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

by William Denison Lyman

Lower Spokane Falls.
Photo. by T. W. Tolman.

No one could consider that he had really seen Snake River unless he had visited the Great Shoshone Falls, or “Pahchulaka.” This sublime manifestation of nature’s power is about forty miles from the town of Shoshone on the Oregon Short Line. The total descent is nearly three hundred feet, of which eighty consists of cataracts and chutes broken by rocky islands, while the entire stream unites in the one final plunge of two hundred and twelve feet. It is ten hundred and fifty feet wide, and the walls of basaltic rock rise perpendicularly a thousand feet. Niagara is the only waterfall on the American continent that can be compared with Shoshone. Niagara is much wider but not so high. Its banks are tame, while those of Shoshone are wildly sublime.

The spectres of history rise up at every stage of a journey along Snake River. But we cannot pause. We pass on from the crossing of Snake River and soon find ourselves approaching Walla Walla. This is the most historic city of the Inland Empire and the oldest of the entire State of Washington, with the exception of Vancouver. The pleasant-sounding name signifies in the native tongue “Many Waters,” though more literally, as the author has been told by an old Cayuse Indian, “Place where four creeks meet.” The city of Walla Walla is thirty-two miles from the Columbia River in the midst of a broad and fertile valley, through which dozens of clear rivulets issuing from springs make their way through the birches and cottonwoods. The warm climate, rich soil, and abundant water, with multitudes of trees, give the “Garden City” an appearance of almost tropical luxuriance. On all sides for many miles stretch the wheat-fields, orchards, gardens, and alfalfa-fields. It is a land of plenty. It is commonly said that Walla Walla has more automobiles, more bicycles, more pianos, more flowers, and more pretty girls in proportion to population, than any other town in the North-west.

The special historic interest of Walla Walla is found in the fact that it was the location of the Whitman Mission and that the Whitman massacre took place at the Mission Station, Waiilatpu, six miles from the city. That spot is now marked with a marble crypt in which the bones of the martyrs rest, and a plain but imposing granite shaft stands upon the crest of the hill just above.

Cañon of the Stehekin, near Lake Chelan.
Photo. by T. W. Tolman.

A more living monument to the missionary is found in Whitman College. This institution, planned on the model of Amherst, Yale, and Williams, though co-educational, was founded by Rev. Cushing Eells in 1859 as an academy. It was not till 1883 that college work was undertaken. During that period the self-denying missionary and his family supported the infant institution by selling the products of their farm and devoting to it all except what was absolutely necessary for their own support. During years of slow, patient growth under very discouraging conditions, Whitman College has made friends East and West, and within the last few years it has become equipped with buildings and general facilities of high grade. An effort is now in progress, apparently sure of fulfilment, to raise two million dollars for buildings and general endowment. Walla Walla is becoming peculiarly known as the educational centre and the home city of the Inland Empire.

From Walla Walla we take a flying trip through the continued wheat belt on the Umatilla and its branches in Northern Oregon, a region similar to that around Walla Walla, rich and fruitful. Of this part of Oregon, Pendleton on the Umatilla is the metropolis. The Umatilla Indian Reservation, one of the most important in the history of this country, adjoins it. One of the most interesting persons in North-west history, now deceased, lived at Pendleton many years, Dr. William C. McKay, the son of Thomas McKay, and grandson of Alexander McKay, the last named being that one of the Astor company who lost his life on the Tonquin. Dr. William McKay was a three-quarter-blood Indian, but he was well educated and one of the most interesting men in our history. Another noted man, still living in the prime of life, is Major Lee Moorehouse, famous in earlier times as an Indian fighter and agent, and more recently as one of the most successful students and photographers of Indian life. Some of his pictures have gained national fame, and the publishers of this volume are indebted to his courtesy for their appearance here. Another interesting fact in connection with Pendleton is that here the Pendleton Indian robes and blankets are manufactured, and these have borne the name of their home place to all parts of the United States and even the world.

While in this part of Oregon we must take advantage of the opportunity to visit Lake Wallowa, with its tragic and pathetic memories of Indian war and early settlement and with its glorious scenery, almost equal to that of Chelan. Right over the lake, deep-set in precipitous mountain walls, towers the battlemented crest of Eagle Cap, which the people of Wallowa now declare to be the highest mountain in Oregon, 12,000 feet in elevation. Wallowa Lake is the veritable jewel of the Blue Mountains, a chain which, while not in general equal to the Cascades for height, grandeur, and variety, possesses in the Wallowa Basin a group of attractions not surpassed in any part of the North-west.