Committee Favors the State Buying the Bridge
Waterville Committee Has Made a Very Favorable Report on the Purchasing of the Columbia River Bridge Gives History of Big Local Enterprise.
Wenatchee Daily World
December 28, 1908

Recently a committee of Waterville citizens, representing the Waterville Commercial club, was in this city conferring with the local Commercial club, regarding a united action for legislation affecting both Wenatchee and Waterville. Among the matters discussed were that ,of the state purchase of the Columbia river bridge and the location of the state east and west highway through this section. The following is the report of the committee to the Waterville club;

"We, your committee, appointed to meet a committee of the commercial club of Wenatchee in a conference over the Columbia river wagon bridge and State Highway matters, beg leave to report as follows; We met the Chelan county committee at Wenatchee on Monday evening, Dec. 14, and soon adjusted in an amicable manner the points of difference heretofore existing between the two committees over the bridge matter. In order that the situation may be understood, a brief historical review of the events leading up to the present conditions is necessary."

"In the year 1893, the Great Northern built its railway through Wenatchee Valley to Puget Sound. At that time and for several years thereafter, the town of Wenatchee was a straggling village surrounded by a dreary and forbidding waste of sage brush and sand. In the year 1902, W. T. Clark, an experienced irrigation and ditch man, and born promoter, visited the place, and at once realized the wonderful development that would follow the irrigation of the 'Wenatchee Flat,' a tract of seven or eight thousand acres."

"Preliminary lines were run for the construction of a ditch, and the engineers estimated that $135,000.00 would build it. Clark, with his characteristic energy, went to work, raised the money associated with himself Marion Chase, an expert hydraulic engineer, and the ditch was built; but owing to many unforeseen obstacles, the total cost footed up $236,000.00; instead of $135,000, as originally estimated."

This left the enterprise $101,000.00 to the bad for the time being; but the "Wenatchee Flat" watered, orchards were set out on all sides, more and more people kept coming in, new life was injected into every avenue of trade, the town began to look more like a checkerboard of gardeners than a breeding ground for coyotes. Unimproved lands that were worth $2.50 to $10.00 per acre before the ditch was built are now worth $500 to $700 per acre, and bearing orchards of six to eight years growth sell readily at from one to two thousand dollars per acre.

Wenatchee, from a village of a few hundred, has grown to be a hustling little city of 4,000 with an excellent prospect of reaching 15,000 in the rest ten years. To W. T. Clark and Marvin Chase, more than any other two men, is due this transformation. 

In 1904, the Wenatchee people began to reach out for business. One of their favorite projects was the building of a wagon bridge across the Columbia river to attract the trade of the Southside country. But there was not enough of this to warrant the investment and capital held back. About this time Hark succeeded in getting his ditch enterprise firmly on its feet again, and he began to look around for a new world to conquer, the cast his eye across the Columbia river and beheld on the Douglas county side seven to eight thousand acres of land just as good for fruit purposes as the Wenatchee lands, provided water could be placed upon them.

He at once conceived the idea of combing a pipe line bridge to water to the Douglas county side with a wagon bridge for public travel, believing that in uniting these two utilities there would be sufficient inducement to warrant the construction of the bridge. With Clark to conceive an idea was to carry it out. He organized a bridge company, raised the money, and built the bridge at a cost of $165,000. Today it is open for travel, and is carrying water from the Wenatchee river to the Douglas county side for about 4,000 acres of as fine fruit land as can be found in the Columbia valley. 

It will take time to bring these lands into profitable bearing, but already many tracts have been set out to trees, and houses are springing up in all directions The taxable property of Douglas county has been, and for years to come, will be very materially increased by reason of this enterprise. Above the ditch on the Douglas county side there lies about 3,000 acres more of land which is even better than that which lies below the ditch. It is an easy lift from the ditch to pump water onto these lands, and already Clark and his associates are busy with plants to develop an electric power plant on the Wenatchee river to operate a pumping plant on the Douglas county side to water the higher lands.

While these events were transpiring at Wenatchee, the State Highway Board at Olympia, was busy with plans of its own. In years gone by the legislature has made appropriations to aid in the construction of roads here, there and elsewhere; hut there was no system or order in the expenditure of these appropriations and the money was largely wasted. To remedy this haphazard way of building roads the board has planned a comprehensive system of state roads designed to ultimately extend into and correct every portion of the commonwealth.

It is not expected that the state will undertake the building of all these roads, or even a considerable portion thereof, at any time; but the idea is to have a comprehensive and systematic plan to work, so that when a section road is constructed, be it a mile or fifty miles, it will fit into a general plan, and thus, step by step, ultimately give us a network if state roads comparable with the roads of New York state or New Jersey. It will take years to carry this out, but the wisdom of working to a definite plan from the start must be apparent to all. Among the state highways to he built as circumstances will permit, is one connecting eastern and western Washington, or, running from Puget Sound to the Idaho line.

Much pressure is being brought to bear to swing another road southward from Seattle through the Yakima valley, and thence to Spokane. But the Good Roads association favors the construction of this road as near as practicable along the line of the sixth parallel upon which both the cities of Seattle and Spokane are situated. State road No. 7, otherwise known as the Snoqualmie Pass road, already extends easterly to the town of Easton. To carry it from there on to Cle Elum, Wenatchee, Waterville, Coulee City, Davenport and Spokane would give us a road as nearly straight across the state as practicable to build, and it would be very near the center line of the state.

If this road is to be built as the years roll by, we feel that it ought to be pulled this way instead of permitting it to be diverted elsewhere, less convenient. This is one reason why we favor the purchase of the Wenatchee bridge. The state will be extending its highways from year to year, and with the bridge in hand it will be an easy matter to draw the Snoqualmie pass road our way. Returning now, to the incidents accompanying the construction of the bridge, which by the way, is a fine steel structure set on concrete piers as everlasting as the hills. It is built strong enough to accommodate not only the pipe line and the wagon traffic, but to carry an electric car line as well.

When Clark organized the company that built the bridge he reserved to himself the right of way over the same for his pipe line as compensation for the time and money he had expended in promoting the enterprise and seeing that it was carried out. Two years ago when the proposition came up for the state to buy the bridge it was quite natural that Mr. Clark should desire to retain this privilege that had already been granted to him. But the people of Douglas county objected to this not that they desired to injure Mr. Clark or obstruct the development of the lands on the Douglas county side, but that on the principle that all private corporations using the bridge in the conduct of their business should pay a reasonable sum for the privilege in order to help maintain the bridge.

At the committee meeting afore this point was conceded, and it was agreed that if the state shall purchase the bridge and require the counties to keep it in repair, Chelan county shall bear one-third of the expense, Douglas county one-third and Mr. Clark's canal company one-third, "It may be added that for many; years to come the cost of maintaining the bridge will be inconsiderable. As already stated, it is built of heavy steel throughout and the most approved design, and the items of maintenance will he an occasional repainting, and the replacing of the plank flooring when worn out with travel.

There can be no doubt that the irrigation of the lands in Douglas county will within the next five or six years, add several millions of dollars to our tax roll. Even this year, with the irrigation enterprise not completed and trees but barely planted, these lands are assessed at $60 per acre, which two years ago were listed at 75c to $1.50 per acre. In Chelan county the valuations increased from $1,700,000, in 1902. to $10,000,000 in 1908. a period of six years. This is mostly due to irrigation. If, Douglas county is to participate in similar benefits it can only be done by carrying the necessary water in pipe lines across the Wenatchee bridge. Under these circumstances your committee most respectfully and cheerfully recommends the support and hearty co-operation of the citizens of Douglas county with those of Chelan county in petitioning the state of Washington to buy said bridge.