P.A. WORTHINGTON. – Weston, Oregon commands as fine a prospect as any city in the Inland Empire. It grows handsome itself very largely in proportion to its increase in population. This is becoming one of the pleasant features of towns and cities on the plains of the Columbia. These grassy hills and plateaus, destitute of timber for scores of miles, seem weary and monotonous in their very extensiveness. But the villages, cities and the better class of rural houses are now places of water and trees, arbors, turfy lawns and plazas, fruits and flowers, and are therefore of a nature of a retreat from the magnificent prairies and rolling plains which are at one time green and purple with young grass, later buff and tawny with the same grass sere, or a few weeks in winter white with snow. Weston is one of these places; and one of the handsomest residences there is that of Mr. P.A. Worthington.
His home is an index of his prosperity; and we find, upon inquiry, that he is one of the foremost men of the place. His career illustrates how men in the Northwest rise from a capital consisting of their hands and their brains to a competency. Born in Eastern Tennessee in 1853, he move to Missouri in 1874; and, crossing the plains with horse-teams in 1875, located permanently at Weston. Knowing the ins and outs of carpentering, he went to work with his hands at his trade; and, when work of this kind did not offer, accepted any manual labor. After a time he found an opportunity to keep books, and spent thus two yeas at the desk. This led the way to a position as clerk in the large mercantile establishment of Saling & Rees. When that firm dissolved partnership, he was prepared to go into business in the firm of Saling & Co., one of the strongest in Umatilla county.
He was married in 1878 to Miss Cora A. Saling; and it is undoubtedly much due to her that he has secured such great prosperity. They have one daughter, Helen. Mr. Worthington is still a young man, and has a hold upon the business of the country which should lift him into the front rank of the men of affairs. He had faith in the Weston country when many declared it too rough and dry for any practical use except for grazing. He now reaps the reward of his confidence.
