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Detailed manuscript map of Oregon, showing the route of the "Proposed Nehalem Valley Railroad" (later Portland & Southwest Railroad) from the area near Columbia City, Oregon to Tillamook Bay, Oregon at the beginning of the 20th Century.
At the end of the 19th Century, the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest began to look at the Conifer Forests of Clatsop and Columbia Counties in Oregon. A main line railroad was established between Portland and Astoria in 1898 (the Astoria & Columbia River Railroad), opening up the Nehalem Valley and Coastal Range for logging. By 1916, the Columbia & Nehalem Railroad completed a line which began at Kerry on the Columbia River and ran south towards the Nehalem Valley.
The present map was unquestionably being used by one of the railroad promoters seeking to run a line from the Columbia River to Tillamook Bay, via the rich timber lands of the Nehalem Valley. The map locates the proposed Route of the Nahalem Valley Railroad in Red, along with the Astoria and Columbia River Railroad, the Northern Pacific Railroad, The Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. Railroad, the Southern Pacific Railroad West Side Dvision and the Navigable Willamette Slough. The location of "Heavy Timber" is also shown in red, along with several Coal Fields in the Nehalem Valley and detaileds regarding the entrances to Nehalem Bay (Entrance for Schooners of 100 tons in good weather), Tillamook Bay (Entrance for ships of 250 tons burthen) and the Columbia River (Navigable for ships of 6000 tons burthen to Portland).
In the early years of the logging boom, there were several proposed railroads which sought to reach the rich logging country of the Nehalem Valley. The present map illustrates a proposal for a railroad line extending from the area near Scappoose on the Willamette Slough, (a navigable branch of the Willamette River which separated from the Willamette just before it joined the Columbia River and later joined the Columbia about 30 miles further north, near St. Helens) to the north shore of Tillamook Bay, via Vermonia and the Nehalem Valley, along the south side of the Nehalem River.
It would appear that the route in question was the route originally constructed by Simcoe Chapman and Fred Chapman, which was later acquired by the Portland & Southwestern Railroad Company. However, it may also related to a proposed "Tillamook and Nehalem Railroad", which was also being promoted at the same time, for which two routes were proposed, a southerly route joining the Southern Pacific Railroad and a northerly route from th Portland area via the Nehalem River to Tillamook Bay. Contemporary discussions of the northerly route indicated that a land dispute with "Hill and Harriman" would require that the line initally utilize the Northern Pacific's line running up the Columbia River and begin at a point north of Portland.
The map is a fantastic artifact of the early 20th Century logging boom in the region and worthy of closer study.