The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce

by William Denison Lyman

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of the shipping trade to Portland people has been the increase in the size of ships entering the River. In 1872 the average wheat cargo exported was 33,615 bushels, while now it is four times as much. The record cargo was that of the British bark Andorinha, in the fall of 1908, 189,282 bushels. The channel from Portland to the Columbia Bar and that across the Bar have so much improved that no lightering was necessary during the year 1908, and ships of twenty-five and twenty-six feet draft have gone from Portland to the ocean without difficulty. In connection with this fact we are told that in June, 1907, the International Sailing-ship Owners’ Union abolished the differential of thirty cents per ton which had stood for some years against Portland. These conditions, together with the completion of the North Bank Railroad, by which a greatly added traffic from the Inland Empire will be turned to Portland, seem to indicate that Portland is on the direct road to a greater commercial leadership than she has yet known. The lumber industry centring in Portland is as remarkable as that of grain. Oregon’s available forests, according to Government estimates, reach a total of three hundred billion feet, board measure. It is estimated that during the years 1906-8 the lumber cut in Oregon reached about two billion feet each year, of which about one fifth was sawed in Portland. It is asserted, in fact, that Portland is the largest lumber producing city in the world. Lumbermen believe that it is only a question of a few years when Portland will cut a billion feet of lumber a year. While grain and lumber are the great articles of export from Portland, there are vast totals of fruit, hay, live-stock, dairy and poultry products, fish, and manufactured articles of many kinds.

But to the thoughtful traveller it is of more interest to see the use made of wealth than the wealth itself. Portland now contains about two hundred thousand people, said to have more per capita wealth than any other city, with two exceptions, in the United States. What are these people doing with their accumulations? For answer the traveller visits the schools, the public buildings, the churches, the stores, the places of amusement, the homes, and he finds every evidence of taste, good judgment, refinement, and artistic skill. The Portland Hotel, the Oregonian building, the Marquam Grand Theatre, the Marquam building, the Chamber of Commerce building, the Corbett block, the Wells-Fargo building, the First Congregational, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Baptist churches and Jewish Synagogue, the Union Depot, the City Hall, the City Library,—these and many other structures challenge the admiration of travellers from even the best-built cities of the East. During the year 1907, building permits were issued to an amount exceeding nine million dollars, of which nearly half was expended for dwelling houses. Portland is indeed a city of homes, and workingmen own their own houses to an unusual degree.

Portland in 1908. Mt. St. Helens, Sixty-five Miles Distant.

As the visitor traverses Portland’s streets, he sees amply demonstrated the propriety of the cognomen, the “Rose City.” Almost every yard boasts its roses, and on almost every porch the scarlet rambler or some other climber casts its rich colouring. Soil and climate are said to produce an ideal combination for the finest grades of roses, as well as of many other species of flowers. The Portland Fair of 1905 was the means of beautifying a section of the city near Macley Park. While most of the structures were of a temporary nature, the unique and interesting Forestry building has been left, and this is a rare attraction to the Eastern visitor. The two tasteful and significant groups of statuary, The Coming of the White Men and Sacajawea, still grace the spot where they were dedicated. Portland contains many other attractive works of art at available points. Among these is the Skidmore Fountain, on one of the most crowded thoroughfares of the city, a real gem of art.

No visitor to Portland should fail to visit the City Hall and the valuable and interesting historical collection of the Oregon Historical Society. Mr. George H. Himes, the Secretary of the Society, has devoted years to the gathering of this museum of pioneer relics. Some of them are priceless. Here is the first printing press in Oregon, used for some years by Rev. H. M. Spalding at the Nez Percé Mission. Here is Mrs. Whitman’s writing desk. Here is Captain Robert Gray’s sea-chest. The ages of discovery, of the fur-traders, of the missionaries, of the pioneers, are all lived over again in the inspection of these relics.

Probably most people who have followed the course of public thought and action in the West, if asked what agency and what man would first come into their minds at the mention of the name of Portland, would answer at once,—“The Oregonian and its editor, Harvey Scott.” This great journal and its great editor, associated together most of the time for over forty years, have indeed constituted one of the most potent forces in framing the thoughts and the institutions of the Columbia River people. It is frequently said that Harvey Scott and Henry Watterson are the only great American editors yet remaining of the old type, the type of a personal intellectual force and a public teacher. The present type of editor is rather an advertising manager than a political and social leader, a business man rather than a generator of ideas.

There are many additional features of interest in and around Portland. Whether viewed artistically, commercially, financially, socially, or historically, this fair metropolis of the Columbia River Empire is in a class by herself. Only by personal acquaintance can the student of the West satisfy himself as to Portland.

But once more we must address ourselves to the River. One may go to Astoria by rail down the southern bank, or he may, if he prefer, as we certainly do, go by water. He can go by almost every species of boat known to man, from an ocean steamship to one of the lateen-sailed fishing boats which abound on the lower River.

When we have retraced our course to the mouth of the Willamette and have again committed ourselves to the oceanward flow of the Columbia, we find a continuance of the same low, oozy, and verdant banks, the same timbered hills on either side in the middle distance, and the same dominant snow-peaks and unbroken Cascade Range in the farthest background. We pass many little towns, whose leading occupations are manifestly lumbering and fishing. We try to live over again the sensations which we think must have been felt by Lewis and Clark or Broughton, as they, first of civilised men, lifted the veil from this solitude.