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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1885)
120 THE WEST SHORE. Locks, Colilo, Bonneville, Oneonta, Fultonville and Grant la tlio interior are the small xmt village of Dufur, Non snne, Fossil, Wapinitia, Tygh, Bake Ovon, Mono, Auto Join Warnio, Kingsley, Blinrar Bridge, Grans Valloy, Erskineville, Badger and Wasco. OILMAN COUNTY. Tlio last Legislature created a now county with the name of Gilliam, taking land for that purpose from Wasco and Umatilla. Through it flows the John Day River to iU junction with the Columbia, and within its limit lie much of the John Day region doscribod in Wasco County. Tim loading induHtry is wool growing, though yearly agriculture is increasing, as land is boing taken from tlio range and given to tlio plow. Thore are thouaands of acres of good prairie wheat laud open for settlement The county seat is Alkali, a bustling town of a few years' growth, lying on tho Columbia and the 0. R. & N. Company's line, which crowns the northern end of the bounty skirting tho river. Blalock and Willows are other railroad stationa. UMATILLA COUNTY. The county of Umatilla has the Columbia on its north western side, Washington Torritory on tho north, the lllue Mouutaiiis on the caat and south, and on the south west and west the now counties of Morrow and Gilliam, both of which took considerable slices from its former are. It is tho banner wheat county of the Stote, Lying along the baae of the Blue Mountains for miles is a soil that in patches of 1,0110 acres has averaged thirty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, while smaller fields have averaged fifty. There are also large tract now used simply for gracing purposes that are arablo land, and a large Wit of upland toward the Columbia, but buck from that stream a few miles, that was formerly considered to have too light a rainfall and too sandy a soil to be valu able, but the nitt few years have demonstrated that a great deal of it will produce large cnis of grain withont irrigation. Indeed, even in the extremely dry season of 18811, one farm of 8,000 acres averaged thirty bushels to the acre, and another of 1,000 acres yielded an average of tweuty-five bushels. There is much of this land ojxm to settlement or purchase. Thousands of seres of good soil remain unsettled, and but a small percentage of the ground claimed is cultivated. When the land is all brought under the plow tho amount of grain produced will lie enormous almost beyond comprehension. Umatilla was formerly a great stock region, but that industry lias of Into years been sujwrscded largely by wheat raising and wool growing. Though the sections in which wool growing is carried on the most extensively have been given to the new counties, there are a great many sheep still within the limits of Umatilla. A largo tract of land along the base of the mountains, of the same quality as thst which has given Umatilla its wheat repu tation, is embraced in the Umatilla Indian Reservation. This will nn iMti n ibly sm be on the market, as a bill to that cud has numm1 Cougruss and awaits ouly Uie sanction of the few Indians on the reserve. The county is well watered by the Umatilla River and its tributaries, such as Butter, Wild Horse, Birch creeks and others in the central portion, and the Walla Walla, Tumalum and Pine Creek further north. There is also an abundance of springs, and water is found almost anywhere at a depth of fifteen to sixty feet The main line of the 0. R. & N. runs along the Columbia. A branch crosses the centre of the county and passos over the mountains to Baker City. This forms part of the route from Omaha to Portland From Pendleton a branch is constructed north to Walla Walla. These afford good shipping facil ities. Pendleton, the county sent, lies on the Umatilla River and the Baker City Branch of the O. R. & N., at the edge of the reservation, and is the largest town in the county. It contains a large roller flouring mill, a Bash and door factory, and a population of 1,800. Echo, on the same line, has l.r0 people and a flouring mill Foster is an other station. Umatilla, the point of junction with the main line, also has a mill On tho branch line from Pen dloton north are Adams, a new town of promise; Centre ville, with a population of 400; Weston, just off tile line, with GOO poojle, a flouring mill and planing mill; and Milton, with a flouring mill and planing mill Pilot Rock is an interior village south of Pendleton, and Castle Rock is a railroad point on the Columbia. MOItnOW COUNTY. The southwestern portion of Umatilla, the great sheop country of that region, was recently given to the new county of Morrow, of which Hoppner, the centre of the wool industry, is the county seat This county is sur roundod irregularly by Umatilla, Grant, Wasco and Gill iam. Until recent years the principal source of revenue of that region was the stock industry, and there is prob ably no country in which the raising of cattle, horses and sheep could be more profitably engaged. Of late years sheep have superseded cattle to a large extent, there being 200,000 of them in the vicinity of Heppner. Owing to a large influx of immigrants during the past two years, large areas of grazing land are now being rapidly trans formed into grain fields. Land that was formerly thought valuable only for grazing is now produoing from twenty . to forty bushels of wheat to the acre, or from two to three tons of hay. There is much of this quality of land still oon to settlement. Heppner is sixty miles distant from Alkali, the nearest railroad point, and is a good business town, with a flouring mill and planing milL UNION COUNTY. That .rtion of Oregon lying between the summit of the Blue Mountains and Snake River, and extending from Baker County to the line of Washington Territory, is known as the " County of Union." It has a superficial area of M00 square miles, the surface being much broken by the Blue Mountains on the west, and the Eagle Creek Mountains in the eastern portion. The m-.wt western portion oousista of the eastern slope of the Blue Moun-