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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1885)
130 THE WEST SHORE. years become of equal importance with the parent houses, while new enterprises founded there will acquire equal stability. The immense dry goods house of IL B. Clailiu & Co., of New York, is already constructing a four-story brick building in which a branch wholesale store will be established. The completion of the railroad is all that is necessary to set in motion the forces destined to work out this indisputable result Work upon the Cascades Division is progressing rupidly. The road is steadily advancing westward and will soon reach the mountains. The route through the Cascades embraces a long tunnel which cannot be completed under two years, but the company has announced Unit a temporary track will be laid over the mountains, which will give connection with the line already constructed from Taooma to their eastern base within a year, and enable them to operate the through line without waiting for the tunnel to be com pleted. Ah a shipping point for the wheat, Hour and other products of all that xrtion of the great Iulund Empire reached by the Northern Pacific, Taooma will, within a year from tho completion of that road, become of great imxrtauce. The entire Yakima and Kittitas regions, now being ojxmed up, will be solely tributary to the Sound, also the Dig Vend and tho greater portion of the region north of Huake Ilivcr, while with the contemplated branch from Aiusworlh to Walla Walla, Taooma will have an equal chance of drawing trade and products from the magnificent wheat bolt lying along the base of the lilue Mountains south of Snake River. Direct ship ment by rail to her grain elevators, and direct loading ink) largo vessels floating in deep sea water at her wharvos, aro tho facilities Taooma will offer to the wheat shipers of the interior, and there is no question but that an enormous quantity of grain will find it cheaper to seek tho terminus for shipment than to follow the prosent channels. Reciprocity is groat law of commerce, and it naturally follows that tho vast region which will find an outlet in Taooma for its products will also find there a base of supplies for great quantities of merchandise and manufactured articles now drawn from other sources. Taooma is to-lay the most prosjierous city in the Northwest and suffers the least from the effects of the prevailing business depression. Her business men are young, tmorgetio and watchful of their opportunities. They are auimated by that spirit of regard for the genoral publio welfare which is the very life-blood of a business community. No public enterprise of merit is permitted to languish for want of support, and every projocted in dustry which is calculated to benefit the city is given hearty welcome and sulmtantial encouragement They Lavs orgauised a Chamber of Commerce, with a member ship fee of 1100, which is about to erect a magnifioent three-story brick structure. With such vigorous business men to guard her interests, pushing their trade into very possible chanuol, forcing openings where none ustad before, and on the alert to grasp and hold every advantage to be derived from the completion of the rail road, who can doubt the future of Taooma? It is often asserted by those who pretend to view the matter in a "philosophical" light that Tacoma has not, like Portland, a great agricultural country to back her, and therefore can never become a city of equal import ance. Granting the accuracy of the argument, it is easy to show the fallacy of the premise upon which it is founded. Tacoma has an agricultural country to back her, equal, if nqt greater, than that tributary to Portland. In the valleys of the Puyallup and other rivers flowing into the Sound, in the long-settled and productive regions of Cowlitz and Lewis counties and the great valley of the Chehalis, besides numerous other, arable tracts, Taooma MssesBes a tributary region as near as is the greater por tion of the Willamette Valley to Portland. Taken in the aggregate, these tracts make an agricultural area of vast proportions. The regions that will be rendered tributary by the completion of the road have been spoken of above. The large and fertile valley of Kittitas lies as near as Lane County to Portland, the great Yakima country as near as the Umpqua, while the centre of the great region east of the Columbia and north of Snake River, as well as the AValla Walla region, is as near as Rogue River Valley to Portland. It is easily seen that Tacoma will have fully as great an agricultural region solely tributary to her, with an equal chance in that vast country accessi ble to both cities. Her territory, too, is undergoing more rapid development, and is being settled by a more ener getic and vigorous class than those who have so long held Western Oregon in an unprogressive state. Besides this she already has lumbering industries far superior to those of Portland, and is the shipping point for large coal mines, of which Portland has none whatever. To say that Taooma has no country to back her is to display the densest ignorance on the subject She is blessed with all the elements requisite to a large commercial city, and it is the part of true wisdom to acknowledge it The immigration question is a very complex one. In formation is disseminated in so many different ways, and through such varied agencies, that when wrong ideas are oonveyed it is almost a matter of impossibility to deter mine whore the responsibility lies. That many people come to this region with inflated imaginations and absurd ideas of what they will encounter is true, and tho problem of how such impressions took possession of them is a difficult one. Immigration literature is, of course, open to the charge of dwelling more upon the advantages than the defects of the region of which it treats. Unfavorable conditions are lightly touched upon or ignored entirely, while much stress is laid upon all favorable features. This should be expected by every one. People in this world advertise their advantages, not their failings. Yet there seem to be many intelligent people who do not pos sess sufficient knowledge of human nature and enough good judgment, based upon au acquaintance with those innumerable geographical, scientific and simple facta