passed through the crowd with humor, shaking hands with locals, introducing himself as “the old man Hill,” then met with local business leaders and officials. His visit set the stage for building a new rail line running along Vancouver’s side of the river, benefitting Southwest Washington commerce.

The new railroad, eventually renamed the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, was a joint venture of Hill’s two transcontinental railroads, the Northern Pacific Railroad and Great Northern Railway. Soon tracks were constructed along the Columbia River’s north bank.

Before his October arrival, Hill worked behind the scenes, acquiring stock and grabbing control of the NP and manipulating the Portland, Vancouver and Yakima Railroad, which linked Vancouver with Yacolt (but never reached Yakima).

Sometimes Hill acted through others working on his behalf. Back in Minnesota, Hill knew Issac Gray, who became president of the PV&Y Railroad in 1901, in which Vancouver brick-maker Lowell Hidden and other locals held stock. Gray’s ascent pushed Louis Gerlinger to vice president. While Hill’s signature appeared on no documents, Gerlinger’s demotion suggested Hill’s invisible hand pushing Gray, a Minnesota friend, into place, giving him influence over the PV&Y.

On his October 1905 visit, Mayor E.G. Crawford, Hidden and other invitees proceeded to the Columbia Hotel at Third and Main streets for an informal reception with Hill and his party. By then, Hill controlled the Northern Pacific, and his surveyors had measured the Columbia River depth to clear the way for a railroad bridge at Vancouver.

Mayor Crawford opened the session. Hill spoke next, declaring tracks along the Columbia River’s north bank would soon happen. He proclaimed the importance of railroads so farmers could get their produce to market, and a way to send timber to market, the area’s “most valuable product of the soil.” He advised Vancouver landowners not to price their property so high as “to discourage industry.” Following Hill’s speech, Crawford toasted him as a “great friend to the State of Washington,” adding Hill “was the greatest railway man of the age.”

After the reception, the group drove to Vancouver Barracks to meet with Army officers. Then they caught a ride on a special train headed north to Kalama. The Vancouver Weekly cited locomotive operator William Elliot as a “tried and true engineer long familiar with the run.”

In 1902, Hill’s competitor, E.A. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, began a legal battle about his interests in the same route. In 1908, Hill’s new railroad raced Harriman to lay tracks to the new railroad bridge. Harriman’s crews resorted to dirty tricks, including dynamite explosions, scaring off Hill’s workers near Carson. Harriman also bought small but strategic land parcels along the route to block Hill’s efforts.

Hill sued Harriman. In 1906, Superior Court Judge W. W. McCredie declared Harriman was the “guiding hand operating in bad faith” behind the land purchases and attempted “fragmentary construction at strategic points.” Further, he noted Harriman had expended just $16,000 building the railroad bed, while Hill spent $500,000.

Today, the SP&S’ successor, the BNSF Railway, still controls the line along the north bank of the Columbia River and the railroad bridge at Vancouver, while the Union Pacific operates along the Oregon shore.