Two Years in Oregon

by Wallis Nash

There is a large lumber-mill, which makes the air resonant with the shriek of the great saws; and a boot-and-shoe factory has been recently established. Other industries exist; but it is as a seaport that Astoria justifies its existence and the foresight of its founders.

Clatsop County has 7,200 inhabitants, of which, I suppose, Astoria claims a third. There is an air of business and life about the place, and there will be, so far as I can see, even though means should be found of ending the present practice of all large ships going to sea from Portland being towed to Astoria, and followed by scows and barges, there to complete their loading for their outward voyage. A similar necessity exists for incoming ships to stay at Astoria to discharge a large portion of their cargo before facing the shallows and mud-banks of the Willamette on the way to Portland as their port of discharge.

PORTLAND.The voyage up the Columbia for a hundred miles, and up the Willamette for twelve, to Portland, has many charms. First, the grand stream of the mighty Columbia, telling in its size and volume of the three thousand miles some of its waters have come from their far-off sources among distant mountains; then the banks, rising generally sheer from the water's edge, crowned with rich and varied vegetation, and here and there the rugged rocks breaking through, to give clearness and strength to outline; and then on either side the more distant hills, clothed with the dark fir-timber to their summits, and behind the mountains proper, with Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helen's showing their snowy heads. Here and there in a niche or angle under the bank lie huddled close the buildings of a cannery, the blue smoke rising from the central chimney, and the white boats tied to the piling which juts out into the deep water of the river.

You are hardly conscious of leaving the Columbia for the Willamette. It looks as if it were an island in mid-stream behind and to the south of which you are about to pass; but soon you find that the supposed island is the opposite bank of the Willamette, and, passing beacons and marks, set to define the channel with the accuracy that is absolutely needed (since a sheer to the east or west of only a yard or two would leave you fast in a mud-bank for hours), you come in sight of Portland.

I ought to have noticed that here and there along the banks coming up, almost on the river's level and exposed to inundation at each high water, you pass dairy-farms, consisting of a shanty, or tumble-down house, and a few acres of rank and muddy pasture, where ague seems to sit brooding on the branches of the trees, whose trunks and limbs yet bear the traces of last season's flood.

But now for the juvenile but audacious Portland, who describes herself as "the commercial metropolis of the Northwest." One considerable suburb, called East Portland, stands on the east bank of the Willamette; but the main part of the town is on the west bank, and now nearly fills all the level land between the river and the hills behind, which seem to be pushing at and resenting the intrusion of the streets along their sides. Extensions are taking place along the northern end, where a considerable stretch of low-lying land is yet available along the banks of the river, and also to some extent at the farther or southern end of the city. The building westward is mounting the hill-sides, already dotted with the somewhat pretentious wooden houses of the more prosperous towns-people.

To one who has seen real cities it is but a little place; but some of its twenty-one or twenty-two thousand inhabitants raise claims to greatness and even supremacy that make it difficult to suppress a smile. In thirty-five years the place has grown from a collection of log-huts, set down as if by chance, to its present dimensions, and, no doubt, could go on growing as fast as Oregon developed, could the same conditions last. The city consists of near a dozen streets running parallel with the Willamette, and about twenty-three at right angles. Front Street and First Street contain some brick buildings, remarkable for so very young a place: the former backs on the Willamette, and on it front the warehouses and wharves, against the backs of which the ships are moored; the latter contains nearly all the city's stores and shops of any consequence.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.The United States District and Circuit Courts sit at Portland. The former is and has been for several years presided over by the Hon. Matthew P. Deady. This gentleman's name will be long associated with the jurisprudence of Oregon, having been one of the original compilers of the Code, and reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State, until, promoted to the bench of the United States Court, he has taken a high place as a conscientious and able judge. To him also Portland mainly owes that which I consider the chief ornament and pride of the city, rather than the ambitious but faulty structures in wood, stone, and iron on which most of the citizens glorify themselves—I mean the Public Library. This institution has its headquarters in spacious rooms over Messrs. Ladd & Tilton's Bank; the shelves are filled with upward of ten thousand well-selected books, and the process of addition is going on under the same careful oversight. Here every evening are groups of readers, and it must be a source of constant satisfaction to the judge to have been the means of organizing and continuing the successful working of an institution which is effecting silent but untold good.

Portland is also the residence of Bishop Morris, of the Episcopal Church. He has resided there for twelve years past; and to him the city is indebted for the St. Vincent's Hospital, where accidents are treated at all times, and which is open for receiving besides a certain number of sick persons. The bishop has also founded and kept going the Bishop Scott Grammar-School. This is a high-school for boys. Last year it had fifty-nine pupils and five teachers, and a sound and solid education is there given. St. Helen's Hall, the best girls' school in the State, was also founded by him. There were here one hundred and sixty pupils and twelve teachers last year. Other churches exert themselves to occupy and hold prominent positions in the city: notably the Roman Catholics, whose archbishop, Seghers, resides in Portland, and who have erected a large red-brick cathedral. It is as yet unfinished, but a further effort by the Roman Catholics in the diocese is about to be made to complete and furnish it.

There is a fair theatre in the city; it is occupied now and again by a traveling troupe from San Francisco, generally consisting of a star, and his or her supports of a more or less wooden consistency.