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THE
BASIN OF THE COLUMBIA
AN EMPIRE ITSELF
dp FFDFNrF a. Ladd ? Til ton r Portland
KcrcKcyco. v s national Bank, Portland
By J. P. W ACER.
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THE Columbia basin, locally known
aa ths Inland Smptra and tha
Upper Country, la tha moat In
teresting portion of our whole
country. It la ao because of Its varled
nesa of physical features of resources,
of opportunities. Within It one can
And or produce almost anything de
sired, except tropical fruits or a sea
shore. The limits and area of this region
are not easily described briefly and with
exactitude. It Is simply all that part
of the country sloping from the circum
jacent mountains! to the Columbia river.
Including only the lower portion of the
southern branch or Snake river. Tha
Cascade mountains are tha western
boundary of this baaln; Us southern
rim follows tha Irregular contour of
the Blue mountains; the Blttsr Root
and other mountains' elevations of
Idaho overlooked It from tha east, and
northward and ' northeasterly It extends
almost Indefinitely Into British Colum
bia. In It lie the whola or larger por
tions of ten northeastern Oregon coun
ties, the greater 'portion of tha state of
Washington east of the Cascades, and a
big patch of northern Idaho alto
gether 85.000 or 70,000 square miles
an area aa large aa two or three of tha
larger eastern states, and In which half
a dosen of the smaller ones could nestle
without Intruding on the edges.
Settlement and Development.
When, one hundred years ago. Lewis
Opportunities and resources srs unlimited.
Covers about 70,000 square mile.
Row tha country is developing.
Richest wheat land on tha glob.
Improved waterways will add wealth to the Inland Empire."
Boil produces premium crops of the world.
frost, wind and wash, erosion and de
composition. Boll formed on the moun
tains, and forests appeared. In yearly
enlarging spots tha sand and lava wars
converted Into loam, until it la now In
places more than 10 feet deep the rich
est and most durable wheat land on
earth. Over most of the rolling plains
a peculiar and wonderfully nutritious
grass grew, and when white men first
ventured Into this region with the nu
cleus of their future herds the bunch
grass grew thick and rank over most of
that region. And there It lay. for hun
dreds, thousands of years, waiting for
the coming men. They came, are com
ing yet) there Is room and opportunity
in that vastly rich and varied mountain
circled and guarded land for hundreds
of thousands more.
The first white men to pitch tents of
habitation there, savs an occasional
Hudson Bay trapper? were the mission
aries, who came to convert the Indiana,
Pacific neighbors, whose pulsing engines
shout to the producers and consumers
of the Island Empire: "I open to you
the markets of the world; the world's
goods that you desire I deliver at your
doors.'
Other regions In the middle west have
been settled more rapidly, mors numer
ously, within less time; but none are In
such a setting, none have such varied
charms, none such possibilities Sf
future development
Not only Lewis and Clark, but the
earliest missionaries, who penetrated
that region 40 years later, standing on
an eminence overlooking this whole
region, and Imagining them gifted with
supernatural powers of vision and hear
ing, could have discerned no sign of
human life or habitation, save the
smoke of squaw-built fires from dis
tant wickiups, heard no sound savs the
terminus, has been more and more im
pressed, not only upon congress, b
upon our own people; gradually it Is
more clearly aeon and generally agreed
that the Interests of the Inland Empire
and of Portland are one. that they must
pull together; and at last they are do
ing so. Ann tne main object of thi
concerted snorts must be an opsa Cs
This Columbia river Is the greatest
physical feature and factor In all the
Pactflo northwest. volume both In
structive and Interesting could he writ
tea about It alone. It Is one of the
great rivers of the world, not only In
length and volume, hut la commercial
Importance. It Is the great key to the
Inland Empire's perpetual garnery of
prosperity. It Is the greatest gift of the
creative and formative gods to the peo
ple of that region for not only this gen
eration and the next, hut for thousands
Of generations to some, when the Inland
Empire will be swarming with millions
of people, and when Its wealth will far
exceed that sx the whole Pacific north
west now.
The Columbia's two principal and
mammoth branches, uniting in the flat
sands where the town of Pasco was
bunt, take tortuous courses many hun
dreds of skOss spars. After flowing
several nunorea muss through British
Columbia, the main branch crosses the
national boundary lias, and in Washing
ton makes a long detour to the west.
Columbia River Valley at The Dalles,
and ciark having been led through
tumultously tumbled-up and seemingly
Interminable mountains by the bird wo
man, emerged from the timber and over
looked this vast expanse. It was a waste,
as to use, a wilderness Inhabited only
by wild beasts and-uncivilised Indians;
the first white man's tread upon this
empire of natural wealth wss theirs,
end if the autumn sun wss shining
brightly. It must have been to them a
scene at once of unspeakable relief and
of soothing resplendence. Tet, passing
between the ssnd banks of the Colum
bia, they snw not In detail the region
they traversed, nor learned much of It
If their thoughts ran forward 100 years.
It must have been but vaguely, dimly.
Who. 100 years ago, could foresee what
would happen In our landt who gussa
what a transformation would. be
wrought? None then, nor any even half
that long ago. when the pioneers were
traversing this desert basin, aa they
thought it to Oregon the only Inhabit
able part of Oregon the Willamette
valley, indeed. It Is scarcely more than
s quarter of a century ago that agricul
tural developments began, on any con
siderable scale. And even now probably
not one In ten of Its Inhabitants have
any adeeuate conception of the possi
bilities of development In that region
in the nest hundred, fifty, even twenty
five years. It Is yet a new country.
New, but old. no scientist Jares mors
than vaguely guess how old. Nature
works surely, but in many cases slowly,
flhe Is prodigal of time. To her a thou
sand years Is aa but a minute to a
man. It may take her a million years
to make a patch of earth'e surface fer
tile for man's uses, even with Irriga
tion. She ceres not which particular
generations shall suckle at her myriad
nlppled breasts.
This region, the . geologists tell us,
was once a great Inland sea, after the
Cascade mountains bad been upheaved.
But the Columbia slowly pushed and
ate Its way through the mountains, the
volcanoa poured forth over the whole
basin inconceivable volumes of lava,
the water disappeared and In Its place
there gleamed In the sun and steamed
In the rains a vaster lava bed than the
eye of modern man ever beheld or con
ceived of. Then, In her leisurely way,
nature began her long job of soil-making
there, not finished yet Season after
season, year after year, century efter
century, the work went on. through the
agency of sun and storm, heat and
and aa fhsss efforts hang many tales of
self-sacrifice, well or ill-directed seal.
jealousy end strife, mercy and massa
cre.
Next came the stock men, who settled
st long distances apart along the rivers
and creeks, and built their log cabins
and saw their herds rolling In fat the
year 'round only onoe, 44 years ago.
coming a winter that destroyed the
stock In great numbers as long as the
natural grass lasted. For a score of
years or so the scattered stockmen held
sway, and then the galloping broncho
began to give way to the staid plow
horse, the cloven hoofs to tbs plow.
One settler after another discovered that
the light, loose loam would produce
wheat; not only so, but such crops of
whsat as had never been heard of In
their day In any other part of the
United States. Bo the wheat-raising
arse, beginning In the Walla Walls val
ley, and near western Oregon, rapidly
spread and still Is spreading, until that
region this year produced nearly 10,
000.000 bushels of wheat, The lesson
that In moat seasons whsat can be raised
sa land hitherto thought too dry and
light for that purpose, Is being learned
anew every year in Morrow and Gil
liam eountiee. In the Big Bend country,
on Eureka Flat and elsewhere. No soli
In the United States Is so easily culti
vated; nowhere, lu such a year as this
has been, can anything approaching
such profits In farming be made.
And of course other oereals, and
vegetables and fruits can be and are
also grown, so that large areas of the
Columbia basin are today the choicest
agricultural lands between the oceans..
But the stock ware not driven out
Stockmen lost most of the range, the
natural graae has vanished, but they
simply raised feed and kept their stock
within closer limits. Now many of
them are ralelng great quantities of
alfalfa, and the mountains furnish sum
mer range for hundreds of thousands
of sheep.
Along with the Influx of stockmen.
and more especially of farmers, came the
organisation of the usual adjuncts of
society schools, churches, mills, banks.
Towns sprang up at natural points,
settlement and business grew apace,
products Increased and multiplied In
volume, and then came the railroads,
those mighty developers whose bands
of steel connect the oceans snd make the
people of the Atlantic and those of the
bark of some Indian's dog, the yelp of
a coyote, or the converse of forest
beasts snd birds. A few years later,
one from the asms spot might have be
held added slender columns of smoke
rising from hundreds of stock raisers'
cabins, and herds of cattle and horses
feeding on the vast undulating plains,
and heard the eowpunchere' halloas.
And beheld, the observer, returning to
bis vantage point ere he has scarcely
had time to grow good and gray, looks
on cities, villages, mile-broad grain
fields innumerable, a hundred thousand
farm houses, a million acres of wheat
meadows, orchards, gardens a veritable
land of plenty. And there, creeping aa
it seems, but really rushing down tha
side of tha Blue mountains; and there.
apparently crawling but really speeding
through that beautiful Walla Walla
valley; and yet there up northward
through the Palouss country, un
parallel for fertility; and up along the
Spokane river, with its falls of sur
passing beauty end tremendous power
and down through the sands of the Co
lumbia's banks, and yonder climbing the
slopes of the Cascades, he sees the
smoke and hears the shrieks of many
engines, and hears the rumbling of
many trains, at onoe evidences snd
agencies of the etupendous change that
haa taken place, that Is yet going on,
that shsll not cease, till long hence.
But en even greater development is
soon to take place throughout that
peculiarly Interesting. Inviting and opportunity-offering
region. It has aa
yet been In a measure isolated, com
mercially, and bottled up by the ob
structions in the Columbia river, pre
venting its navigation, at the Cascades
and above The Dalles. The former, after
20 years' work by the government have
been obviated by a canal and locks;
the latter, there Is reason to hope, will
be obviated In leee than half that time
by a similar expedient Meanwhile a
portage railroad around these obstruc
tions will be built within the next few
months, and will have the effect of
greatly reducing the rates of freight
on exports from and imports Into this
Inland Empire.
The Columbia Blver.
Gradually the Importance or open
ing the Columbia river to navigation.
and deepening Its channel st the mouth
and below Portland, the railroads'
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1 Plowing in the Inland Empire.
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seeking the shortest course of egress to
the calling mother sea. Repulsed by the
granite ribs of spurs sf the Cs sondes, It
flows southward, seeking a westward
outlet but Instead Is again forced east
ward, thus Inclosing on three eldee the
Big Bend country, where, too, stock is
giving way to whsat Southward again
It turns, snd at last finds, or, reinforced
by the still mors tortuous and widely
meandering Snake, forces Its way almost
due west to the ocean. The Snake winds
through the rough snd repellent hills of
Wyoming and southern Idaho, at tha
Oregon line turns north as If seeking its
Widely sundered mate for as babies
they were born neighbors In you high
Rockies men westward, succeeding in
He search in southeastern Washington.
The Snake, above Lewlston, Ida., runs
through a very rugged country, rlob in
mineral wealth, but not generally adapt
ed to agriculture. It le navigable most
of the year to Lewlston. The other or
main branch of the Columbia, sometimes
running through precipitous basaltic
palisades hundreds of feet high, tra
verses an elevated expanse of prairie.
becoming more rough as one travels
northward, and varying from lands si
ready fertile to these that are eeml-arld.
and to others yet a desert, unless lrrl
gated.
These Improvements above The Dalles
will open up the river to Lewlston, Ida.
and for small craft to Priest rapids, far
up In the Interior of eastern washing
ton. Water transportation Is cheep; snd
the .open river will bring rail transpor
tation nearly down to water-transportation
rates. This means a saving of more
then $2, 000,000 a year to the people of
the Inland Empire on wheat alone-
total saving or probably M.000.000 a
year now and of an Increasing amount
from yeer to year. Surely an open river
te worth their best efforts.
An open river will mean greater pro
duction in volume and variety, a popu
latlon Increasing much more rapidly than
In the past. Isrger cities, more business
of all kinds a long round and wide
range of communities that for prosper
ity, comfort, advantages, opportunities,
progress snd Intelligence cannot be ex
celled anywhere even In this great and
glorious country.
A Goodly Snad.
This mountain-girt basin Is still in
process of evolution from primeval vol
canic ash to soil that win produce the
premium crope of the world. Its sur
rounding mountains srs covered- with
forests, snd from them Issue numerous
streams that are ueed to turn the wheels
of many mills, snd In plsces to make
erstwhile desert plsces blossom as ths
rose with the bountiful crope of alfalfa
and other grasses, fruits, vegetables snd
sugar beets. The mountains furnish the
plains with wood and lumber at moder
ate prices, valuable coal beds have been
discovered, precious metals In the cir
cumjacent mountains tempt ths pros
pector not In vein; there Is game in
them, too, and trout in their streams,
and wild fowl on the pralrlea; and In the
very atmosphere a balsamic fragrance
from the mountain pines, snd a tincture
of Invigorating volcanic vitality.
This region's deep loam thrills with
fecundity: Its mountain sldee ever wave
a verdurous and fragrant Welcome of
their myriad conlferae and murmur and
chatter Invitingly In their rippling
brooks: Its very sands, where the hardy
segebrush brows but etuntedly snd for
lornly, teem with msrvelous fertility st
the kiss or percolating water, making
the desert blossom ss ths rose.
Mountains end plains, streams snd
soil., climate and situation, combine to
make the Inland Empire one of the
choicest regions on God's many-featured
footstool, snd naturally Its people srs
energetic, enterprising, progressive. In
telligent, thriving snd well fitted to en
joy snd Improve the gifts which nature,
through her eonlsn processes, has lav
ished upon this region. c
Overbeck, Starr
'. . , ....... -.
Cooke Co.
(Members Chicago Board of Trade)
mm
I QRAN,
I RROVSONS.
I STOCKS,
I BONDS AND
I COTTON
I I I
I WE DO A STRICTLY COMMISSION BUSINESS
I 102 Third Street .'. Portland, Oregon
gaBBBBBBBSBB ' StVI
I ' ,
without
From ths New Tork Bun.
"Before I ever wore glasses," said a
man who now does wear them, T used
to wonder how all the opticians made
a living, there were so many of them.
It seemed to me thst If all creation was
blind It wouldn't be enough to supply
them all with business. But now I
know.
"When Z first put on glasses I said to
myself. WelL that's dons. I'vs got my
glasses;' and I supposed that's all there
was to It I thought that in five or 10
years or so Td get my eyes examined
over again and maybe have to buy an
other pair, but that In the meantime I
should be under no further exponas.
"But as a matter of fact I smashed
my first pair of glasses ths day after
I got .them, and I break my glassss on
an average now about 17 times a year. I
had thought that my optician and I
would bo comparative strangers. I
should see him so seldom; but actually
I see him often.
"I am a regular customer, and Instead
of being comparative strangers . we are
really well acquainted and friends. I
certainly couldn't get along
him. and I don't suppose he could get
along without me.
"And that accounts for the optician's
prosperity. It isn't ths original
ber of glasses he sells, but H Is
number of renewals and repairs
makes that keens him solng. and
htm rich: and when I look at it Id
light and reflect that while perhaps net
more than ons person in 10 wears
glasses, yet in effect hie customers
number more than all creation, why. m
wonder le not that there are so many
opticians, but that there are not mors.'
tha
ho
this
a Portland
Retail Lumber Co
ALL KINDS OF
BUILDING LUMBER
LATH AND SHINGLES
I.uff Is a period of Intoxication, und
marriage Is dsr vster vsgon.
Cedar, Spruce and Fir Lumber a Specialty
PRICE LIST FURNISHED ON APPLICATION
. . i- . ,e. - - ' r." ImsOTsV.' 1 "SavassssssmssssssssssslsssssWaL r '" lfPXS toj '" ' 'BBsBM
N. W. Corr Third ami Wnltagttm Sto.
PHONE MAIN 689 PORTLAND, C