The Oregon Trunk Railway Bridge, constructed in 1911, was the first structure to cross this spectacular gorge. Before its construction, the only crossing of the Crooked River in this region was about a mile upstream, where the canyon's sheer basalt walls begin tapering gradually into the surrounding landscape. In the early 1900's, railroad tycoons James J. Hill of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway and Edward Harriman of the Union Pacific fought a fierce battle to open central Oregon rail traffic. This contest, one of the greatest in railroad history, was fought in the courts, where the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway triumphed, and in the field, where night raids, dynamite, gunfire, and fistfights were common and neither railroad prevailed. The Oregon Trunk Railway, a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, ran from Celilo Falls on the Columbia to Bend, where James Hill was present on October 5, 1911, to drive a "Golden Spike" marking the line's official opening.