It is worth noting that in the issue of September 6th, an item is made of the fact that fares to The Dalles have been lowered, being $10 to The Dalles and only 50 cents from there to Portland. It is declared in the item that that is a scheme of the Navigation Company to crush out opposition. The opposition line of that year was in control of Doctor Baker, who was associated in the enterprise with Captain Ankeny, H. W. Corbett, and Captain Baughman. Their steamer on the lower river was the E. D. Baker and on the upper river the Spray. Doctor Baker had previously undertaken a portage railroad at the Cascades, but had been compelled to retire before the O. S. N. Co. So for the new undertaking they were obliged to use stages over the five miles of portage between the lower and the upper Cascades. The Spray and the Baker, it may be said, carried on a lively opposition but in the Statesman of March 21, 1863, we find that the O. S. N. Co. had bought out the line and once more monopolized the traffic. Affairs and time were both moving on and we find valuable data in three successive issues of the Statesman, December 20 and 27, 1862, and January 3, 1863. That of December 20th repeats the names given in the charter and some further provisions of that document. Among other requirements was that forbidding the railroad to charge passengers over 10 cents per mile or over 40 cents per ton per mile for freight. Comparison shows how the world has changed. Railroads in this state at present cannot charge more than three cents a mile for passengers, and as for freight, when we remember how we "kick" now at exorbitant freight rates, and yet remind ourselves that the rate on wheat from Walla Walla to Portland is $2.85 per ton, or less than twelve mills per ton mile, we realize the change. But it must be remembered that building a railroad in 1863 in the Walla Walla country was a very different proposition from the present. The Statesman figures that even if traffic did not increase there would be a weekly income for the road of $2,400 or about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year. Allowing the cost to be $700,000, with interest at 10 per cent or $70,000 a year, there would be a margin of $65,000 per annum for operating and contingencies. "Who is there," demands the Statesman, "amongst our settled residents that cannot afford to subscribe for from one to ten shares of stock at $100 per share?"
In the paper of December 27th, another editorial urges citizens to attend a meeting the next week to consider the vital subject.
The meeting duly occurred on the last day of December, 1862, and is reported in the Statesman of January 3, 1863. The meeting was called to order by E. B. Whitman and W. W. Johnson acted as secretary. Mention is made of a letter from Capt. John Mullan stating that there was a prospect of securing from two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to three hundred thousand dollars worth of stock in New York. A group of men at money centers was appointed to act as commissioners for receiving subscriptions for stock. A committee consisting of W. W. Johnson, W. A. Mix, and R. R. Rees was appointed to draw up articles of association and by-laws for the company. On March 14th a meeting was held to listen to the report of the committee.
It appears from the issue of April 11, 1863, that a new opposition steamer, the Kius, had made her first trip from Celilo to Wallula, beating the Spray by an hour. Fares had been cut again, being only $3.50 from Celilo to Wallula. The following number of the Statesman notes the interesting item that the Kius had made a trip the previous week to the mouth of the Salmon River on the Snake, and proposed to continue investigations with a view to determining the practicability of a regular route. In the paper of April 25th is an editorial deprecating the "cut-throat competition" on the river, pointing out the fact that heavy stocks of goods had been imported under previous rates and that the carrying in of freight at ruinous rates will embarrass the regular merchants under the old rates. In the same issue announcement is made of the important fact that the railroad portages of the O. S. N. Co. at both the Cascades and The Dalles had just come into operation. By May 9th, it appeared that another rapid change in freight rates had taken place, both lines receipting freight from Portland to Lewiston at $25 per ton. For some time the rate from The Dalles to Wallula had been $3 per ton. But a little time passed and the omnipresent O. S. N. Co. bought out the opposition boats Iris and Kius, and up the rates went with another jump. The figures were:
| Freight— | Portland to The Dalles | $15.00 | per ton |
| Portland to Wallula | 50.00 | per ton | |
| Portland to Lewiston | 90.00 | per ton | |
| Passage— | Portland to The Dalles | 6.00 | |
| Portland to Wallula | 18.00 | ||
| Portland to Lewiston | 28.00 |
Meanwhile development in the mines and on the stock ranges and farms and even in horticulture was going on apace. But the railroad enterprise hung fire and several years passed by without results. The community seems to have been waiting for the man with the brains, nerve, resolution, and resources to lead and take the risk. The man was there and he had all the requisites from his first entrance to Walla Walla in 1839 except the resources. This was no less a man than Dr. D. S. Baker. During the years of agitation he had been prospering in business and by 1868 was coming into a position where he could see his way to take the initiative in what he had recognized all the time as the great next step in the growth of the Walla Walla country, as well as one in the advancement of his own personal fortunes. The thought of a sort of community ownership had never left the minds of the original promoters although they had failed to come to a focus. On March 23, 1868, there was a meeting which was the outcome of a second era of popular discussion. That meeting eventuated in the actual incorporation of the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad. The incorporators were D. S. Baker, A. H. Reynolds, I. T. Reese, A. Kyger, J. H. Lasater, J. D. Mix, B. Scheideman, and W. H. Newell. They planned to place $50,000 of stock in the city, $200,000 in the county, and $100,000 with the O. S. N. Co. An act of Congress of March 3, 1869, granted a right of way and authorized the county commissioners to grant $300,000 in aid of the road, subject to approval of the people by special election. The election was set for June 21, 1871. Expressions of public opinion made it so clear that the proposal would be defeated at the polls that the order for election was revoked. The incorporators of the road now made a proposition that in case the people of the county would authorize an issue of $300,000 in bonds, they would build a strap-iron road within a year, would place the money from down freights in the hands of the county commissioners as a sinking fund, allow the commissioners to fix freight rates, provided they were not less than $2 per ton nor so high as to discourage shipping, and secure the county by first mortgage on the road. An election was held on September 18, 1871. A two-thirds majority was required out of a total vote of 935, and the proposition was lost by eighteen. Thus the second attempt at a publicly promoted railroad for Walla Walla went glimmering.
Doctor Baker now felt that the time had arrived for pushing the enterprise to a conclusion by private capital. A new organization with the same name was effected, of which the directors were D. S. Baker, Wm. Stephens, I. T. Reese, Lewis McMorris, H. M. Chase, H. P. Isaacs, B. L. Sharpstein, Orley Hull, and J. F. Boyer. Grading was begun at Wallula in March, 1872.
Meanwhile many rumors and proposals as to railroad building were in the air. In 1872 the Grande Ronde and Walla Walla R. R. Co. was incorporated, and a survey made thirty-six miles to the Umatilla River. But there the movement ceased. A very interesting project came into existence in 1873 for the Seattle and Walla Walla R. R., and in the prosecution of plans for this, A. A. Denny and J. J. McGilvra visited this region and held public meetings in Walla Walla, Waitsburg, and Dayton. Five directors, S. Schwabacher, W. F. Kimball, Jesse N. Day, W. P. Bruce, and W. M. Shelton were appointed to represent this section. Great enthusiasm was created, but the project, feasible though it seemed and backed though it was by reliable men, never got beyond the stage of agitation. Another enterprise which occasioned great public interest was the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake R. R. designed as a rival to the O. R. & N. system. That never got beyond the promotion era. The most interesting locally of these incipient railroads was the Dayton and Columbia River R. R. incorporated in August, 1874. Its proposal was to build a narrow gauge from Dayton to Wallula via Waitsburg and Walla Walla. The plans contemplated a boat line to Astoria with railroad portages at Celilo and the Cascades. That would have been a great enterprise, but it was beyond the resources of its promoters, and it died "a-bornin'."
While these gauzy visions were flitting before the minds of the people of old Walla Walla County, Doctor Baker was going right on with his own road, in the peculiarly taciturn, quiet and unremitting manner characteristic of him. In March, 1874, the road was completed from Wallula to the Touchet, the first eight miles with wooden rails, capped with strap-iron. Maj. Sewall Truax was the engineer in charge. Strap-iron rails were laid on the "straightaway" sections as far as Touchet, with T-iron on the curves and heavier grades. The expense of getting ties and iron was very great and the execution of the work was costly and harassing. Nothing but Doctor Baker's pertinacity in the face of many obstacles carried the work to a successful conclusion. An attempt to run tie timber down the Grande Ronde River to the Snake and thence to Wallula proving unsuccessful, the doctor turned to the Yakima. That effort proved the winning card, but the cost was great. The ties cost over a dollar apiece at Wallula.
But from the first the road justified its cost and demonstrated its utility. In the year that it was completed to Touchet over four thousand tons of wheat was carried out and 1,126 tons of merchandise was brought in. In January, 1875, Doctor Baker proposed to the people of the county that he would complete the road to the city if $75,000 were subscribed to the capital stock. A meeting was held at which it was decided impossible to raise that sum. The company returned with another proposition; i. e., that they would complete the road if the people would secure a tract of three acres for depot grounds and right of way for nine miles west of town, and subscribe $25,000 as a subsidy. After much wrestling and striving this proposal was accepted. On October 23, 1875, the rails were laid into Walla Walla and during the remainder of that year 9,155 tons of wheat were hauled over them to the river.