Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company

Route
Legend
Ilwaco Wallicut Black Lake Ellis Holman Station Chinook Seaview Ft. Columbia Long Beach McGowan Tigoa Megler Breakers Station Cranberry Station Oceanside Loomis Station Klipsan Beach Ocean Park Nahcotta

The Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company operated a

The initial owners of the company were Lewis Alfred Loomis,

The company could not locate a general contractor who would build the railroad for less than the company's total capitalization of $100,000, so the company decided to act as its own general contractor, and hire the Portland firm of Hawgood & Habersham as engineering consultants. The 3 ft (914 mm) gauge was selected to save money on grading and other construction. Also, smaller and less expensive engines and cars could be used. The rails themselves, as well as one of the first engines, came from the

Because of the extreme shallow water at the railroad's dock in Ilwaco restricted steamboat access to times when it was permitted by the tide, for so long as the railroad's southern terminus was at Ilwaco, the railroad's schedule was based on the tide charts. For example, a schedule for April, 1905, shows times of departure from Astoria for the steamer Nahcotta as varying from as early as 5:00 a.m. to as late as 8:30 a.m.[10] Mills imagined the scene as follows:

Just in time for the high tide of Ilwaco, a pompous little train rattled in from Nahcotta and waited at the wharf; then from across the bay would come the steamer, a neat side-wheeler such as the Ocean Wave, and tie up at the dock. Passengers rushed ashore to get good seats in the narrow coaches, while freight and baggage from the boat was tumbled on the dock. Quickly, before an ebbing tide could ground it, the boat hurried off, and the train whistled shrilly and clattered away with its load of passengers.^[11]

The line made connections with steamboats at both ends. At Ilwaco, steamboats meeting the trains included, at various times, the Ilwaco, Suomi, General Canby, Nahcotta, and the Ocean Wave. From 1894 to 1896, the company also put the

After the line was acquired by the

At Nahcotta the propeller steamers Shamrock and Reliable would meet the train at the end of the Nahcotta dock, and pick up passengers bound for South Bend across Willapa Bay.^[13][14] In 1896, another steamer employed on the Willapa Bay run was the Edgar.^[15]

Large logs were hauled out to the Ilwaco dock chained down to flat cars, one log to a car. There, they were dumped in Baker's Bay to be made into rafts for water transport to sawmills.^[16] Feagans also reports that very large logs were hauled on disconnect logging trucks, and provides a photo, but gives no date or location.^[17]

In 1891, the company's officers were L.A. Loomis, president, J.R. Goulter, secretary, and R.V. Egbert, Superintendent. Egbert left in 1895 and was replaced by Wallace Glover. Loomis and Coulter held their positions at least through 1896.^[18]

Stops on the line in 1896 in order from south to north were Ilwaco, Holman Station, Seaview, Long Beach, Tioga, Breakers Station, Pacific Park, Cranberry Station, Oceanside, Loomis, Ocean Park, and Nahcotta.^[19]

The railroad ran south down First Street in Ilwaco, and then out onto a dock in Baker's Bay. Floating logs were stored behind log booms on the west side of the Ilwaco dock.^[20]

A water tank was located at Holman Station, which was also known as the Willows.^[21]

The railroad kept a

There was only a platform and shed at Seaview until 1905 when a regular depot was built. That depot building still exists, and is now a restaurant.^[24]

The railroad's major destination was Long Beach, an early tourist trap, and location of a number of popular hotels, including the Tinker's Hotel and the Hotel Portland.

The stop at the Breakers Hotel north of Long Beach was called

Cranberry Station was the next stop north of The Breakers.^[19]

Oceanside is reported to have been an unscheduled stop from 1908 to 1930.[21]

The railroad also took the crew of the Klipsan Beach Life Saving Station to wherever a vessel might have stranded on the beach along the line. Occasional special runs were made to bring on-lookers to a wreck site, and weekly excursions were made to take vacationers to watch the lifeboat rescue drills at the Klipsan Beach Station.^[26][27]

Ocean Park had been founded by Methodists as an alcohol-free summer community. It was much closer to the beach than it is today, because of sand accretion. The depot at Ocean Park was located on the east side of the tracks immediately to the north of a road crossing. There were several businesses in the area. The railroad transported boxes of canned razor clams from canneries at Ocean Park. The railroad also built a siding in Ocean Park for the Ilwaco Mill & Lumber Company.^[28]

The railroad built a long dock out into deep water in Willapa Bay at Nahcotta. Willapa Bay was the location of a major oyster fishery, and transporting the harvested oysters south to Ilwaco, and eventually Portland, became a significant business of the railroad. The first Nahcotta depot was located just south of the tracks. The lading extended northwards from a freight door a few feet towards the track, which at that point had a

Oysterville was not a stop on the original line. In 1890, citizens of Oysterville attempted to organize an extension of the railroad north from Nahcotta to improve business conditions there, but were not able to raise the funds to do so.^[30]

In August, 1900, Loomis sold his stock to the

Entire trains would run out on the Megler dock to large depot to meet steamboats arriving from Portland or Astoria. Because the water was deep enough all the time at the Megler dock, the railroad was finally able to run independently of the tide.

• T. J. Potter at Megler Dock

At this time, the Willapa Transportation Company was running both of their steamboats, the Reliable and the Shamrock, on the run from South Bend to the Long Beach Peninsula, so that it was now possible to travel from South Bend by steamboat to Nahcotta, board the train and ride down to Megler, transfer to the T. J. Potter, and travel on the T. J. Potter upriver to Portland. The fare for this was $4.25 one-way and $7.25 round trip. The only alternative route required transfer to the Nahcotta, going south across the Columbia River to Astoria, and then boarding a train bound for Portland on the Astoria and Columbia Railroad. Since the rail trip from Astoria took as long to get to Portland as it took for the T. J. Potter to steam upriver, the alternative route was not favored.^[34]

A traveller from

The next stop on the line was Chinook, where the railway ran through the streets of the small town. By 1927, an auto road had been built from Megler to Chinook and then to Ilwaco. This roadway ran parallel to the railway up to Chinook, where the railway then went inland somewhat to cross the Wallicut river.^[35] Subsequent stops on the line's extension were Ellis, Wallicut, and a stop called China, after the large number of Chinese cannery workers who lived there.

Business increased substantially following the extension of the railroad. More passenger trains were run. Shipping of freight, particularly of raw logs increased greatly, until the Willapa Bay area was logged out a few years later. The extension had been built to allow ready conversion to standard gauge, by use of larger standard gauge cross-ties. However, by 1910, the Northern Pacific abandoned its plans to build out to the mouth of the Columbia on the north bank, and as a result the Ilwaco railroad never had any outside rail connection.

On December 23, 1910, the

The summer of 1913 was the absolute peak for the railroad. The weather was good, a competitor resort had been destroyed by fire, and jetty projects at the mouth of the Columbia River required hauling passengers and freight. New facilities were built at Nahcotta and improvements were made to the station and trackage in Ilwaco. At this time, there were few automobiles on the Long Beach Peninsula. The railroad charged $68 to transport an automobile from Portland to Ilwaco.^[37]

After 1913, business fell off for the railroad, and would never come back to that peak. Even so, the owners continued to make some investments in the line, such as completing the relaying of the line with 56-pound rails all the way up to Nahcotta. A paved highway was completed from Portland to Astoria which caused river passenger traffic to fall off. The T. J. Potter was condemned at the start of the 1916 season and not replaced, which cut off direct water access to the Long Beach Peninsula from Portland (the source of most of the tourist business) to the railroad's dock at Megler. The railroad still ran the steamers Harvest Queen and Nahcotta down the Columbia until 1921, but apparently only on the Portland-Astoria run. This left only the previously thought inferior route of taking a train from Portland to Astoria and then a steamboat (usually the Nahcotta) to the Megler dock.^[19][38][39]

However, by 1920, the real competitor for the railroad had become the automobile. A paved highway on the south bank of the Columbia was completed in 1916, running from Portland to Astoria. On May 1, 1921, regular automobile ferry service was initiated from Astoria to a dock at McGowan, west of railroad's dock at Megler and closer to the Long Beach Peninsula. Now people could drive their automobiles all the way to Astoria and onto a ferry to take them over to the Long Beach Peninsula, without the need of either railroad or steamboat.^[19][38]

Ferry traffic quickly rose, and the ferry company, owned by Captain Fritz S. Elving, rapidly built new ferries (Tourist, Tourist No. 2, and later, Tourist No. 3) and dock facilities. The ferries departed from a specially-built dock at 14th Street in Astoria which included a ramp to allow rapid loading and unloading of automobiles.

In 1926, the Union Pacific Railroad tried to best the Elving company by building their own automobile ferry, the North Beach. Union Pacific had ferry slips built at Astoria and at Megler. Although the North Beach was a well-built vessel, launched on April 28, 1927, with fanfare, and making its first run on July 6, 1927, North Beach could never manage to compete with Captain Elving's boats. J.W. McGowan, a businessman of McGowan, owned stock in Elving's ferry company, and he made it difficult for the railroad to build a road over his property to their competing ferry dock at Megler. Union Pacific shut down ferry operations to Megler in September 1930 selling to one of its employees, claiming they'd lost $40,000 per year in the ferry business.^[19][38][41]

Roads were extended and improved in the Long Beach Peninsula in the early 1920s. At the same time freight business fell off sharply for the railroad. Steamboat connections were lost both at Nahcotta and Columbia River terminals. Meanwhile, the railroad was still trying to pay the expenses for the expansion of the Megler facilities to accommodate the ferry enterprise.^[42]

In 1925, motor truck operators in Astoria started using the ferries to transfer directly over to the Long Beach Peninsula which cut sharply into the railroad's freight business. The railroad calculated that the line had suffered losses of $300,000 from 1925 to 1928. Apparently the railroad then hit on the idea of forming a new subsidiary, the Astoria, North Shore and Willapa Harbor Railroad, selling stock in the railroad to local residents, and then using the proceeds from the stock sale to buy out its losing operation. Supposedly the new operation would return the route to profitability by operating cheaper small diesel-electric engines and cut its expenses by 90%. The plan also included a new ferry for motor traffic and used of trucks instead of rail to deliver freight. There were some problems with the legality of the stock proposal, as the sale could not proceed without the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Local opposition was high, and the plan eventually came to nothing.^[19]

This left abandonment of the line as the only realistic business option. In that time, abandonment of a common carrier's route required the consent of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Union Pacific sought this consent, and following a hearing, on July 12, 1930, the railroad obtained permission to abandon from the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.^[43] Asay summed up the terrible financial condition of the railroad at this time:

There was no question that the line was financially hopeless; passenger traffic had declined from almost 33,000 riders in 1924 to only 10,700 in 1929. Operating revenues amounted only to $18,622 in 1928, while expenses hovered at nearly $85,000. Worse, the O-WR&N had incurred a deficit of $127,000 rebuilding the Megler terminal and roadway for the ill-fated ferry service.^[19]

The last train was run on September 9, 1930.^[2] Feagans describes the scene as follows:

With Clem Morris at the throttle, engine No. 2, dragging a coach and the combine, made its leisurely way south from

Ilwaco's Mayor Brumbach, who had attended the groundbreaking ceremonies over forty years before, addressed the citizenry from the rear platform of the train. Taps was sounded from an old bugle, and as the 3:30 train departed for the last time a salute was fired from the town cannon, to be answered with a long trailing whistle from the locomotive.^[44]

By the summer of 1931, all the structures (save for the Megler terminal), the engines rolling stock of the railroad had been sold to a scrapping firm in Portland for $28,000, and the rails and ties ripped up from the roadbed.[19]^[45]

Since 1966, the

Feagans in the early 1970s was able to trace many relics of the railroad. He was also able to interview people who well remembered the railroad and who had even worked on it. These sources may have helped Feagans as he traced down at least four passenger coaches that had been lifted off their trucks and converted into housing units in various locations in Long Beach. He located and photographed various artifacts including a baggage rack and an iron coach stove. Feagans also photographed the ruins of the trestle crossing the Wallacut river and the dock at Nahcotta, as well as places where the rails for whatever reason, had been left in place.[46]

In March 2000, an inspection of the area showed surprisingly many structures still standing related to the railroad. The tunnel under Fort Columbia, widened and shortened, continues to be used by the highway. Fort Columbia itself continues to be maintained well as a state park. The Ilwaco freight depot, which was in a derelict state in the early 1970s, had been restored and permanently preserved as part of the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum.

At Long Beach the old station survived as a pair of housing units. By the year 2000, the Long Beach Station had been purchased relocated to a park area by the city. As of March 25, 2000, the station was being reconstructed, as shown in the photo at left.

North of Long Beach, the life saving station still remains, although several remodeling efforts and overgrown shrubs and trees obscure the original architecture. The station has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The highway appears to pass at just about the same distance from the station as did the railway.

The Seaview depot still remains, but is converted into a restaurant. At Ocean Park, the railway ran in the street in front of the Taylor Hotel, built in 1887. The building was still standing and in good condition as of October, 2012, when it was operated as a coffee shop/bookstore called Adelaides. In Nahcotta, the depot built after the 1915 fire, still stands but is now (as of March 2000) a grocery store.

For further information, see Steamboats associated with Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company.

• Pacific County, Washington
• Astoria, Oregon

• Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources

• Columbia River Maritime Museum
• Steamboats of Willapa Bay