Part 19 (2/2)

V. BUILDING GROUNDS.--The city is built and building on both sides of the river, and stands on a level, dry, gravelly plain, a mile or more in width, rising into wooded hills. In other words, it has all that can be desired for situation.

[Sidenote: Sprague, Colfax, and Lewiston.]

Sprague, Colfax, and Lewiston claim attention as indicating the points in a proposed branch line of railroad, leaving the Seattle, Lake Sh.o.r.e and Eastern Railway somewhere in the Great Bend country.

Shops of the Northern Pacific Railroad are in Sprague, which fact is an endors.e.m.e.nt of the locality. Its population is over 1,500. The town standing in a coulee, there are no indications of fertility of soil in sight. Here the timber belts seem to end, and no trees are seen for 100 miles eastward. It occupies an intermediate position between the great wheat areas of Whitman County on the south and of Lincoln on the north.

Stage lines leave here for Colfax (south) and for Davenport and other towns in the Great Bend (north), and also for the Okanogan mines.

Colfax is about forty miles southwest from Sprague. It is on the Palouse River, in a narrow valley where there is scarcely room for a town. The bordering hills are steep; the surrounding country is some 400 or 500 feet higher than the town. It is claimed, however, that there are good grades to be had for railroads going in any direction. The town has a population of 1,800 to 2,000, and is evidently prosperous. It has water-power and wheat-mills. The railroad agent in the town says that his cash receipts for freight average $1,200 a day. Knapp, Burrell & Co.

told me that they brought in 672 carloads of freight annually in the regular course of their business. I felt surprised at the statement.

This firm does a farmers' business in barbed wire, wagons, all sorts of agricultural machinery and implements, grain-bags, etc., etc.

Mr. Hamilton imports groceries to the amount of $75,000. Coal is $12.00 a ton. Lumber is scarce and high, and freights enormous. A citizen told me that he had paid $64.30 freight from Portland on a lot of lumber that cost $34.90 in that city. Another marvelous story was that a citizen paid $5.00 a ton for coal in St. Paul and $20.00 a ton to bring it to Colfax.

[Sidenote: Notes on the Colfax country.]

In asking about the surrounding country, I made the following notes: One-half the country is arable. The non-arable land is grazed by horses, sheep and cattle. Wool, an important item. Of the arable land, one-tenth is under the plough; of this, three-fourths is put in wheat, and one-fourth in oats and barley--more barley than oats. Very fine root crops. Average of wheat, 30 bushels per acre; oats, 50 to 60 bushels.

Price of wheat, 45 cents; freight to Portland, 20 cents, making $6.60 a ton. Peaches mature. Can raise corn, but it does not pay to shuck it.

There is a continuous wheat area of 70 towns.h.i.+ps, equal to 2,520 square miles, taking in a little of Idaho.

[Sidenote: Lewiston.]

Lewiston, in Idaho, came into being during the days of placer mining, and now depends on agricultural business. It has about 1,000 people, and may become important by reason of its location at the junction of the Clearwater and Snake rivers. The transcontinental line that may some day be built through Wyoming might pa.s.s through Lewiston.

[Sidenote: Walla Walla.]

Walla Walla is the oldest, and was long regarded the best of all the towns of East Was.h.i.+ngton. It is beautifully situated in a fertile country; has about 5,000 inhabitants; is well laid off and built, and has a more staid and settled population than any other town there. This is true, also, of the farming population around Walla Walla, many of whom have comfortable homes. The town has some water-mills; and an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of ”truck” is raised and s.h.i.+pped in this neighborhood. The city has not grown much of late, and, except its agricultural surroundings, there is nothing especially to give it prosperity.

BRANCHES AND ROUTES FOR THE SEATTLE, LAKE Sh.o.r.e AND EASTERN RAILWAY.

[Sidenote: Railroad branches.]

The building of the West Coast Railroad will be a happy circ.u.mstance for the Lake Sh.o.r.e road. Skagit County, and especially Whatcom County, have large resources, and the preoccupation of this ground may discourage other parties from any attempt to build up a commercial city on Bellingham Bay. A branch from the Northern Pacific at the Common Point to Salal Prairie would not hurt, and might help the Seattle, Lake Sh.o.r.e and Eastern road.

Besides the short spurs to the mines on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, there may be needed branches up Cle-ellum, and other rivers, to mines. I cannot see the wisdom of a branch to the Walla Walla country, which could be reached only by paralleling the Northern Pacific down the Yakima River, or else by striking off in the Great Bend, and crossing the Northern Pacific and its Palouse branch, and then Snake River, to reach a country already occupied by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and lying over 100 miles nearer to the tidal market along a down grade, than by the Seattle road with its mountain crossing.

[Sidenote: The Palouse country.]

A branch into the Palouse country would have more to recommend it. It is nearer, and compet.i.tion will be on more equal terms. There are now three railroads in the Palouse country: namely, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's road from Palouse Junction to Moscow, Idaho, pa.s.sing through Colfax; the Farmington branch of this road, from Colfax to Farmington, and the Spokane and Palouse, which runs from Marshall, on the Northern Pacific, to Genesee. But a road pa.s.sing through Sprague and Colfax to Lewiston would cross some rich, unoccupied territory, and everywhere would compete for business on fair terms.

Whilst I was in Colfax, at my suggestion, the town was canva.s.sed as to the annual amount of its freight. The aggregate amount paid by fifteen firms reached $200,000, and the balance was estimated at $25,000, making $225,000. Five firms claimed to handle annually 2,075,000 bushels of wheat, making 62,250 tons. These figures seem large for so small a place as Colfax.

The length of this branch would, of course, be affected by the location of the main line across Great Bend. If the main line should take the route preferred by Mr. Mohr, Wheatland would probably be the nearest starting-point. This would be all the better for Spokane Falls; but for the long haul to Puget Sound, it would seem to be more desirable for the junction to be farther west.

<script>