Washington, has the unique distinction of being the only part of the
United States that was actually acquired by exploration and settlement,
and this was not accomplished without lively competition from the
British. The New England States were wrested from the unwilling
hands of Great Britain and we paid the first Napoleon his price for
Louisiana. Spain sold us Florida very reasonably when she saw we were
going to take it in spite of her. California, Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona were taken at the mouth of the cannon from Old Mexico--pity we
didn’t complete the annexation of the rest of that troublesome country
at the same time. We paid Russia seven millions for Alaska and thought
it a gold brick for a time--Seward’s Folly, they called it--and a
little pressure was exercised on Spain to relinquish the Philippines
and Porto Rico into our keeping. Oregon alone became ours by right of
“discovery,” and this no doubt seemed a curious kind of right in the
eyes of the red men who possessed this goodly land.
[Illustration: ALONG THE COLUMBIA HIGHWAY
From photo by The Weister Co., Portland, Oregon]
We need nothing more to tell us where the Oregon pioneers hailed from
than the nomenclature of towns and rivers of the eastern part of the
state. The Columbia itself was once--and more fitly--the Oregon, which
rolled through “the continuous woods and heard no sound save its own
dashings” until a Boston sea captain decided to honor the mighty stream
with the name of his ship. The New Englander crops out still more
significantly in Portland, Salem, Albany, the Willamette, and other
names familiar in this region which the “down east” Yankee bestowed in
loving memory of the towns and rivers of his native land.
We left Portland by the Pacific Highway, which runs through the heart
of this western New England for one hundred and sixty miles, following
the valley of the Willamette River. This valley is from twenty to sixty
miles wide and is beyond question the garden spot of Oregon, if not of
the entire Pacific Coast. The late J. J. Hill, the “Empire Builder,”
in one of his last public appearances, at a banquet in Portland,
declared, “I consider the Willamette Valley the most favored spot on
earth for its size.” Gov. James Withycombe, who for many years was
connected with the Oregon State Agricultural College, is responsible
for the statement that “The Willamette Valley has a greater variety
of agricultural products than any other section of the whole United
States.” Possibly both of these authorities may have been somewhat
prejudiced--Hill’s railroads and steamships were directly interested
in the products of the valley, and a governor is not likely to minify
the merits of any part of his state. Still, they are authorities on
the matter and the people of the Willamette Valley, at least, are no
doubt quite willing to let these pronunciamentos stand unchallenged.
Nor are we inclined to dispute such authorities from any knowledge that
we ourselves may have for, though we traversed the valley at the most
unfavorable period of the year, we were none the less impressed with
the evidences of its wonderful beauty, fertility, and great variety
of products. The climate, we were told, is very temperate; in winter
the freezing point is seldom touched and while summer days are usually
pretty hot, the relief of cool nights never fails. As to its fertility
and the capability of the valley to sustain a far larger population,
an enthusiastic local authority is responsible for the following
comparison:
“Populous Belgium, which before the German invasion contained about
seven million inhabitants, has an area of only 11,373 square miles,
or less than the aggregate area of the eight counties occupying the
valley of the Willamette, which have a total of 12,526 square miles.
The present population of these counties is about two hundred thousand.
There is no reason why they should not contain as large a number of
people as Belgium, for the climate of both sections is similar and
the soil of the valley, though of different composition, is fully as
productive as that of Belgium.”
A roseate forecast, to be sure, but one to which a careful observer
might reasonably take exception; for while the whole of Belgium is a
level and very fertile plain, more than half the area of the eight
counties of the Willamette is occupied by rugged mountains which can
never be cultivated except in very limited sections. We can agree,
however, more unreservedly with another enthusiast who speaks in terms
of scenic beauty and pastoral prosperity rather than square miles and
population:
“A broad valley, rich, prosperous, and beautiful to look upon is the
Willamette, and a valley of many moods. Neither in scenic charms nor
agricultural resourcefulness is its heritage restricted to a single
field. There are timberland and trout stream, hill and dale, valley
and mountain; rural beauty of calm Suffolk is neighbor to the ragged
picturesqueness of Scotland; there are skylines comparable with
Norway’s, and lowlands peaceful as Sweden’s pastoral vistas; the giant
timber, or their relic stumps, at some pasture edge, spell wilderness,
while a happy, alder-lined brook flowing through a boulder-dotted field
is reminiscent of the uplands of Connecticut. Altogether, it is a
rarely variegated viewland, is this vale of the Willamette.
“You have seen valleys which were vast wheatfields, or where orchards
were everywhere; in California and abroad you have viewed valleys
dedicated to vineyards, and from mountain vantage points you have
feasted your eyes upon the greenery of timberland expanses; all the
world over you can spy out valleys dotted with an unvaried checkerboard
of gardens, or green with pasture lands. But where have you seen a
valley where all of this is mingled, where nature refuses to be a
specialist and man appears a Jack-of-all-outdoor trades? If by chance
you have journeyed from Medford to Portland, with some excursioning
from the beaten paths through Oregon’s valley of content, you have
viewed such a one.
[Illustration: PRUNE ORCHARDS NEAR DUNDEE, OREGON, WILLAMETTE VALLEY
From photo by The Winter Co., Portland, Oregon]
“For nature has staged a lavish repertoire along the Willamette. There
are fields of grain and fields of potatoes; hop yards and vineyards
stand side by side; emerald pastures border brown cornfields; forests
of primeval timber shadow market garden patches; natty orchards
of apples, peaches, and plums are neighbors to waving expanses of
beet tops. In short, as you whirl through the valley, conjure up some
antithesis of vegetation and you must wait but a scanty mile or two
before viewing it from the observation car.
“As first I journeyed through this pleasant land of the Willamette, a
little book, written just half a century ago, fell into my hands, and
these words concerning the valley, read then, offered a description
whose peer I have not yet encountered:
“‘The sweet Arcadian valley of the Willamette, charming with meadow,
park and grove! In no older world where men have, in all their happiest
moods, recreated themselves for generations in taming earth to orderly
beauty, have they achieved a fairer garden than Nature’s simple labor
of love has made there, giving to rough pioneers the blessings and the
possible education of refined and finished landscape, in the presence
of landscape strong, savage, and majestic.’”
Such is George Palmer Putnam’s estimate of the “Valley of Content,” as
he styles it in poetic phrase, and we can testify that his description
is true as well as poetic.
But it may be that our enthusiasm for the Willamette Valley is unduly
delaying the story of the actual progress of our journeyings which I
take it has the “right of way” in this volume.
Out of Portland we encountered considerable highway construction work,
which reminded us that Multnomah County is improving other arteries of
travel besides the Columbia Highway. Such improvement was certainly
needed, for the dozen miles between Portland and Oregon City was badly
broken macadam, enforcing a speed limit that put fear of “cops” quite
out of the question. The road is fairly level, however, following the
river quite closely and crossing it just before it comes into Oregon
City. Here we struck the first of many of the ancient covered wooden
bridges in this section, doubtless another New England inheritance for
which the early inhabitants were responsible. Each of these rickety old
structures bore a warning against crossing “faster than a walk,” with
threat of a liberal fine for violations, though the infernal clatter
of loose boards that seemed to threaten collapse ought to be a most
effective deterrent against speeding.
The road leaves Oregon City by a sharp, winding ascent which brought us
to a fine, rolling upland with a dim mountain range to our left. The
surface, however, was much better, permitting us to do the legal limit
of Oregon--twenty-five miles per hour--with entire comfort. The gently
rounded hills on either hand were occupied by thrifty-looking ranches,
and fruit-laden prune and apple orchards were the most prevalent crop.
The former were being gathered and we met many wagons and trucks loaded
with the purple fruit, which was being taken to the drying houses.
These were odd-looking frame structures with tall, square, latticed
towers projecting above the roofs and the odor of the drying fruit was
noticeable in this vicinity.
Salem, the state capital, fifty miles from Portland, is the first town
of consequence. It is situated directly on the Willamette, which is
navigable to this point by good-sized steamboats and two lines ply
regularly between Salem and Portland. The population is only sixteen
thousand, but still enough to give it second rank among Oregon cities.
The general appearance of the town, its shops and stores, which we
especially observed while making a few purchases, would give the
impression of a much larger place. Salem, like The Dalles, was founded
by Methodist missionaries as early as 1840. This was only seventeen
years later than the founding of the last Spanish mission in California
and we could not help thinking how this beautiful Arcadian valley would
have appealed to the Franciscan padres. There were plenty of natives to
engage the activities of the missionaries and they are more numerous
here to-day than in the vicinity of the old California missions. An
industrial training school for Indians is located near the city. The
town was incorporated in 1853 and made the state capital in 1860. Its
career has been as peaceful and quiet as its name would signify. Indian
fighting and mining lawlessness never disturbed its serenity as in the
case of so many California towns. To-day it still gives the impression
of quiet prosperity and peacefulness with its twenty-five churches and
two denominational schools--the Methodist Willamette University, with
about five hundred students, and the Catholic Sisters’ Academy, with
one hundred and fifty girls in attendance. The state capitol and other
public buildings are not very impressive and apparently not so costly
as state capitols and public buildings average the country over. There
are fifty miles of wide, level, well-paved, tree-bordered streets which
in our mind go farther than almost anything else as an index of civic
pride and progressiveness.
Beyond Salem the valley widens and becomes monotonously level. On
either hand is a dim blue mountain range, above which, eastward,
glimmers an occasional snowy peak. The principal crop in this section
is wheat, large quantities of which were being hauled to the market.
The heavily laden wagons worked havoc with the old stone road, which
was very rough in places. We found considerable stretches of loosely
scattered crushed rock awaiting the steam roller; this made desperately
hard going and wrought havoc with tires. Sometimes we could avoid it by
running to one side of the road, but chuck-holes and dust many inches
deep made this alternative an unpleasant one. The country was a dead
brown hue everywhere except for the enlivening green of occasional
fields of alfalfa or well-watered lawns about some of the handsome
farmhouses. The soil showed every evidence of fertility and we were
assured that crop failures are quite unknown in this favored valley.
Albany, twenty-seven miles from Salem, is a good-looking,
well-built town of five thousand people. There is an astonishingly
large seven-story hotel which seemed to indicate a busy place.
Notwithstanding the opportunities to dine at several apparently
excellent hotels along this route, we did not regret that we had picked
up a lunch at a Portland delicatessen store. It was more enjoyable than
any hotel meal when eaten in the open under a group of towering trees
by the roadside--and, incidentally it cost less. The Willamette at
Albany affords excellent water power, and this has attracted several
manufacturing establishments to the town.
Leaving Albany, the road swings several miles eastward from the river,
returning to it at Harrisburg, thirty miles farther south. Here we
found a ferryboat propelled by a gasoline launch alongside serving in
lieu of a bridge. The service is kept up free of charge by the county
and the ferryman told us that the average is two hundred and fifty
trips per day. As the river is not very wide here and there appeared
to be no great obstacle in the way of bridging it, the ferry seemed a
penny-wise makeshift--and this on the much-vaunted Pacific Highway.
Certainly one need have no difficulty in keeping on this same Pacific
Highway for a more be-signed road we never traveled. At some of the
crossings there would be a half dozen different signboards put up by
enterprising local business men, auto dealers, and the omnipresent
Goodrich Tire Company. And I might incidentally remark that I can
conceive of no better advertising to the motorist than these same road
signs; I have blessed the Goodrich people more than once when we paused
in doubt at the parting of the ways, only to be set aright by their
friendly signboards. We came to the conclusion, as the result of much
observation, that the best material for the sign is a well-painted
pine board about an inch thick. This is little affected by weather,
can be easily repainted, and affords little temptation to the wretched
outlaw who insists on using the signboard as a rifle target. A rifle
bullet will often knock a hole as big as one’s hand in the enamel of a
metal sign, while its ravages can hardly be seen on a wooden sign, and
a putty plug effects an instant repair when painting. In any event,
while few metal signs escaped the vandal’s bullets, we hardly ever saw
a wooden board “shot up.” Of course, it is easy enough to say that the
vandals who damage road signs should be punished severely enough to
break up the practice, but this is a long route to travel in a country
where contempt for law is so general. In all of our European travels,
some twenty-five thousand miles, we never saw a wilfully damaged
signboard.
Twenty miles beyond Harrisburg we found ourselves in the streets
of Eugene, a town nearly the size of Salem and quite its equal in
metropolitan appearance. It is a live-looking, well-improved town,
and, I was going to say, gives the impression of a much larger city,
but I fear I am overworking this expression in connection with these
western towns. It is none the less true, however; the streets, the
stores, the buildings, public and private, would do credit to a city
twice as large as Eugene. Here is the state university of Oregon, with
nearly a thousand students who no doubt contribute much to the evident
activity of the town. The university buildings, beautifully situated
on a grassy slope along the Willamette, are mainly of classic design.
Like the public buildings at Salem, they impressed us as being rather
inferior to what one would expect of a state-supported institution.
Eugene is very pleasantly located at the edge of the foothills along
the wide, level valley and within full view of the rugged coast range
of the Cascades. The streets are wide and well-improved, many of them
shaded by Oregon maples, gorgeous with autumn colorings when we saw
them.
A shopkeeper directed us to the Osborn Hotel as the best in the town
and it proved very satisfactory, indeed. It is a large red-brick
structure fronting a public park and located conveniently to the
business center of the town. We were given a comfortable room at a
moderate rate, but the restaurant prices were quite up to metropolitan
standard, though this was mitigated somewhat by the first-class
service. The city water was exceedingly unpleasant, having been “doped”
with chemicals to counteract impurities. We were assured, however, that
it was quite harmless and suffered no ill after-effects from drinking
it.
[Illustration: THE WILLAMETTE NEAR EUGENE, OREGON
From photo by Winter Photo Co., Portland, Oregon]
Our run for the day had been a comparatively short one--one hundred
and forty miles over roads better than average. We arrived in
Eugene early in the afternoon and remarked that we might easily reach
Roseburg, eighty miles distant, before dark. We went, of course, on the
assumption that the Pacific Highway south of Eugene was quite as good
as to the north of the city--an assumption which we found to be sadly
at variance with facts. A garage man warned us not to expect a “joy
ride” to Grants Pass, for though the actual distance is only a little
greater than we covered on the preceding day, the run was much harder.
All of which we heard with light-hearted unconcern, for it never
entered our heads that on the much-heralded Pacific Highway we should
find some of the roughest and most dangerous road since leaving San
Francisco.
Out of Eugene we encountered hills, but the going was fair to Cottage
Grove, a quiet village which marks the southern extremity of the Vale
of the Willamette. We soon entered Pais Creek Canyon and the road
degenerated into a rough, winding trail, muddy from a heavy rain which
had preceded us only a day or two. The road was often strewn with
boulders and cut up into ruts that gave the car an unmerciful wrenching
as we crawled cautiously along. In places an effort had been made to
get rid of the stones and mud by covering considerable stretches of
road with planks, but these were loosely laid and did not mend matters
a great deal. The road was often dangerously narrow and there were many
sharp turns around blind corners. There was just mud enough to make us
uneasy on the grades and to demonstrate the utter impossibility of the
road for a heavy car in wet weather.
There was little respite from these conditions in the sixty miles from
Cottage Grove to Drain. In places, improvement work was in progress
which will do something to smooth out the highway for the motorist of
the future. The only redeeming feature was the glorious scenery. We ran
along green banks covered with giant ferns whose long fronds swept the
car as we passed and we glided beneath closely standing pines under
which the ground was carpeted with rank mosses. The prevailing green
was varied by the coral-red clusters of honeysuckle berries and the
early autumn reds and yellows of the deciduous trees.
[Illustration: ON THE PACIFIC HIGHWAY IN OREGON
From painting by H. H. Bagg]
A long climb through scattered pine trees and a winding descent brought
us to the lonely little village of Drain, wedged in the bottom of the
canyon. Here a garage man gave us the cheerful information that the
road before us was no better than that over which we had come and
thus, being prepared for the worst, we were agreeably surprised to
find that our friend had exaggerated somewhat. The road was bad, to
be sure, but no match in genuine badness for that north of Drain. We
ran through open oak and fir groves on the Calapooia Mountains, very
closely following the course of the Southern Pacific Railroad and
passing several lonely little stations. We found some road improvement
in progress and a few new stretches with properly engineered grades and
curves, which gave evidence of the determination of Oregon people to
make at least a part of this Pacific Highway worthy of the name.
As we approached Roseburg we found the country well settled, with
many thrifty-looking apple orchards on the rolling hills. Roseburg
is a good-looking town of five thousand people and we passed two
very inviting hotels. A magnificent high school building was under
construction and all appearances in the town pointed to prosperity and
progressiveness. We took on gasoline at a garage that made the somewhat
sweeping claim, “Largest and best-equipped garage between Portland and
San Francisco,” but we had no opportunity of testing its facilities.
We would gladly have paused for the night in Roseburg; eighty miles
of such road as we had covered was quite enough for one day, in our
opinion, but we could not forget that the rainy season was due any time
and prudence behooved us to push onward. There were still seventy-six
miles between us and Grants Pass and, as it proved, every one of them
climbs or descends some giant hill range, for the whole run is through
the heart of the Cascade Mountains. There are many steep, winding
grades, miles long, much narrow roadway creeping beneath overhanging
precipices, with precipices dropping away below, too narrow for passing
except at long intervals and often stony and rough in the extreme.
The compensating feature is the wonderfully beautiful and picturesque
scenery that prevails along the entire run. Wooded hills stretched away
to the lavender-tinted horizon or towered far above us as we dropped
into the depths of cool, green canyons alongside madly dashing mountain
streams--emerald green, crystal clear, or white with foam.
Out of Roseburg we followed the Umpqua River, entering the prosaically
named Cow Creek Canyon at Canyonville--but if the name is prosaic there
is nothing commonplace about the wild and rugged scenery throughout
its entire length. The road frequently descended to the side of the
stream, where there were glorious camping sites galore, some of them
occupied by motor parties. Green sward, pure cold water, fine trees,
and plenty of firewood make this a camper’s paradise and in season the
trout fishing is unsurpassed. There are also plenty of deer and bear
in these rugged hills and many of the campers were evidently on hunting
expeditions, for the season had just begun. Again the road ascended a
stiff grade and rose to splendid vantage points above the vexed river.
We passed several little villages nestling in the canyon and presenting
the same general characteristics. About these were spots of cultivated
land and often prune and apple orchards.
Beyond Wolf Creek, a few miles from Grants Pass, we entered the Rogue
River Valley, which vies with Hood River in producing the big red apple
for which Oregon has become famous and wonderful stories were told us
of the yield of these orchards. Many other varieties of fruit are grown
here and vineyards flourish. The climate is much the same as that of
the Willamette Valley, and general characteristics are much the same
except that the Rogue River country is more rolling.
At sunset we came into the wide main streets of Grants Pass--glad
indeed that our strenuous run had reached its goal--and cast about
anxiously for a hotel. A native directed us to the Josephine, but a
bathroom was not to be had there, nor were we particularly prepossessed
with the general appearance of the place. The Oxford, farther down the
main street, proved a quiet and fairly comfortable haven in charge
of a landlady who was kindly attentive. There was no restaurant in
connection with this hotel--one of several instances which we found
where hotels had given up serving meals, which they declared the least
profitable part of the business, despite the high prices which prevail
on menus in the west.
We found more of the atmosphere of the “boom” towns in Grants Pass than
we noted in any other town since leaving Bend. The citizens seemed to
think that the city was on the verge of a great increase in population
and prosperity. The reasons for the optimism are attractively set forth
in some of the literature circulated by the commercial club, from which
I quote a few paragraphs, with slight modifications: