A Short-lived History Caught in a Post Card

The history below is an edited version taken from this website: http://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/hs_or_n.html The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company A brief history by Glenn Laubaugh Although the name itself has been long gone, what was once the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company (OR&N) and later the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation company (OWR&N), the railroad to which this post card refers in the upper right-hand corner in the title, is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and has been for over a century. In 1878 and 1879, purchase negotiations were held between Captain Ainsworth, who owned the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and its related portage railroad operations, and the newly incorporated Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. By March 31, 1880, all operation was being performed under the OR&N name. In mid-1883 the line became part of a transcontinental link, when the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) was completed between Wallula and St. Paul, Min., providing the first all-rail link with the rest of the nation's railroad system. In 1906 through 1911, the ORR&N and the Oregon Trunk completed a railroad along

the Deschutes River (the river in the picture on this post card) into central Oregon. During this period, the company came to be called the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company. The Union Pacific had adopted the policy of building new railroads by using subsidiary companies, possibly to protect the parent company from possible financial disasters. The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company was incorporated in Oregon in late 1910. In the 1930's, minor abandonments of the company's Oregon lines occurred. This included partial abandonment of the line to Homestead, as well as joint operation with the Spokane, Portland & Seattle of the Oregon Trunk railroad line from the Columbia River south to Bend. Other abandonments during this period were concentrated in Idaho and Washington, and therefore are not recorded here. From the 1930's through the 1960's, the railroad's main line was rebuilt to accommodate the various river dam projects constructed on the Snake River and Columbia River. As time went on, the O-WR&N name slowly fell into disuse. Although in later years steam locomotives still carried that name, the tenders of the locomotives had the Union Pacific emblem on them. All diesel locomotives came lettered and painted in Union Pacific colors, and therefore the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation company name become much less visible as time went on. Although corporate existence of the O-WR&N would continue afterward, for practical purposes of this brief history, the Union Pacific will be considered to have become the successor to the O-WR&N around 1950.

The post card was published by the short-lived Portland Post Card Company. The company only existed from 1908 to 1916. While it was around it published many view-cards of scenes from the American West coast including Alaska. They were the official publisher of postcards for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909.

The code in the bottom-center of the post card leads me to believe that it was printed by Curt Otto Teich. 1908-1928 Cards numbered A or R 1 to 124180. The cards they printed for Woolworth have a W prefix. The letter N prefix was used to designate a reprinted image from this series. The number at the bottom, when interpolated into their numbering system, put the card as being printed in 1913. That is a real possibility because the railroad company used that name in that year, too.