Oregon Steam Navigation Company
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| Fate | stock bought by Oregon Railway and Navigation Company |
|---|---|
| Successor | Oregon Railway and Navigation Company |
| Founded | 1860 |
| Defunct | 1879 |
| Headquarters | Portland, Oregon |
The Oregon Steam Navigation Company (O.S.N.) was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen. It was incorporated in Washington because of a lack of corporate laws in Oregon, though it paid Oregon taxes.
The company operated steamships between San Francisco and ports along the Columbia River at Astoria, Portland and The Dalles, serving the lumber and salmon fishing industries. A railroad was built to serve the steamship industry.
The company was incorporated on December 29, 1860, at Vancouver, Washington, with 22 shareholders. Principal shareholders included D. F. Bradford (one of the owners of the north bank portage railway at the Cascades), Jacob Kamm, Harrison Olmstead, Simeon G. Reed, R. R. Thompson, and steamboat captains John C. Ainsworth and L. W. Coe. The company then gained control over most of the boats on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
Timmen described the Oregon Steam Navigation Company as "the many-tentacled monopoly of river transportation."
From 1858 to 1863, the Oregon Portage Railroad operated 4.5 miles of track between Bonneville and Cascade. The railroad hauled primarily military and immigrant traffic. In 1862, the railroad was sold to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company for $155,000.
Soon afterwards, the company acquired most of the steamboats on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company purchased the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in 1879.
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