Part 20 (1/2)
”Owing, however, to the condition of the Coquille entrance, only small s.h.i.+ps venture in, and even they are often delayed in the river for months at a time, with the s.h.i.+ppers' cargo on board....
”Thus the hopeful people of this extensive and unrivaled valley for its soil, its productions, its coals, timber, and other abundant natural resources, are virtually left without an exit to the markets of the world....
”The cost on each bushel of wheat for transportation to Portland from any point in the Umpqua Valley is twenty-three cents, to say nothing of the added expense of one hundred and ten miles to Astoria, thence by sea to San Francisco and elsewhere. From Roseburg to San Francis...o...b.. way of Portland and Astoria is about eight hundred and seventy-five miles, and from Roseburg to San Francis...o...b.. the way of Coos Bay is only four hundred and sixty-five miles.
”Mr. James Dillard, as we are credibly informed, produced last year on his farm in Douglas County about six thousand bushels of grain. To have transported this only to Portland on its way to market would have cost him $1,380. The saving in transportation to Coos Bay by eighty-five miles of narrow-gauge road would be to this one farmer on one year's crop $780.”
No wonder that in this district, as in all others in the State, the transportation question should be the burning one of the day.
The Coos Bay people succeeded in gaining the ear of Congress, and two years ago an appropriation of $60,000 was made for the improvement of the harbor.
The problem was a very difficult one for the engineers to solve, from the conditions above stated of the driven and s.h.i.+fting sand. It would not have been strange if the works first planned had needed alterations as they progressed.
But the success of the breakwater constructed by the United States engineers from cheap material, available on the spot, has been sufficiently marked to encourage the requests for further appropriations until the plans are executed in their entirety, and the opening of the harbor carried still farther out to sea.
It is reported now (in the spring of 1881) that the north sand-spit is being cut through by the current in the direction indicated by the lines of the breakwater, and that deeper and more constant water is found than heretofore--a good augury of success for similar works where the obstructions are not so s.h.i.+fting as sand alone, and where they are free from the influence of the sand tracts to the north, whence so much of the obstruction to Coos Bay entrance came. And this is our happy case at Yaquina.
The Umpqua River is the largest river that, rising in the Cascades, and draining a large and fertile valley in its course, flows directly into the Pacific, after cutting its channel through the Coast Range. There is a wide and very s.h.i.+fting bar at its mouth, through which the usual channel gives twelve or thirteen feet at low water. The river is navigable for all vessels which can cross the bar as far as Gardner City, five miles from the mouth, while smaller vessels can get as far as Scottsburg, twenty-five miles up.
Douglas County, now possessing a population of 9,596, is capable of sustaining a vastly increased number. It lies almost surrounded by mountains, but with a good outlet to the north along the valley lands through which the Oregon and California Railroad runs. It is well watered throughout by the Umpqua and its tributaries, while the northern portion of the county forms the head of the great Willamette, the aggregate of many creeks and streams having here their rise.
The climate of Jackson County is a good deal warmer than its mere geographical relations to the counties on the north and east of it would account for. Indian corn is a staple crop, and peaches and vines flourish exceedingly. The sun seems to have more power; and I have a vivid remembrance of heat and dust along its roads.
[Sidenote: _THE LAKE COUNTRY._]
Lake County is well named. Huge depressions in the land are filled with the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes, the latter crossing the California boundary-line.
North of the Upper Klamath Lake, again, some twenty miles, is the Klamath Marsh, doubtless not long since another lake--now, in summer, the feeding-ground for cattle, in winter the home of innumerable flocks of migratory birds. Between the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes runs a rapid water-course. The town of Linkville stands on its banks. I am told that there is water-power enough here to drive as many mills as are found at Lowell, Ma.s.sachusetts. At Linkville is the land-office for Southern Oregon.
It has been proposed to run the California extension of the Oregon and California Railroad through the gap between Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes. Should that long-talked-of project ever be realized, the manufacturing facilities of this splendid water-power will no longer be suffered to lie dead.
Pa.s.sing eastward, the great Klamath Indian reservation is reached--a tract I only know by hearsay as a land of hills and streams, of gullies and water-courses, of lava-beds and barrenness intermixed with quiet vales and dells of wondrous beauty--a land where Indian superst.i.tions cl.u.s.ter thickly. The Indians are few and scattered, and this country, no doubt, ere long will be thrown open to the white traveler and hunter, to be quickly followed by the herdsman and the settler.
The great snowy pyramids of the Southern Cascades stand on guard. Mount Scott (8,500 feet), Mount Pitt (9,250), and Mount Thielsen (9,250) are placed there, thirty miles apart, forbidding pa.s.sage between the warm valleys of Jackson County and the open plains east of the mountains.
But here, too, the hardy pioneers have found their way. I have talked with several men who are herding sheep and cattle on these plains. The merino thrives here even better than in Northeastern Oregon, and many thousand pounds of wool are raised. They describe the country as one of open plain and rocky hillside, of scarce water and abundant sage-brush; resembling in general features the tract fifty miles to the north, but, alas! containing scarcely any of the creeks and streams which give life and fertility to Middle Oregon.
[Sidenote: _THE IDAHO BOUNDARY._]
Eastward again of Stein's Mountains you strike the head-waters of the Owyhee, an important tributary of the Snake, and at once recur the common features of fertility and consequent settlement. And thus the Idaho boundary is reached.
CHAPTER XXII.
The towns--Approach to Oregon--The steamers--The Columbia entrance-- Astoria--Its situation, industries, development--Salmon--s.h.i.+pping-- Loading and discharging cargo--Up the Columbia and Willamette to Portland--Portland, West and East--Population--Public buildings-- United States District Court--The judge--Public Library--The Bishop schools--Hospital--Churches--Stores--Chinese quarter--Banks-- Industries--The city's prosperity--Its causes--Its probable future --The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company--s.h.i.+pping abuses and exactions--Railroad termini--Up the Columbia--The Dalles--Up the Willamette--Oregon City, its history--The falls--Salem--Its position and development--Capitol buildings--Flour-mills--Oil-mills --Buena Vista potteries--Albany--Its water-power--Flour-mills--Values of land--Corvallis--The line of the Oregon Pacific Railroad--Eugene, its university and professors--Roseburg--The West-side Railroad to Portland--Development of the country--Prosperity--Counties of Oregon --Their population--Taxable property--Average possessions--In the Willamette Valley--In Eastern Oregon--In Eastern Oregon tributary to Columbia and Snake Rivers.
Having said so much about the country, something needs to be said about the towns. All persons reaching Oregon, save those few who choose to face the three nights and two days of staging that divide Redding (the northern terminus of the California and Oregon Railroad) from Roseburg (the southern terminus of the Oregon and California Railroad), enter Oregon by s.h.i.+p from San Francisco. And here, in pa.s.sing, a word of praise for the really beautiful and commodious steamers which have now replaced the Ajax and the other monsters which disgraced the traffic they were furnished for, as well as their owners. No better boats ply on any waters than the State of California, the Columbia, and the Oregon. The first two are new s.h.i.+ps, with electric lights, and all other appliances to match. All are safe and speedy. The State of California belongs to the Pacific Coast Steams.h.i.+p Company, the others to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.
The approach to Oregon is forbidding and stern. There is nothing attractive in the sandy coast, in the muddy water, in the broken but not romantic scenery, where the water is encroaching on the land, and s.h.i.+fting its position and attack from time to time. Here and there along the edge are strewed, or stand in various att.i.tudes of death, the skeletons of the pine-trees, which look like the relics of battle, the peris.h.i.+ng remains of the beaten defenders of the coast; and, once over the bar, that terror to sea-worn travelers, the approach to Astoria can hardly be called beautiful.
[Sidenote: _ASTORIA._]