FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Natural
Advantages for Commerce, Manufacturing, and
Residence
Next in line comes consideration of Portland's advantages as
a manufacturing point. First, as to raw material. It
scarcely need be said that if Portland can reach every part
of the Northwest by natural channels and roadways, she can
readily obtain all raw materials produced in the section.
Logs for manufacturing lumber may be brought up the Columbia
or floated down it, or floated down the Willamette, or
brought on rail cars from the forests to left or right.
Materials for the manufacture of paper are found near. Woods
for excelsior, furniture and ship-building are no less at
hand. Wheat, oats, rye, barley, for bread stuffs and meals;
wool, flax, hemp, for cloths, twines and ropes; broom corn;
manilla (from abroad) for ropes; tar and turpentine; ores of
lead, silver, gold, copper and quick-silver, nickel and
manganese from the whole circle of mountains; limestone;
cement rock, marble, all may be obtained from places
comparatively near. Iron, the sine qua non of modern
civilization, lies in hills of limonite six miles north, and
also eight miles south, and exists to even a greater extent
in portions of Columbia County distant twenty to forty
miles. Other iron beds are accessible from all parts of the
Northwest. Such a list of materials for manufactures at her
very doors, which must in truth pass by her to go else where
for working up, shows that Portland has no lack of stuff to
begin on.
While material is thus abundant-inexhaustible-power equal to
it may be found as near. Coal exists in vast deposits in the
mountains forty miles northwest, and may be obtained also in
ships or by car-loads from a dozen other points. But the
great source of power is the Fall of the Willamette at
Oregon City, twelve miles south. This is one half greater in
energy than the fall of St. Anthony, in the Mississippi, at
Minneapolis. It is forty feet high at low water of the
Columbia, and is six hundred feet across and never ice
bound. Streams might be led out from above this fall and
conducted in flumes along the hillsides to Portland, and
there be made to energize machinery. But it is now a more
popular method to reduce this power by means of dynamos, to
electricity, and convey it upon wires direct to the machine
rooms in the factories at Portland. The loss is found to be
but eighteen per cent.
As if this fall of the Willamette were not enough-sufficient
to drive the looms of Manchester-there are sixty miles
distant the Cascades of the Columbia, of one hundred times
greater strength-practically unlimited and infinite. At this
point the Columbia falls thirty feet in less than three
miles, with a volume varying according to the season from
ten million to seventy million cubic feet per minute -quite
equal to that of the Mississippi at its mouth. There is no
place in the world were there is such an aggregate of water
power on tide water, as at Portland, obtaining its supply
from these two cataracts. Power for manufacturing, like raw
material, is found here existing to an extent beyond all
calculation. It only remains to put the two together to do
the manufacturing of the world. Of course means of exit and
transport of the manufactured articles are as good as the
means of bringing in the raw materials.
It only remains to consider the supply of labor to close the
circle of manufacturing. Laborers by the thousands may be
gotten in a few weeks from all parts of the world. The
question is whether the conditions are such that once here
they can work as cheap and efficiently as elsewhere. It
seems likely that in a region where food and fuel are
unusually plentiful and cheap, and where from the mildness
of the climate fuel is not used to so great an extent as in
colder regions, the cost of living would be so much reduced
that a laborer could afford to work for at least as small
wages here as elsewhere. Nor, with power. sanitary
regulations does any reason appear why they should not work
as efficiently. Particularly, as seems likely if the
laborers made homes on the cheaper lands of the hills
northwest of the city, or on the highlands northeast, the
greater salubrity of these elevations should impart unusual
force and vigor both of body and mind. The healthfulness of
Portland is equal to that of Philadelphia, the great
manufacturing city of America.
With command of unlimited material, power and labor,
Portland has advantages for manufacturing in excess of any
city on the Pacific Coast, if not in the world. Indeed, it
is unique and remarkable in this regard.
The subject of salubrity and advantages of scenery,
education and society-partly natural, partly artificial-will
appear farther on in this volume, and may be omitted here.
As to the advantages to be derived from topography, the
description of the city's site, with reference to the hills
and river as given above, exhibits its abundance of water
front ; its low lands easy for the use of wholesale houses
and heavy business, for elevators, manufactories and mills ;
its easy slopes, well adapted to the use of hotels, retail
houses, offices and shops ; and the circle of highlands,
whose eminences, knolls and peaks lift the residence portion
some hundreds of feet above the smoke, surcharged air, mist
and malaria to be met more or less at or near the river
level. Indeed the atmosphere of the Portland hills is
remarkably delicate and pure, having come for the most part
from the west as a sea breeze, bearing the salty and tonic
properties of its native region, which are destructive to
the land-born germs of microbes and bacteria. It is rendered
moreover perceptibly odoriferous and balsamic by its passage
over the forests of fir trees.
For a great shipping point or harbor, one might think the
Willamette too narrow. But as the need of more room is felt
it will be entirely practicable, as has been suggested by
government engineers, to cut slips into the alluvium and
lagoons at the lower end of the city for dock room and ship
accommodations of any desired dimensions.
By many it will be strenuously denied that
Portland can be the emporium for this region. Some other
point it is contended, as upon Puget Sound, will most
readily command the trade. But Portland's strength is
assured by the following considerations: The trade of the
Columbia Basin will flow westward to the Pacific Ocean. It
will seek the most direct and easy route thither, since
thereby its producers will pay less rates for transportation
of their products. The tributaries of the Columbia, from the
borders of Utah, to the borders of British Columbia and from
the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains spread out like
the ribs of a fan; all converge upon the main Columbia, and
thus unitedly pass through the gap of the Cascade Mountains
on to Portland. It is simply a principle of physics that any
body, whether a ball or a train of cars, will roll most
readily down an inclined plane, and that friction or
traction is increased by the attempt to go up hill. But from
the head of Snake river to the head of the Columbia, or of
any tributary of either river, to Portland, is an inclined
plane hither. To be sure the canyons of both these rivers
and of many of their tributaries, are rugged, but once let a
road be laid alongside their banks or down the general
valley, and there is a perceptibly down grade the entire
distance, adding the force of gravity to the wheels of the
engines to help them with their loaded trains. The gap of
the Columbia is the only pass through the chain of the
Cascade Mountains at the level of tide water. All other
passes lead over the main axis of the range at an elevation
of three to four thousand feet. It is manifestly more
expensive of time and force to draw a train over the back of
the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound than to bring it
through the gap of the Columbia on a downgrade. It is the
inland farmer and merchant who must pay the difference, and
however slow they may be in recognizing this, they will,
with the certainty of water finding its level, choose the
route which makes their bill the least. It is true that the
roads to Portland may not always charge their minimum, but
if they are able, by reason of natural advantages, to carry
at a less rate than is possible for the roads across the
mountains, they will at the scratch come down to it, and
make that advantage the make-weight in their struggle. Any
road which can persistently carry merchandise at one cent
per hundred or even per ton, less than its rivals, will beat
them in the long run. The natural grade to Portland from all
parts of the inland country gives her thus much advantage.
But, to complete the circle of exchange, if the wheat, live
stock and ores of the upper country come down to Portland,
this will be the most advantageous point at which to procure
merchandise and necessaries for that entire region.
Port-land can thereby most readily receive the products of
the Columbia basin, and supply the mercantile wants of her
people.
The above reasoning not presented as a special plea in favor
of Portland, but simply as a statement of the facts in the
case, is absolutely conclusive of the natural pre-eminence
of the city at the entrance to the gateway of the upper
Columbia.
But this only half states the case. While the waters of the
Columbia and its tributaries have made passes to all parts
of the river basin for the railroad, they are themselves a
means of transportation of the most gigantic power. To be
sure, this river, and the rivers which feed it, are wild and
violent streams. They flow with great force, often break
into rapids, and are at many places obstructed by rocks. The
Columbia has four impassable rapids, or cataracts, and half
a dozen others of such strength as to strain a strong
steamer in passing. The Snake river is swift and turbulent
through a large part of its course and boasts the highest
water fall of any great river in North America. Such streams
as the Deschutes, John Day, Klickitat, Yakima, Spokane,
Palouse, Pend d'Oreille, Okanagon and Kootenai, or the
tributaries of the Snake, for the larger portions of their
way are fierce torrents cutting their canyons hundreds and
in places thousands of feet deep into solid rock. But it is
by no means impossible to bring most of these rivers into
use for the purposes of commerce. By canals, locks, boat
railways, wing dams and removal of obstructions, the
Columbia may be made navigable for all sorts of river craft,
for one thousand miles. It will thereby become an artery of
commerce bearing a fleet of steamers and barges loaded with
grain and ores. Any product might thus be brought even from
the British line at prices which literally "defy
competition." The opening of the Snake river to its head
waters would be a matter of more difficulty, but to the
Salmon Falls the river may be improved so as to accommodate
steamboats of all kinds. Every one of the hundred minor
streams might likewise be made fit for bearing off the
abundant products of the soil. The time may come when a
network of canals, both for irrigation and for the uses of
commerce will cover the surface of the Columbia Basin. Such
commerce will necessarily flow to the Columbia, and to
Portland. The value of water will be better understood. The
railroad as an agent for transportation has been exaggerated
somewhat out of its natural proportions. Its great speed
will always commend it to travelers, but in the movement of
such heavy articles as grain and minerals, rocks and wood,
the slower but less expensive water will play a very
important part. As population increases in the continental
areas, there will spring up a class of hydraulic engineers
and inland navigators bringing our numberless rivers to
their highest use as generators of power, as means of
irrigation and of transportation.
As was noticed in reference to the waters of the Willamette
Valley these streams of the Columbia Basin will have a high
value in restraining railroads from extortionate charges.
This will make the people of the upper country independent,
and they will naturally look to the city which they reach at
minimum expenditure for supplies and make it their
commercial center.
It is clear beyond all contradiction that, with the Columbia
river and its tributaries open to navigation, Portland
commands the interior as no other city on tide water. By no
possibility can any port on Puget Sound have two thousand
miles of river navigation, laying open the continent as far
as Idaho, Montana and British Columbia. By choice of rail or
river, and, by the judicious use of each, Portland and her
inland customers will be brought into communication at the
greatest possible economy of both time and money, and the
business between them will therefore flourish at the least
possible expense.
It is sound policy, therefore, for the people of Portland to
push vigorously for the opening of the upper Columbia. The
work at the Cascades, however, is progressing, and no doubt
within ten years the two thousand miles of inland navigation
will no longer be locked up by rocks and shoals.
By the foregoing examination it appears that while Portland
sits at the cross roads of the great North, South, East and
West tracks of commerce, her avenues of approach from every
quarter are perfect, or certainly capable of being made so.
If this does not enable her to do a wider, more expeditious,
more direct and comprehensive business than any other place
on the North Pacific Coast, there is nothing in position.
Such are her commercial advantages.
While noting these advantages as pre-eminent, it will not be
contended that there is no room for other great cities on
the Coast. Puget Sound will certainly have three or four;
the Inland Empire, half a dozen. At the mouth of the
Columbia there will be a large lumbering, coaling, and
shipping city. At Yaquina, at Coos nay, and in Southern
Oregon there will be large towns. But the larger and more
active these surrounding places, the more populous and
energetic will be the center, for through it can they all
most readily reach each other, and the business which is
common to the whole section must be transacted here.
Next in line comes consideration of Portland's advantages as
a manufacturing point. First, as to raw material. It
scarcely need be said that if Portland can reach every part
of the Northwest by natural channels and roadways, she can
readily obtain all raw materials produced in the section.
Logs for manufacturing lumber may be brought up the Columbia
or floated down it, or floated down the Willamette, or
brought on rail cars from the forests to left or right.
Materials for the manufacture of paper are found near. Woods
for excelsior, furniture and ship-building are no less at
hand. Wheat, oats, rye, barley, for bread stuffs and meals;
wool, flax, hemp, for cloths, twines and ropes; broom corn;
manilla (from abroad) for ropes; tar and turpentine; ores of
lead, silver, gold, copper and quick-silver, nickel and
manganese from the whole circle of mountains; limestone;
cement rock, marble, all may be obtained from places
comparatively near. Iron, the sine qua non of modern
civilization, lies in hills of limonite six miles north, and
also eight miles south, and exists to even a greater extent
in portions of Columbia County distant twenty to forty
miles. Other iron beds are accessible from all parts of the
Northwest. Such a list of materials for manufactures at her
very doors, which must in truth pass by her to go else where
for working up, shows that Portland has no lack of stuff to
begin on.
While material is thus abundant-inexhaustible-power equal to
it may be found as near. Coal exists in vast deposits in the
mountains forty miles northwest, and may be obtained also in
ships or by car-loads from a dozen other points. But the
great source of power is the Fall of the Willamette at
Oregon City, twelve miles south. This is one half greater in
energy than the fall of St. Anthony, in the Mississippi, at
Minneapolis. It is forty feet high at low water of the
Columbia, and is six hundred feet across and never ice
bound. Streams might be led out from above this fall and
conducted in flumes along the hillsides to Portland, and
there be made to energize machinery. But it is now a more
popular method to reduce this power by means of dynamos, to
electricity, and convey it upon wires direct to the machine
rooms in the factories at Portland. The loss is found to be
but eighteen per cent.
As if this fall of the Willamette were not enough-sufficient
to drive the looms of Manchester-there are sixty miles
distant the Cascades of the Columbia, of one hundred times
greater strength-practically unlimited and infinite. At this
point the Columbia falls thirty feet in less than three
miles, with a volume varying according to the season from
ten million to seventy million cubic feet per minute -quite
equal to that of the Mississippi at its mouth. There is no
place in the world were there is such an aggregate of water
power on tide water, as at Portland, obtaining its supply
from these two cataracts. Power for manufacturing, like raw
material, is found here existing to an extent beyond all
calculation. It only remains to put the two together to do
the manufacturing of the world. Of course means of exit and
transport of the manufactured articles are as good as the
means of bringing in the raw materials.
It only remains to consider the supply of labor to close the
circle of manufacturing. Laborers by the thousands may be
gotten in a few weeks from all parts of the world. The
question is whether the conditions are such that once here
they can work as cheap and efficiently as elsewhere. It
seems likely that in a region where food and fuel are
unusually plentiful and cheap, and where from the mildness
of the climate fuel is not used to so great an extent as in
colder regions, the cost of living would be so much reduced
that a laborer could afford to work for at least as small
wages here as elsewhere. Nor, with power. sanitary
regulations does any reason appear why they should not work
as efficiently. Particularly, as seems likely if the
laborers made homes on the cheaper lands of the hills
northwest of the city, or on the highlands northeast, the
greater salubrity of these elevations should impart unusual
force and vigor both of body and mind. The healthfulness of
Portland is equal to that of Philadelphia, the great
manufacturing city of America.
With command of unlimited material, power and labor,
Portland has advantages for manufacturing in excess of any
city on the Pacific Coast, if not in the world. Indeed, it
is unique and remarkable in this regard.
The subject of salubrity and advantages of scenery,
education and society-partly natural, partly artificial-will
appear farther on in this volume, and may be omitted here.
As to the advantages to be derived from topography, the
description of the city's site, with reference to the hills
and river as given above, exhibits its abundance of water
front ; its low lands easy for the use of wholesale houses
and heavy business, for elevators, manufactories and mills ;
its easy slopes, well adapted to the use of hotels, retail
houses, offices and shops ; and the circle of highlands,
whose eminences, knolls and peaks lift the residence portion
some hundreds of feet above the smoke, surcharged air, mist
and malaria to be met more or less at or near the river
level. Indeed the atmosphere of the Portland hills is
remarkably delicate and pure, having come for the most part
from the west as a sea breeze, bearing the salty and tonic
properties of its native region, which are destructive to
the land-born germs of microbes and bacteria. It is rendered
moreover perceptibly odoriferous and balsamic by its passage
over the forests of fir trees.
For a great shipping point or harbor, one might think the
Willamette too narrow. But as the need of more room is felt
it will be entirely practicable, as has been suggested by
government engineers, to cut slips into the alluvium and
lagoons at the lower end of the city for dock room and ship
accommodations of any desired dimensions.
