"IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE" IN OREGON - Southern Oregon Digital ...

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mills operated in Jackson County.
Fearing a milling trust,
farmers labelled them "the mill combination in this little
valley," and many wheatgrowers preferred to ship their
produce out of the region for processing. 18
Railroad
charges, however, put the farmer in a nearly impossible
position.
During the 1891 harvest, the Southern Pacific
Railroad charged twenty-two cents a bushel for valley grain
shipped to San Francisco warehouses.
For its part, the
"S.P." refused to cooperate with the state railroad
commission's 1891 freight rate investigation; the commission
enacted a ten percent reduction in grain shipment rates,
which the railroad delayed with court action. 1 9
Southern Oregon's great winter storm and flood of 1890
underscored the dependence of the isolated Rogue River
Valley on the railroad.
The storm also left financial havoc
in its wake which inflamed local political divisions.
Deep
snows in the passes blocked rail connections to the north
and south and disrupted telegraph communication for much of
18 "Some of our farmers...," DT, 15 May 1891, 2; "Eagle
Point News," MM, 28 Jan. 1892, 2. The Farnham, or Eagle,
Flouring Mill of Ashland quoted a 1892 contract milling
charge of ten cents per bushel ("To the Farmers of the Rogue
River Valley," DT, 4 Mar. 1892, 3); other mills were in
Jacksonville, Medford, Central Point, and Eagle Point. The
county's flouring mills were separate, locally owned
operations, not part of a syndicate; the accusation of a
"milling trust" may have reflected more fear than reality,
although informal collusion between mill owners can not be
discounted.
19 "Fred Fradenburg reports...," AT, 27 Nov. 1891, 3;
"Transportation rates over the S.P....," DT, 4 Mar. 1892, 3;
"Cutting the S.P.R.R. Freight Rates," AT, 17 Aug. 1891, 3.