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Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. (ORy&N)
Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. (ORR&N)
Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. (O-WRR&N)

This page was last updated on November 27, 2009.

The following listing is meant to correlate various corporate changes with changes in equipment ownership and identification. The list shows only companies that built operating mainline trackage, and owned rolling stock. Non-operating companies are noted as necessary.

Sources:

(click here for the Wikipedia entry)

Chronology History

June 13, 1879:
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company was incorporated in Oregon to purchase the interests of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.

March 31, 1880:
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company purchased the portage railroads and steamships of Oregon Steam Navigation Company

(click here for more information about the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and its three portage railroads)

October 1880 to April 1881:
ORy&N completed its new standard gauge railroad between Celilo (at the eastern end of the 13.8-mile portage railroad between The Dalles and Celilo) and Wallula, Washington, a distance of 113.3 miles.

June 1881:
Henry Villard organized the Oregon & Transcontinental Company to purchase control of both Northern Pacific Railway and the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. ORy&N and NP had signed an agreement in October 1880 that would give NP direct access to Portland over ORy&N tracks. Villard feared that after Northern Pacific completed its transcontinental line from St. Paul, the new railroad would soon take control of ORy&N. (Memoirs of Henry Villard, pages 295, 299)

May 1882:
ORy&N completed a standard gauge connection between the two portages on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, between The Dalles and Bonneville, 46.2 miles down-river.

November 1882:
ORy&N completed a standard gauge railroad between Portland and Bonneville (40.7 miles) making for an all-railroad connection between Portland and Wallula (163.6 miles).

February 23, 1883:
ORy&N and UP signed an agreement that set the connecting point between the roads at Huntington, Oregon. (Asay, page 39)

September 1883:
NP completed its transcontinental line between St. Paul and Wallula, Oregon, connecting with ORy&N. Both NP and ORy&N were controlled by Villard's Oregon & Transcontinental Company.

December 17, 1883:
Henry Villard resigned as president of ORy&N, NP, and the Oregon & Transcontinental holding company, and moved (some say "fled") back to Berlin, Germany. Apparently his creative financial promotions had caught up with him.

November 11, 1884:
ORy&N completed to Huntington, Oregon, and a connection with UP's Oregon Short Line Railway. (Asay, page 42)

November 20, 1884:
OSLRy completed to Huntington, Oregon. (OSL corporate history for ICC, page 25)

November 25, 1884:
Last spike ceremony for OSLRy and ORy&N at Huntington, Oregon was on November 25, 1884. Present were officials of both OSL and ORy&N, along with members of the press and local citizens. (Salt Lake Tribune, November 30, 1884).

General timeline for route completion (eastward from Portland to Huntington):

December 1, 1884:
The connection of OSLRy and ORy&N at Huntington, Oregon was officially opened for traffic. (OWRR&N Corporate History, 1916)

January 1, 1887:
ORy&N was leased to UP through its OSLRy subsidiary, giving UP direct access to Portland.

July 1887:
NP completed to Tacoma, Washington by building northwest from Wallula (and its connection with ORy&N) to Yakima, then over Stampede Pass to Tacoma.

(Remember that NP and ORy&N were both still owned and controlled by Oregon & Transcontinental Company, whose officers, directors and shareholders were now focused on expansion of Northern Pacific. O&T was organized by Villard in 1881, but he was no longer associated with either of the two railroads, or the parent holding company.)

July 27, 1889
The lease of OWRy&N to OSLRy (dated January 1, 1887) continued after the consolidation that formed OSL&UN.

September 1889:
OSL&UN (UP) purchased fifty percent ownership (and control) of ORy&N, at a cost of $12 million, by direct purchase from Henry Villard's Oregon & Transcontinental Company. (Memoirs of Henry Villard, page 332) This was to prevent Northern Pacific from taking the same action to control ORy&N. (Trottman, History of the UP, page 237)

November 17, 1889:
ORy&N was reorganized as Pacific Division of Union Pacific System (Asay, page 63)

1890:
Edwin McNeill, formerly General Manager of St. Joseph & Grand Island Railroad, was named as General Superintendent of ORy&N, with headquarters in Portland. McNeill quit in July 1891, but returned in July 1894 as ORy&N's receiver. (Asay, pages 63, 67)

In 1890 ORy&N locomotives were renumbered into UP's 1885 System numbering pattern. (This numbering pattern lasted until ORy&N's separate receivership in 1894.)

October 13, 1893:
UP entered receivership, along with all of its leased and controlled subsidiaries, including OSL&UN and ORy&N

July 3, 1894:
ORy&N was assigned its own receiver (ORy&N was controlled by UP through stock ownership, leased for operation to OSLRy, and later OSL&UN); lease in effect until "a certain unknown date in 1894".

Edwin McNeill was named as ORy&N receiver in July 1894. He had previously been ORy&N General Superintendent from 1890 to July 1891. McNeill held the receiver position until ORy&N was sold to ORR&N on August 17, 1896. (Asay, pages 67, 70) McNeill became ORR&N president, but was replaced in July 1897 by A. L. Mohler, who was voted in by James J. Hill's three board members. (Asay, page 74; New York Times, May 19, 1897)

In 1894, after entering its own receivership separate from UP's, ORy&N locomotives were renumbered into a new numbering pattern to reflect its independence from UP. This new renumbering pattern lasted from 1894 until 1915, including the sale to ORR&N in 1896, UP's control in 1899, and the sale to O-WRR&N in 1910.

August 17, 1896:
Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company (ORR&N) purchased ORy&N and its subsidiary and leased companies

July 1897:
ORR&N and its access to Portland became a battleground between GN, NP, and UP for control of Pacific Northwest rail traffic. As a settlement, each road purchased equal parts of a special block of preferred stock that was to control the road for ten years, or until the road paid four percent dividend for five consecutive years. In July 1897 Edwin McNeill was replaced as president by A. L. Mohler, a man selected by James J. Hill, who controlled GN and NP. (Klein, Rebirth, page 73)

ORy&N was independent from UP from July 1894 to August 1896, and its successor ORR&N was independent but controlled by UP, GN, and NP from August 1896 to July 1899.

November 1, 1897:
Union Pacific Railway was sold to Union Pacific Railroad, incorporated for that purpose in Utah on July 1, 1897; UPRR took possession of UPRy on January 31, 1898 (Trottman, pages 268, 269)

July 1899:
For a period of two years, between July 1897 and July 1899, ORR&N was operated in the joint interest of UP, GN, and NP, three railroads that were in competition with each other for Pacific Northwest traffic. In July 1899, UP lawyers were able to settle with GN and NP to break their partial control of ORR&N, by buying out their interests and dissolving the special block of preferred stock. This gave UP control by its ownership of two-thirds of ORR&N's common stock. (Klein, Rebirth, pages 73, 78)

September 1899:
At the annual meeting of ORR&N shareholders in September 1899, the three NP directors were replaced by three UP directors, and E. H. Harriman became ORR&N's Chairman of the Board. (Klein, Rebirth, page 78)

May 12 1906
Oregon & Washington Railroad incorporated in Oregon to build between Portland and Seattle

December 23, 1910:
Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation purchased the following companies:

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