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COLUMBIA 1792
CAPT.ROBERT GRAY
WINTER 1982-83
roR1A·o VOL. 10
1792 MARINE DRIVE, ASTORIA, OREGON 97103
NO. 1
THE MARY MOODY, PEND OREILLE LAKE, 1867 A gold rush to the mountains of western Montana occurred in the mid 1860's. At this time, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company held a virtual monopoly of transportation on the Columbia River. In order to hold as much trade as possible, it moved to exploit this new gold rush by creating a water route into the area for the miners. A subsidiary, the Oregon and Montana Transportation Company, was organized to carry out this plan. Its officers and directors included such luminaries of early Northwest steamboating as J.C. Ainsworth, S.G. Reed, and R.R. Thompson.
The complicated route was to be from Portland to the Snake River on O.S.N. steamers, overland by stage from there to the head of Pend Oreille Lake in Idaho, across the lake and up the Clark Fork River as far as Cabinet Rapids by an Oregon and Montana Transportation Company steamer; there a portage road to Heron Rapids, at the head of Cabinet Canyon, would connect to another steamboat which was to run up to Thompson Falls, Montana; then, after another portage, a boat would go as far as the mouth of the Jocko. Here, only a few (continued on page 2/