Historic Towns of the Western States Part 25

[Ill.u.s.tration THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE, SPOKANE.]

There is a tradition that the Spokane Indians shunned this now famed succession of wild cascades, for in the foaming maelstrom at the foot of the falls dwelt a malign G.o.ddess, her long hair streaming in the cataract, her shimmering figure half revealed in the enveloping mists of spray. While the waters danced about her she sang merrily and the sound of her singing was like the warbling of a thousand birds. With her outstretched arms she lured Indian fishermen and devoured them. Her flowing hair was a trammel that enmeshed her victims. None had ever returned. Shaman after shaman, under his totem pole, had unavailingly invoked his tomanowash incantations to destroy her power. Then Speelyai or Coyote, the great Indian G.o.d, transforming himself into a feather, floated over the falls and was speedily engulfed by the evil G.o.ddess. a.s.suming the form of a strong warrior he began his campaign. Around him were the wrecks of skin and bark canoes, the forms of unnumbered members of his tribes, and a bedraggled eagle which proved to be Whaiama, G.o.d of the upper air. With a stone axe Speelyai hewed his way through the monster's side and Whaiama bore the resurrected company to the high banks of the Spokane River. Now Speelyai p.r.o.nounced a curse upon his groaning enemy. Her career as a destroyer was at an end. Henceforth she might entice some helpless wanderers from distant tribes, but the chosen ones she should destroy no more. And the G.o.d prophesied in conclusion that a better race would come some day, a strange people, whom she could not conquer, and who would bind and enslave her forever.

These falls, whose total volume equals the power of forty thousand horses, turn the wheels of factories the value of whose exports to China, j.a.pan, and other lands is expressed in millions. The waterpower speeds electric street-cars over ninety miles of track, and conducts electricity through two hundred and fifty miles of arc mains. All the elevators and printing-presses of the city are operated by power from the falls, and to this all-supplying current are attached many sewing-machines, typewriters, phonographs, graphophones, churns, electric fans, music boxes, door-bells, burglar alarms, clocks, and hundreds of other contrivances calling for constant or occasional motive power. Spokane is credited with being the most modern and best-equipped city in the world, and this is due, first, to the falls whose power brings many utilities, considered luxuries in other communities, within reach of the lowliest consumer; and secondly, to the singular fact that the city is newer than the telephone, the electric light, and other latter-day inventions and discoveries. There were no ancient inst.i.tutions and prejudices to supplant. To children reared in Spokane, other cities seem archaic, their streets sloven, and their homes grotesquely behind the times. A girl from Spokane visiting in New York is known to have written home about the bizarre appearance of "electric cars drawn by horses."

London gropes by night through dismal glimmerings of gas and it would require millions of reluctant pounds sterling to subst.i.tute more modern light. In the new city of Spokane it was the most natural procedure to install the latest conveniences of modern life. When the little settlement was but a cl.u.s.ter of ambitious cabins every abode had its telephone and its electric lights. The Spokane workman does not stumble up the steps of a dim tenement. Lumber is cheap and in variety, and even Spokane granite is within his means. He dwells in a good home. A click of a b.u.t.ton at the door floods the dwelling with light. Sputtering wicks have no place in his economy. He can afford, too, to order his groceries by telephone or use the same medium to discuss politics with a friend in a distant part of the city. All members of polite society in Spokane have telephones. A lady planning an impromptu tea or lawn party gets out her calling list, reaches for the telephone, and issues her amiable summons. A great amount of local business is transacted over the wires in the city. The power of the falls likewise enables the telephones of Spokane to talk and trade with a thousand towns, the distant city of San Francisco coming within the Spokane circuit.

Thus, in the employment of waterpower to serve the city in manifold ways, the Indians say, has been fulfilled the prophecy of Speelyai that a race would come which should yoke the G.o.ddess of the cataract in perpetual servitude.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE LAST CHIEF TO INTIMIDATE THE INHABITANTS OF SPOKANE.]

In further fulfilment of the prediction that the demoniacal siren of the falls should no longer have dominion over his people, the Spokanes and kindred tribes shunned the river, and from a race of fishers, paddling bent and kneeling in their crude canoes, they became an intrepid race of hors.e.m.e.n. On horseback they rode to war or hunted the moose and antelope, and horses became the sign of wealth and the medium of exchange. For their obedience in carrying out the details of his malediction upon the water demon, Speelyai prospered them. Their wealth increased and their numbers multiplied. Their tepees were warm with many furs and picturesque with the trophies of battle and the chase. Their larders abounded with dried meat, meal, wapatoo, and camas root. They became the most valiant warriors between the Bitter Root Mountains and the sea. The power of the allied tribes of Eastern Washington became so formidable that the American Government was compelled to send its most skilful military leaders to effect their pacification, and it was not until Phil Sheridan eclipsed them in daring and General Miles forced Chief Joseph to capitulation that the scattered settlers in the Spokane country ceased to tremble at the impending descent of mounted savages.

By repeated violation of treaty stipulations, by burnings and ma.s.sacres and thefts, they had a.s.serted their dominion. In 1858 the Spokanes gave tragic demonstration of their determination to enforce the native declaration that the armies of the whites should never traverse their domain. In that year Colonel Steptoe, seeking to lead a detachment to garrison the post of the Hudson Bay Company at Colville, near the British border, was defeated with great slaughter by the Spokanes. With an unscalped remnant of his force he crawled at night from the scene of his disaster and, abandoning his guns, rushed in confusion back to Walla Walla. The G.o.d of Indian battles still reigned and the Government at Washington was alarmed. Then Colonel George Wright was chosen to command, a man whose merciless determination and sanguinary triumphs gave to his notable campaign a distinction not paralleled until the Sirdar of Egypt just forty years later led his expedition to Khartoum, silenced the dervishes near Omdurman, and hurled the severed head of the Khalifa into the Nile. The Spokanes did not attribute their defeat to the superior strategy of their pale-faced foe.

Their fatal mistake, they said, was in making their last stand on the Spokane Plains, within sound of the exultant shrieking and sinister roaring of their ancient enemy, the evil spirit of the Spokane cataract, and it was she, not their white conqueror, who herded and stampeded them into terrified surrender. They had fought with abandoned daring, and had employed all their arts of strategy, but were forced back toward the abode of the water monster until her roaring mockery thundered in their ears. Now they set the tall prairie gra.s.s afire, and over the site of the coming city there blazed on that parched day of September 5, 1858, a conflagration no less formidable than war. It enveloped, but could not stay the pursuing column. Destiny was striding through flame and blood that day to open a way for civilized occupation of the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of painted warriors, including the leader of the Palouses, a chief of the Pend d'Oreilles, one of the chiefs of the Coeur d'Alenes, and two brothers of Spokane Gary, the commander of the savage army, lay dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE CITY HALL, SPOKANE.]

As if by a miracle, not one of Colonel Wright's soldiers fell, a further proof to the Indians that their evil G.o.ddess had presided over the conflict. In token of their subjection they brought their wives, children, horses, and all portable belongings and made complete offering at the feet of their conqueror. Thus the site of the present city of Spokane became the scene of one of the most striking and significant triumphs of civilized man over the aborigines of the American continent. What William Henry Harrison did at Tippecanoe for the old Northwest in scattering the allied natives under Tec.u.mseh, Colonel Wright accomplished at Spokane Plains for the Northwest in demolishing the league of tribes under the Spokanes. It is true that Chief Joseph later, emulating the ambitions of Black Hawk, sought to reunite the tribes in rebellion against the whites, but though he succeeded in stirring the Federal Government to vigilant campaigns, he failed in his great object, just as did the successor of Tec.u.mseh. Wright's sway was undisputed. Indians convicted of crimes he ordered hanged.

Superfluous horses were shot. He spread terror as he moved, and peace followed in his footsteps.

But the Civil War and financial panic delayed the Western movement. In 1863 there were but ninety registered citizens in the Spokane country. And when the first sawmill came, in 1873, its wheels revolved slowly, for the failure of Jay Cooke delayed the transcontinental railway, that was to connect the city with the East. Eight years later, just twenty years ago, the first locomotive rumbled into the new settlement. Now there was to be a city. On September 1st of that year came the first lawyer, J. Kennedy Stout, and it is characteristic of the spirit that has ever continued to quicken the activities of the community that four days after his arrival he had drafted a charter for the city, taken the necessary legal steps toward its incorporation, and had been chosen its attorney.

[Ill.u.s.tration J. KENNEDY STOUT.]

In 1885, the city, numbering two thousand people, was an alert and distributing centre. Grain was pouring in from the fertile acres of the Palouse to be ground into flour, and the time was at hand when a remarkable discovery in the neighboring mountains of Idaho was to turn the tide of travel toward Spokane, and in less than a decade develop it into the greatest railroad centre west of Chicago. It was in that year that three men and an a.s.s, in the Coeur d'Alenes, a few miles from Spokane, camped toward night in a desolate canon. Their provisions were nearly exhausted.

They held forlorn council, and decided to abandon their search for mines in those gloomy and precipitous solitudes. Toward sundown the animal strayed from its tether. They found it gazing across the ravine at a reflected gleam of the setting sun. A marvellous series of ore seams had mirrored the light. The dumb beast had discovered the greatest deposits of galena on the globe. The whole mountain was a mine.

Within an hour after the arrival of the sensational news at Spokane, that city's unparalleled boom began. Prospectors, engineers, and capitalists from the four corners of the Republic hurried to the new city. A railway magnate rode out on horseback to view the mountain, and within four months from the day of his visit ore was being shipped by rail to Spokane. North and south, for three hundred miles, mines were found on every mountainside, and every additional discovery hastened Spokane's growth and quickened the fever of its speculation. As a local historian said, "Men went to sleep at night on straw mattresses, and woke to find themselves on velvet couches stuffed with greenbacks." Wealth waited for men at every corner. The delirium of speculation whirled the sanest minds. Of the many clergymen, for example, who arrived to advocate the perfecting of t.i.tles to homes not made with hands, eleven abdicated the pulpit and, indifferent to the menace of moth and rust, laid up substantial treasure.

Five years from the discovery of the mines in the Coeur d'Alenes the city numbered twenty thousand inhabitants. Fire swept over it and laid twenty-two solid squares in ashes. Before the ruins cooled, the city was being rebuilt, this time in steel and brick and stone. The _Spokesman-Review_, which began its editorial career in a small, discarded chapel, soon moved into a ten-story structure, and that evolution was, in epitome, the story of the city. Architects of some renown designed palaces and chateaux for the wealthy. Every citizen hoped to outdazzle his neighbor in the beauty of his home, and this has resulted in giving Spokane unique distinction in architectural impressiveness.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE "SPOKESMAN-REVIEW" BUILDING.]

Though Spokane has had abundant share of that rampant Western virility, the story of whose unrestraint would const.i.tute a daring contribution to profane history, the city from the start displayed a dominating purpose that made for civic righteousness. It is true that during its earlier years there were many murders in Spokane, for citizens, in the midst of its hurrying events, were impatient of prolix complaints and the tardy judgments of the law. Nor did this reckless code much concern the hangman, for the legal execution of a citizen in Spokane would have been regarded much as the world would now look upon the shuddering crime of burning a Christian at the stake; yet in its blood-shedding there was little, if any, of the wanton element of anarchy, and upon few occasions in the history of the Northwest has crime stooped to a.s.sa.s.sinate from ambush.

Outwardly calm, but with desperation in his mood, the insulted approached the object of his wrath and warned him to "heel" himself. Inevitable shooting marked their next meeting, and their funerals were not infrequently held simultaneously.

The bad man of melodrama is an execrable creation of fiction, whose counterpart was not long tolerated in Spokane's career, and who does not seem to have made his presence felt in other sections of the West. A desperado of the early days sent word from a neighboring town that, because of some dispute, he would kill a certain Spokane citizen on sight. The community could not afford to lose an influential pioneer, and the city fathers met to consider the outlaw's menace. They decided that, inasmuch as they would be called upon to execute him ultimately, they would better hang him before he had opportunity to pull his criminal trigger, and to this programme they pledged their official honor and forwarded notice of their grim deliberation to the desperado, who thereupon deemed it expedient to strike the Lolo trail that led to less discriminating frontiers. Spokane has outlived its lawless days. For several years it enjoyed the police protection of a noted bandit-catcher, whose nerve was unfailing and whose aim was sure. The ensuing hegira of criminal cla.s.ses was a spectacle for other cities to contemplate with awe. During his stern _regime_, a riotous stranger, mistaking the temper of the community, flourished weapons and for a few agonizing moments made pedestrians his targets. The clamor brought the cool chief of police. "Did you subdue the stranger?" he was afterward asked. "We buried him the next day," was the reply.

In the few years that have ensued since the country's occupation by the whites, the once masterful Spokane tribe has degenerated, the Indians around Spokane to-day shambling about under the generic epithet of "siwash"; and a writer visiting this region in recent days came to the etymological conclusion that the first syllable in their unhappy t.i.tle stood for "never."

Though Spokane is famous, its precise locality is not generally known. When it became ambitious and first held expositions, it ordered lithographic posters from Chicago. They came representing steamboats plying placidly in a river whose falls are as deadly as Niagara's. Spokane is twenty-four hours' ride from the cities of Puget Sound. It is three days' journey from San Francisco, and to go from Spokane to Helena or b.u.t.te is like travelling from Chicago to Denver. Its future must be great. It has no rival. Eight railroads, three of them transcontinental, a.s.sert its supremacy. Southward stretches the most prolific grain empire in the world. Almost boundless forests of valuable timber cover surrounding mountains to the north and east, whose mineral wealth is beyond compute.

[Ill.u.s.tration MIDDLE FALLS, SPOKANE.]

A typical Westerner, in an interesting autobiography, states that the a.s.s that discovered the mines of the Coeur d'Alene, and thus caused a stampede of civilization to Spokane, was buried with the ceremonial honors due a potentate. It takes conspicuous place in distinguished company. On the heights of Peor an altar was reared to canonize the a.s.s that saw the Light the prophet Balaam all but pa.s.sed. An a.s.s by its braying wrought the salvation of Vesta, and the animal's coronation was an event in the festival of that G.o.ddess. For ages the Procession of the a.s.s was a solemn rite in religious observances. In Spokane, a favorite canvas pictures the Coeur d'Alene immortal gazing enraptured across a mountain chasm at shining ledges of galena. When explaining the various causes of the matchless development of Spokane and its tributary region, the resident, in merry mood, does not forget to pilot the visitor to this quaint memorial.

Afterward there was litigation over the mineral wealth now valued at $4,000,000 located by this animal, the outcome of which was the following decision handed down by Judge Norman Buck of the District Court of Idaho:

"From the evidence of the witnesses, this Court is of the opinion that the Bunker Hill mine was discovered by the jacka.s.s, Phil O'Rourke, and N.S. Kellogg; and as the jacka.s.s is the property of the plaintiffs, Cooper & Peck, they are ent.i.tled to a half interest in the Bunker Hill, and a quarter interest in the Sullivan claims."

[Ill.u.s.tration MIDDLE FALLS, ECHO FLOUR MILLS, AND OLD POWER HOUSE.]

Spokane has a rare climate of cloudless days. The Indians say that once it shared the fogs and copious rains of the seacoast, but that their tutelary G.o.d, ascending to the heavens, slew the Thunderer, and that thenceforth they dwelt under radiant skies, and were called Spokanes, or Sons of the Sun.

A college of artists could not have devised a more beautiful location for a city. It is set in a gigantic amphitheatre two thousand feet above sea level. High walls of basalt, picturesque with spruce and cedar and pine, form the city's rim. Against this background have been built mansions that would adorn Fifth Avenue or the Circles of the national capital. Forming the city's southern border winds an abysmal gorge, and along its brink has been built one of the city's fashionable boulevards. The cataracts of the Spokane some day must inspire poets. In some parts of the city, affording adornments for numberless gardens, are volcanic, pyramidal rocks. The Indians say that these columns are the petrified forms of amazons who, issuing from the woods, were about to plunge into the river for a bath, ignorant of the water demon, when Speelyai to save them turned them into stone.

It is significant of the lure of Spokane that men who have acc.u.mulated millions and sold their mines still make it their place of permanent residence. Though the city as it is to-day has been built in the dozen years that have elapsed since its great fire, there is no hint of hasty development within its boundaries. Singular fertility in its soil has so fostered its shade trees and its gardens that a sense is conveyed of years of affluent ease and attention to aesthetic detail. Spokane is in many respects the most consummate embodiment on the continent of that typical American genius that has redeemed the wilderness of the frontier.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PORTLAND

THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

"Where rolls the Oregon."--_Bryant_.

BY THOMAS L. COLE

One autumn evening in 1843, A.M. Overton and A.L. Lovejoy, two residents of Oregon City, on their way home from Vancouver, landed from their canoe and pitched their tent for the night under the pine trees upon the west bank of the Willamette River. Before they resumed their journey, the next day, they had projected a town upon the site of their encampment. Within a few months, a clearing was made and a log cabin built. From this beginning grew the present city of Portland.

But our story must go back of this beginning, for the historical significance of Portland lies not so much in the fact that it is to-day the great metropolis of that vast territory, once all called Oregon, and now divided into the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana, not to mention British Columbia; but its significance is rather to be sought in the consideration that in Portland culminated and found final form the metropolitan life of Oregon Territory, which, in its earlier and richer historical period, found expression successively in Astoria, Vancouver, and Oregon City. Thus, for the essential beginning of the history of the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, we must go back to the embryo metropolis established by Astor at the mouth of the Columbia River. This point of departure, while relatively remote, yet carries us back over less than a century of time.

[Ill.u.s.tration JOHN JACOB ASTOR.]

Nearly two hundred years had pa.s.sed after Henry Hudson sailed the _Half-Moon_ up the North River before the waters of the mighty Oregon were disturbed by any craft save the Indian's canoe. Beyond suspicions and reports of Indians, the great "River of the West" was unknown, and that vast territory beyond the Rocky Mountains which it drains was undiscovered until April 29, 1792, when Captain Gray, commanding the _Columbia Rediviva_, from Boston, crossed its bar and landed upon its bank, to the consternation of the Indians, who now saw a white face for the first time.

Gray named the river after his vessel, the Columbia, and took possession of the country in the name of the United States. A few months later, Broughton, a lieutenant of the explorer Vancouver, to whose incredulous ears Gray had communicated his discovery, entered the Columbia, and in turn claimed everything in the name of King George. These conflicting claims furnish a key to the critical period in the history of the Columbia River territory. For a long time neither America nor Great Britain forced a determination of its claim, and a succession of treaties gave to the citizens of both countries equal rights in the territory. Each government, however, encouraged its citizens to make good the national claim by actual possession. The first attraction to Oregon Territory was that which led Captain Gray, with other expeditions, to the coast, viz., the abundance of fur-bearing animals. The first British occupation was that of the Northwest Fur Company of Canada, which pushed some posts across the Rockies to the far north. The way for American occupation was opened when the successful explorations of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which camped over the winter of 1805 at the mouth of the Columbia, demonstrated the practicability of an overland route to Oregon. Into this opening John Jacob Astor promptly entered. As the "American Fur Company," Astor had successfully checked the aggressions of the powerful Canadian companies in the northern United States. He now projected a scheme, under the name of the "Pacific Fur Company," whereby to check the movements of these same companies beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to possess the new country for the United States. The heart of his plan and purpose was a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. Says Washington Irving, to whose fascinating book, _Astoria_, the reader must go for the story of this magnificent, if ill-starred, enterprise:

"He considered his projected establishment at the mouth of the Columbia as the emporium to an immense commerce, as a colony that would form the germ of a wide civilization, that would, in fact, carry the American population across the Rocky Mountains and spread it along the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific."

Jefferson, who had sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition, heartily endorsed this project, as did also his Cabinet. In prosecution of Astor's purpose, on April 12, 1811, the _Tonquin_, the precursor of an intended "annual vessel," bringing partners, clerks, _voyageurs_, and artisans, as well as material and merchandise, crossed the bar of the Columbia and cast anchor. Point George, as it had been named by Broughton, was selected as a site for the embryo metropolis, and was renamed Astoria, after the great commoner whose enterprise it represented. Here, after the _Tonquin_ had sailed away to its tragic fate, the little colony proceeded to establish itself. A fort, a stone mansion, and other buildings were erected, and a schooner, the _Dolly_, was constructed and launched. The colonists did some trading with the neighboring Indians but delayed to reach out into the surrounding country until the arrival of Wilson Price Hunt, who was bringing an expedition overland and was to establish suitable trading posts _en route_. Hunt, who was an American and the chief partner under Mr.

Astor, was to be in charge at Astoria. While engaged in their work of construction, the colonists were disturbed by rumors that their rivals, the Northwest Company, had entered their territory and established a post on the Spokane River. This rumor was confirmed when a canoe came down the Columbia flying the British standard, and a gentleman, stepping ash.o.r.e, introduced himself as David Thompson, an astronomer and a partner of the Northwest Company. McDougal, who was temporarily in charge, was, like several of Astor's partners, a Scotchman, and a former Northwest employe.

This visitor, therefore, was treated as an honored guest instead of as a spy, which he really was. However, it was determined that David Stuart should at once take a small party and set up a post as a check to the one on the Spokane, which he did at Oakinagen.

[Ill.u.s.tration ASTORIA IN 1811. BASED ON A PRINT IN GRAY'S "HISTORY OF OREGON."]

Another interruption was occasioned by the shocking news of the ma.s.sacre of the _Tonquin's_ crew by Indians and the destruction of the vessel. To grief at the loss of their friends was added fear of the Indians, who they now suspected were plotting against them. However, McDougal's wit served and saved them. He threatened to uncork the smallpox, which he professed to hold confined in a bottle, and so gained the fear of the Indians, and the t.i.tle, "The great smallpox chief."

After a gloomy winter, Astoria was cheered in the spring by the arrival of Hunt and his party. These, after a journey the account of which reads like a romance, through sufferings of all kinds and over difficulties all but insurmountable, reached their destination, haggard and in rags.

The arrival, soon after, of the annual vessel, the _Beaver_, with reinforcements and supplies, cheered them all and made possible the establishment of interior posts. The _Beaver_ proceeded to Alaska, in compliance with an agreement between Astor and the Russian Fur Company, which had been made with the consent of both governments; and Hunt went with her. The absence of Hunt, which was prolonged by untoward events, proved fatal to the Astoria enterprise. Just as the partners from the several posts were bringing to the rendezvous the first-fruits of what promised an abundant harvest in the future, McTavish, another Northwest partner, surprised Astoria's people with the alarming news that war had been declared between the two countries, and that he was expecting a British armed vessel to set up a Northwest establishment at the mouth of the river. Without waiting for the appearance of this vessel, without any attempt to send their treasure inland, and although the Astor Company was in a stronger trading position than its rival, McDougal, chief factor in Hunt's absence, sold out to McTavish all Astor's property for one third its value. Opposition was offered by some of the partners and the American clerks were furious, but Hunt's ominous absence dampened opposition and cleared McDougal's way. It is significant that McDougal soon after received a valuable share in the Northwest Company. Had Astor been there he would have "defied them all." "Had our place and our property been fairly captured I should have preferred it," wrote Mr. Astor to Hunt, who doubtless shared the spirit of his chief. Shortly after the sale, a British officer took formal possession of the country in the name of his Britannic Majesty, and Astoria became Fort George. Although the treaty of Ghent restored the _status ante bellum_, Oregon remained for many years in the actual possession of England, through the occupation of its chartered companies. Mr. Astor's desire to reoccupy Astoria received no backing by the government and so no American settlement was even attempted until Captain Wyeth's venture at Fort William in 1832, which proved futile.

[Ill.u.s.tration FORT VANCOUVER, 1833.]

This change from American to British possession was marked by a transfer of the metropolis from Fort George to Fort Vancouver. When Dr. John McLoughlin, upon the absorption of the Northwestern by the Hudson Bay Company, in 1821, was sent out as "Chief Factor of the Columbia River Territory," he declared that the chief post should be as central as possible to the trade; that after leaving the mouth of the river there is no disadvantage in going to the head of navigation; and that a permanent settlement must be surrounded by an agricultural country. These considerations which took McLoughlin to Vancouver are those which to-day determine the commercial strength of Portland, across the river from Vancouver. Thus Fort George sunk to a subordinate position. After the boundary was determined a new American town sprung up under the old name Astoria, where there are large salmon canneries.