History of rail in Oregon

The history of rail in Oregon predates the transcontinental railroad in 1869.

As Oregon was aligned with the union states during the American Civil War, a railroad connection was proposed to help supply the Union and build morale.

Byron J. Pengra, the Surveyor General of Oregon from 1862 to 1865, secured a federal land grant in 1864 for the Oregon Central Military Wagon Road from Eugene to Owyhee, and proposed a railroad along this line, then joining the transcontinental railroad near Winnemucca, Nevada. Pengra incorporated a company in 1867 but failed due to lack of financial support.

William Williams Chapman, Surveyor General of Oregon from 1857 to 1861, proposed a railroad along the Oregon Trail from Portland, over the Blue Mountains, along the Snake River, then south to the transcontinental railroad at Salt Lake City. Chapman created the Portland, Dalles and Salt Lake Railroad Company in 1881, then reincorporated it as the Portland, Salt Lake and Salt Pass Railroad Company in 1876. He attempted to raise funds for this company in the eastern United States as well as England.

Both Pengra and Chapman's companies were hampered by the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal in 1872.

Rail routes to follow the Oregon Trail were surveyed by the government, Union Pacific, and others, including James H. Slater and Dan Chapman's Grande Ronde Valley and Columbia River Valley Construction Company in 1874, and the Blue Mountain and Columbia River Rail-Road Company's narrow gauge effort.

The wooden-railed narrow-gauge Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad, established in 1868, involved several overland portages.

Henry Villard was sent by German investors to oversee their investments in the Oregon and California Railroad Company, then became the major force in railroading for the region. In 1879, he purchased the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and the Oregon Steamship Company, merging them to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N).