JUNE 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
purpose of giving the right kind of information to
people who contemplate coming to Oregon and to enable
them to purchase property in right locations, at the
right prices and on favorable terms.
A Marketing Committee has also been organized
with experts who are helping the farmer to solve his
problems of marketing and to secure better prices for
his products.
A Publicity Committee has been in action for some
time, carrying on a nation-wide campaign to tell the
people throughout America the truth about Oregon, its
attractions, opportunities and climate, to direct the at
tention of those who during the past few years have
cast longing eyes towards the west and who have an
urge or a desire to indentify themselves with the west
and make Oregon their home.
The carefully planned and executed expenditure of
this fund, especially that part of it devoted to nation
wide publicity, in cooperation with the advertising of
the railroads, has had a tremendous effect upon the
development of tourist travel. The appeal has been
largely to vacationists because it is the only advertising
which is applicable to all classes of people; manufactu
rers, financiers, bankers, professional men, farmers,
trades people and laborers, all have a time for their
vacation. Vacations are arranged for, as a matter of
business, money is set aside for this purpose and the
railroad companies by the issuing of special tourist
rates encourage this business to the uttermost. The
result is that eight hundred and fifty thousand people
visited Oregon this last year and left no less than
twenty million dollars in the state. A large percentage
of these visitors came by automobile.
Portland’s popularity with the auto tourist is amply
sustained by the fact that about tweny-two thousand
automobiles—containing approximately ninety thousand
Page Forty-one
people—have registered in the municipal auto camp m
Portland. This travel is not only important from the
standpoint of the ready money which it leaves in the
state, and which has been instrumental in contributing
very largely to the profitable operation of all the hotels
in the state, and has served to contribute to the financial
benefit of most of our retail stores — especially so in
the cities and upon the main traveled highways—but
it is important as a nucleus for a very much larger
permanent population both in our cities and on our
lands.
.1 ;
Portland is the center of the best paved highway
system in the United States, another reason for our
prodigeous tourist travel. The Columbia River Highway
is paved one hundred and ten miles west to the Pacific
Ocean and over one hundred miles to the east and is
without question the most magnificent highway in the
world, both for the engineering skill in its construction,
its conformity with the natural contour of the country
through which it passes, and for the scenic grandeur
which is unfolded to the visitor, its entire length.
The Pacific Highway which crosses the Columbia
River at Portland is the longest paved highway in the
world, stretching from Vancouver, British Columbia
in the north thru the state of Washington, the state of
Oregon, the state of California to Tiajuana, Mexico, to
the south: sixteen hundred and sixty-four miles all
paved with the exception of one hundred and fourteen
miles in northern California. The Pacific High
way, especially through Oregon, passes through a most'
prosperous and beautiful farming country which is a
delight to all visitors. More people have heard of
Oregon during the last eighteen months than before
in all its history. Nearly twenty thousand inquiries
have been received by mail by the Portland Chamber of
Commerce as to Oregon’s future, and its possibilities,
its beauty, its climate
and its resources. The
population in Oregon is
steadily increasing and
there is no question
but that an era of
development and pros
perity has set in. The
people who come to
Oregon realize the fact
that the people here
live under the most
favorable conditions,
where there are all the
essentials for a perfect
family life: education
al facilities, outdoor
sports and amuse
ments, a temperate
climate, beautiful sur
roundings, in short, a
state which embraces
all the natural ele
ments that are essen
tial to human content
ment and happiness.
At the top of the trail of the Blue Mountains in Oregon.