In a letter of recent date from Chas. L. Potter, Lieutenant Colonel, Corps of United States Engineers, are tabulated the amounts heretofore expended in the second district on all river and harbor improvements to June 30, 1915, as follows:
Willamette River above Portland, and Yamhill River, Oregon, $857,671.92; operating and care of lock and dam in Yamhill River, Oregon, $43,426.95; Willamette River at Willamette Falls, Oregon, $83,441.71; operating and care of canal and locks in Willamette River, near Oregon City, Oregon, $344.22; Columbia and Lower Willamette rivers below Portland, Oregon, $3,577,958.35; mouth of Columbia River, Oregon and Washington, $13,156,162.52; Clatskanie River, Oregon, $18,867.34; Cowlitz River, Washington, $102,208.63; Lewis River, Washington, $39,587.19; Cowlitz and Lewis rivers, Washington, and Clatskanie River, Oregon, dredge and snagboat, $36,138.04; Grays River, Washington, $3,857.23.
Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the tributary country, but until its present population shall have increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be impracticable. Steamboat service up the swift current with little cargo will fully offset any cheapening that may be possible down stream, so that most of the business will continue to be done by the railroads. However, the open river will undoubtedly be a check upon the railroads.
A few weeks ago, at Lewiston, during the rejoicings over the opening of the upper Columbia to free navigation, one of the leading speakers remarked that the party in steaming up the river had seen but one other boat and she was tied to the dock.
The state of Washington was in some measure benefited jointly with Oregon by the work in the Columbia basin noted above. The actual expenditures by the United States in Washington have been small in comparison. On Willapa Harbor they have been $241,878.39; at Gray's Harbor, $3,231,906.78; on Puget Sound they have been, at Olympia, $197,701.35; at Tacoma, $324,784.10; at Everett and Snohomish, $664,752.59; at Bellingham, $149,834.69; Skagit River, $101,455.54; Swinomish, $217,652.29. In addition to the work done at Tacoma by the United States, the railroads and the municipality have spent large sums in providing docks and other shipping facilities, and it is equipped to handle its full share of the Sound and seagoing traffic. The foregoing figures were furnished me from the office of the resident United States Engineer, Major J. B. Cavanaugh.
Portland is the overshadowing city of the Columbia basin, and has always handled most of its business, while on Puget Sound trade and commerce have been divided. It is all a vast harbor and its cities have had access almost equally to the sea. Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Everett, Bellingham, Anacortes, Olympia, and Port Townsend are credited with an aggregate of nearly three-quarters of a million of inhabitants.
During the last ten years there has been expended in Seattle more than fifteen millions of dollars in harbor improvements. By the operations of the Seattle & Lake Washington Waterway Co. there have been 1400 acres of land filled, much of it now covered with buildings of a most substantial character. When this company began operations these lands were covered twice a day from six to sixteen feet with tidal water. Through them it dug waterways forty and fifty feet deep at low tide two and one half miles long, 1000 feet wide, and two miles additional five hundred feet wide. This has required the construction of seven miles of bulkheads, all at a cost of a little more than five millions of dollars, all paid by the owners of the filled-in lands. Some four hundred additional acres of land, at times covered by the tides or by high waters of the Duwamish River, have been reclaimed.
A ship canal between the waters of Puget Sound and Lake Union and Washington is now nearing completion and is expected to be in use during the current year. It will admit the passage of ships drawing thirty feet of water, directly into the lakes.
The locks at the outer entrance have been constructed by the United States government. The larger is 850 feet long and is the second in size on the American continent, being exceeded in size by one of the locks of the Panama Canal. They cost $2,275,000. The state of Washington, county of King and city of Seattle contributed $1,250,000 to pay for condemnation of the necessary land and dredging and digging of the canals. Add to this $6,000,000, raised by the sale of longtime bonds voted by the people and expended by the Port Commission of Seattle for docks and warehouses, refrigerator plants and other facilities for speedy and economical handling of cargoes of grain, fruit, fish, lumber, coal, etc., and the above aggregate of $15,000,000 has been passed.