WEST SHORE.
853
POINTS ABOUT FAIRHAVEN.
Fairhaven, the youngest town on Bellingham bay, Wash
ington, is getting to the front at a rapid pace. The Herald sug
gests points for consideration in the following style : Why do
you suppose men of intelligence, experience and financial ac
umen build such houses as the Fairhaven hotel, costing $100,
000? Why do you suppore they establish a first class electric
light system with its machinery, poles, wires, arc lights which
brilliantly illuminate the streets from dewy eve to rosy morn,
and which provides its thousands of incandescent lights in
homes and business houses, and which is providing for elec
tric motor power for shops, factories, etc. ? Why do you sup
pose that such men have placed beneath the ground nine miles
of steel water mains, running their deep trenches over hill and
dale, through land covered with monster fir stumps, which
must be hewn away and into a dense forest to a trout lake
three miles away, bringing pure, fresh water in vast quantities
to Fairhaven? Why do you suppose that hundreds of men
are at work, under great expense, grading and planking the
streets of Fairhaven? Why do you suppose that immense
docks and wharves are being constructed ? Why are saw mills,
brick kilns and shingle factories running to their full capacity
and every modern improvement for increasing their capacity
doubled? Why are thousands of men working at engineering,
grading, blasting cuts through the solid rock, driving piles on
tide lands and laying railroad tracks toward the north, the
south and the east? Men who know what they are about are
building splendid business structures because they know that
Fairhaven is to be a great city. The electric light and water
systems have been put in to supply thousands of people with
light and water because the projectors of these systems know
that the people will be here to patronize them ; the streets are
being permanently graded for adaptation to the wants of the
great city and temporarily planked in order to keep traffic out
of the mud of the rainy seasons until they can be paved more
solidly when it is possible. Docks and wharves are being con
structed to accommodate ships and all manner of sea-going
craft from every quarter of the globe that will come to this port
to bring the products of the world and to carry away our iron,
coal, marble, lime, grain, fruit and every other element of com
merce which Fairhaven and the tributary region will turn out.
The saw mills, shingle machines, brick yards and all that, are
working to supply building material for the construction of the
thousands of houses which are to be erected on the site of the
city ; the railroads are being constructed because all the im
mense resources of this region are pleading to the commerce of
the world to be borne into the mighty channels of trade, and
because Fairhaven is the easiest, nearest and most natural en
trepot for the tea, silk, rice and general trade of Japan, China
and all the opulent regions of the Orient with the continent of
North America.
Tributary to Fairhaven are the largest coal veins in the
world and mountains of iron, and here in Fairhaven, on the
Bhores of Bellingham bay, the projectors of blast furnaces,
foundries and smelters have secured sites for plants which
will be at work within another year reducing and shaping the
iron and smelting the precious ores of the Okanogan region.
Within three months the northern division of the Fairhaven &
Southern railroad will have its connection at New Westminster,
British Columbia, with the Canadian Facific railroad, and over
that line will come to Fairhaven from the east the supplies for
the building of the Fairhaven & Southern southward, until,
within the present year, connection will be made at Tacoma
with the Northern, Union and Southern Facific railroads. The
Canadian Pacific will also bring the rails and other iron mate
rial for the construction of the main branch of the Fairhaven
& Southern, which is now being pushed up the Skagit river to
the pass through the Cascade mountains, where engineers are
now at work locating the cite of the tunnel through that range.
This road will connect east of the mountains with another road
building westward, which will give to Fairhaven within eigh
teen months, or less time, a direct communication with the
east on a through line, by far the shortest of all the transconti
nental lines.
Developments within the last few days make the railroad
outlook still more promising. The Great Northern railway,
which is rapidly filling in the connecting links between the
east and west, has floated (30,000.000 worth of its bonds in the
London market for the purpose of pushing the completion of
the road to the Facific coast. It has purchased the Fairhaven '
& Southern railroad, with all its rights and franchises, includ
ing the northern division which connects with the Canadian
Pacific at New Westminster. The transfer also includes the
eastern branch, main line, which is being built up the Skagit
river and is to cross the Cascades at Skagit pass to a connec
tion with the Great Northern line building westward, and the
line running south through Seattle and Tacoma to the Colum
bia river, together with 100 acres of terminal ground at Fair
haven. It is a part of the contract that the northern division
of the Fairhaven & Southern shall be completed to New West
minster under the present management of that road. It is
understood that this new transcontinental line will be com
pleted by the end of next year and that a line of trans-Pacific
steamers will be run in connection therewith.
MINES ABOUT ELLBNSBUROH.
Ellensburgh is rapidly coming to the front as one of the
mining centers of Washington. Besides being at the gateway
to the Okanogan belt, in the northern part of the state, there
are a number of very promising districts being develojied with
in the boundaries of Kittitas county. The reshastan group, ly
ing thirty-seven miles to the north of the city, are good gold
producers. The working value of the gold ores of those mines
ranges betwoen $12 and $15 per ton of free gold, while there are
present sulphurets of iron carrying gold in alloy that adds from
$15 to $75 per ton to the real value of the output. The incon
venience of reaching a railroad has prevented the shipment of
sulphureU and the mines have been worked In a rather primi
tive fashion for pure gold only. But many thousands of dol
lars have been taken from them and enough prospecting has
been done to make certain the development of a rich mineral
district when railway communication is establlHhed to that
country. A road up the Wenatchle river would afford a much
needed outlet there.
The Swauk placer mines are only twenty-five miles north of
Ellensburgh and considerable Interest is being directed to the