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Three months after its dedication Gilbert Gable's dock collapsed in a storm. Since then a temporary pier has been built, Port Orford has grown to 1,000 in population and Gilbert Gable has become mayor. But no construction of the railroad has been started. Tired of waiting, local tycoons got behind a rival scheme. Five months ago, before an ICC examiner, this new group declared that it had funds to build a $7,000,000 line from Grants Pass, 15 miles south of Leland on the Southern Pacific, across the coastal range to Crescent City, 97 miles south of Port Orford on the California coast just below the Oregon line,* asked for a certificate of convenience and necessity. Against an imposing array of witnesses for the rival line, Gilbert Gable stood alone in the hearing, quietly declared that his backers had enough money to finance the Gold Coast R. R.. but that they preferred to wait until Port Orford's harbor was further completed, that Crescent City would require $4,500,000 worth of dredging to be usable. Civic groups such as the Portland Chamber of Commerce indicated that they did not care which line won so long as a railroad was built to the coast through southwest Oregon.
Neither side would tell the examiner who its backers were. Last week it looked as though the unknown backers, if any, would have to invest their money elsewhere. For the ICC examiner not only recommended that Gilbert Gable's certificate of convenience & necessity be withdrawn but also that one be refused to the Crescent City group. Said he: "Recent army reports show that the prospect of future growing importance of the ports of Port Orford and Crescent City definitely may be discarded as a factor of consequence in this proceeding."
*A Grants Pass-Crescent City line was started 25 years ago, abandoned after 18 miles of line were built.