Kelso Residents Angry
Lack of Road Fund Working
Injury to County

Commercial Club Wants Aid for Highway Improvement Legislature's Action is Scored.

The Sunday Oregonian
March 18, 1911

The Kelso Commercial Club, realizing the critical state in which the state road work at Carrollton is left by the failure of the Legislature to appropriate funds to continue the work, voted unanimously at the regular meeting last night to communicate with the Southwest Washington Development Association and enlist the association's aid in inducing the Governor to call an extra session of the Legislature to remedy the evil they say resulted by the action of the Seattle, Tacoma, Walla Walla and Spokane Senators, who deadlocked the Senate during the closing session, after the appropriation for state road work had passed the House 42 to 27.

On account of lack of funds to continue the work, the convicts at Carrollton were ordered moved, but Senator F. L. Stewart, who remained In Olympia after adjournment, conferred with the Governor and other officials, the result being that Cowlitz County is allowed the use of the convicts, provided the county furnishes the necessary funds.

The County Commissioners have appropriated funds to guarantee temporary work. It is estimated that $10,000 will enable the road to be finished as originally intended, but if narrowed it ran be completed for $5,000. Efforts will be made to enlist the financial aid of the auto clubs of Portland and Seattle. The work Is 'being done at a point known to nearly every auto enthusiast of Portland and Seattle as "profanity" hill." With this completed and the Rocky Point road improved, which has been ordered by the County Commissioners, the annual auto runs from Portland to Seattle would not fall as they formerly have. 

Heretofore Seattle auto owners making the trip overland to the Portland Rose Festival have shipped their cars by boat from Kelso to Portland, in preference to traveling the roads between Kelso and Portland. Only one half mile of the work remains unfinished; the old road has been closed, and unless this stretch is completed travel between Kelso and Kalama would be blocked. Up to the present time the state and county have each expended $13,000, and. it is said, the improvement would have cost $75,000 if let by contract. In retaliation for the Legislature's action Kelso merchants are talking of boycotting Seattle wholesale houses and sending all their business to Portland.