Abstract of Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Wagon Road Company, 1864-1911. Number 5 in a mimeographed series of brief manuscripts, records and studies by the W.P.A. County and Local Historical Records Survey of Oregon.

[Portland, OR]: Works Progress Administration of Oregon, [ca. 1938]. 4to. [4] pp., [41 leaves (unnumbered).], including mimeograph map, embossed “Mimeograph” paper watermark at fore-edges of some leaves. Contemporary quarter simulated calf over embossed “Writing Portfolio” boards, fuzzy textured brown endpapers (light interior uniform toning, scuffing, edgewear, very faint off-gassing odor), still VG exemplar from library of Alfred Powers. First edition of No. 5 in the Historical Records Survey of Oregon series reproducing, and detailing the intricacies of the preserved original abstract of the Willamette Valley & Cascade Wagon Road Co. held in Prineville, OR. (WV & CWR Co.). The Wagon Road co. was originally incorporated in March, 1864 by Luther Elkins, D.W. Balland, Morgan Kees, John Settle, and others opening a route connecting Albany, OR with the bunchgrass range in Central Oregon. The toll road was finally finished by 1868, using Chinese-American labor, with Jason Wheeler overseeing construction, and later J.A. White. In 1884, C.E.S. Wood began practicing law in Portland, OR, specializing in maritime and corporate law, as well as serving as land agent for Lazard Freres, the New York banking firm controlling the WV & CWR Co. wagon road grant stretching from Albany, OR to the Idaho border. Subsequent to the details included in this abstract, Wood would negotiate the sale of the wagon road to Louis HIll, son of railroad tycoon James J. Hill, and the million-dollar commission allowed him to retire, and relocate to northern California with Sara Bard Field. The wagon road was converted to US Highway 20 (the Santiam Highway), and completed in September, 1939. Worldcat locates 8 copies (LA Nat Hist. Mus, Boise SU, OR Hist. Soc. Lib., U of W, Wash State Lib., Yale, OR State Lib., U of O); See: Bingham, Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1990), pp. 8-9, 47; See: Griffith, Works Progress Administration, Oregon, June, 1936, p. 10.