Washington-Polk-Jefferson County OR Archives Biographies.....Gates, H. V. July 30, 1847 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 8, 2009, 1:41 am

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     H. V. GATES was born July 30, 1847, at Lowell, Massachusetts, a son of 
John M. and Lydia S. (Bowker) Gates. When still quite young he accompanied his 
parents on their removal from the Bay state to Port Byron, Illinois, whence 
the family afterward went to Dewitt, Iowa, where in November, 1862, at the age 
of fifteen, H. V. Gates enlisted in Company B, Sixth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, 
with which he served for three years. He cast his first vote for Lincoln. 
Following his discharge from the army he engaged in the hotel and stage 
business at Dewitt, Iowa, while during the period between 1867 and 1870 he 
clerked on a steamboat plying between St. Louis and New Orleans. In the years 
1871 and 1872 he engaged as construction engineer on the Callao, Lima & Oraya 
Railway in Peru, South America, this road crossing the Andes from Callao to 
Oraya on a tributary stream of the Amazon.

     After his return to the United States, Mr. Gates was instrument man under 
Wallace of Panama fame on government work on the Mississippi. Moving to 
California, he located lines from San Francisco along the beach to Monterey, 
afterward located part of the Stampede Pass line for the Northern Pacific and 
later located a line for Jay Gould near Fresno across the Sierra Nevadas into 
Nevada. In 1880 he removed to Corvallis, Oregon. He located the Oregon Pacific 
Railway from Corvallis to Yaquina and began construction in 1882. The 
following year he was civil engineer in secret service for Henry Villard. He 
ran the preliminary line for the Oregon Pacific from Albany to Boise, Idaho. 
Returning as superintendent of con¬struction, Mr. Gates completed the road 
from Albany to Yaquina and for the succeed-ing three years was superintendent 
of the road and steamer line from Yaquina to San Francisco. In 1887 he engaged 
to the Union Pacific as construction engineer in charge of all construction 
and during the next five years built the S. L. & W. line, the Hutchinson to 
Anthony and several lesser branches in Kansas, the Great Northern from 
Cheyenne north, the Carbon cut-off and branches in Wyoming and Nebraska, the 
line from Ogden to Pocatello, the Wallace line from Tekoa to Wallace and 
branches, the Elgin line from La Grande, and began the line from Portland to 
Seattle, afterward occupied by the joint lines of the Northern Pacific, Great 
Northern and Union Pacific, making over one thousand miles of road 
constructed, besides numerous surveys, the principal ones crossing the Sierras 
twice from San Francisco to Salt Lake, afterward occupied by the Western 
Pacific and crossing the Sierras three times in the Pitt River region and from 
San Francisco to Boise, Idaho.

     In 1892 Mr. Gates quit railroad work and engaged in the construction and 
owner ship of light and water works, at one time owning and operating eleven 
plants, among which were Hillsboro, Heppner, Prineville, Klamath Falls, Elgin, 
Castle Rock, Marcus, Dallas, Rawlins and about five hundred miles of main line 
telephone in southern Oregon. At the present time he owns and operates the 
Dallas plant only, but he keeps busy as part owner of the Gates Pipe Works at 
Hillsboro and as sole owner of a ten-thousand-acre ranch fourteen miles north 
of Redmond, Oregon.

     Mr. Gates served one term in the legislature of Oregon. He is a member of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, the Masonic order and the Congregational 
church.

     In 1870 Mr. Gates was married to Helen Melvina Batcheller, who died in 
1907.  They were the parents of five children, namely: John McPherson, who 
died in 1900 at the age of twenty-seven years; Oliver Batcheller, who is 
living in Hillsboro at the age of fifty-four; Samuel E., forty-eight years of 
age, who is manager of the General Electric Company of Los Angeles; Helen 
Vernon Heim, forty-one years of age, who is living on the ranch; and Carrol, 
who died in infancy.


Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 665-666

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