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-