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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1887)
THE WEST SHORE. Dallaa ij a desirable place of residence. It im a good graded school, em ploying three teachers, and hating two hundred scholars. The edifice is a large frame structure, standing not far fiora the de L In addition to thin, the Ia Creole academy ha aliout one hundred pupik This is an institntinu founded many years ago, by the gift of the land njwn which the city standi. The site was laid out in lots and sold, the proceeds being used to establish the school It now occupies a site of ten acres on the edge of the city. It is non-sectArian, and is managed by a !oard of trustees. An endowment of 1,000.00, for the sal aries of teachers, has been given the in stitution. The Itmriztr is an excellent weekly pAjer, published by Graham (Jlass, Jr., and ia full of news and mattters of i n tor ch t pertaining to Polk county. There aro three churches, Monging, resject- ively, to the Methodists, IJaptista and Southern Methodists. The Christians have an organization, but no church ed ifice. Taken alt gether, Dallas is a pleasant placo of residence and a pros M'nns buHinens community. The jkhv plo aro intelligent, refined, and extreme ly hospitable, and he who takes up his resilience among them will have occa sion to feel that his lines have been cast in pleasant places. The second town in size is Indepen dence, on the wet bank of the Willam ette, a live and growing place of about nine hundred inhabitants. Tho town is compactly built, as apjear8 in tho en graving on jago (ilfi, the business por tion lying along two streets, one parallel with the river, and tho other eroding this one at right angles, ling the street leading to the ferry landing. There aro alwut thirty business houses, ono of them carrying a stock of i000.00, and thrv others from $10,000.00 to $i:, 00C10Q each. There are two banks, and two hotels. There is an opening for a good furniture store with a capital of about $3,000.00. The country for many miles around is more or less tributary to Independence, and this is a favorite shipping point, .owing to the fact that there is active competition between three lines of transjwrtation, the Oregon fc California railroad, and the boats of the O. II fc N. Co. and the Oregon Pacific. There are four wareiouses, handling fully two hundred thousand bushels of wheat, all under tho control of J. C. Cooper, at whose bank the bus iness is transacted. Three of these are along tho railroad, and the fourth, a huge ono with a capacity of ono hun dred and fifty thousand bushels, stands on tho bank of the river. The manufacturing enterprises con sist of a good sash and door factory, a large saw mill, cutting twenty-five thou sand feet per day, and a custom gribt milL There is a small saw mill not run ning. This is ono of the best flouring pointa in the "Willamette valley. Excel lent water power can bo had by tho ex penditure of a little money, and tho ship ping facilities, by rail and river, are un surpassed, while tho best quality of wheat is unlimited. Tho citizens would take stock in an enterprise of that kind, if on a sufficiently large scale to bo a benefit to the place. Independence is a progressive town. It already possesses ten brick buildings, all erected within tho past five years, and two others are in contemplation. It has a large depot for agricultural ma chinery, from which nearly the whole county is supplied. A largo brick yard in the vicinity manufactures brick for all the towns of that region. It has an excellent graded school, with four teach ers and two hundred scholars; and the old town, that portion lying north of the bridge and not included in the corpo rate limits, has another school, employ-