Two Years in Oregon Part 19

All the tributaries of the Snake River from the Oregon side run through a country of a somewhat similar character, and each of these streams is the source of life and vegetation. Among these other valleys may be named the Lower Powder River, Eagle Creek, Pine Creek, Upper Burnt River, Upper and Lower Willow Creek, and the Malheur. This last requires separate mention. It runs through the boundaries of the Malheur Indian reservation, now shortly to be thrown open to settlement, and offering about three million acres of fertile and desirable land.

The Malheur River runs from the Harney Lake Valley to the Snake. This last-named valley is about sixty miles long by twenty wide; and this area of twelve hundred square miles is mainly covered with a growth of gra.s.s so tall that a man riding through it on horseback in August can tie the heads of the wild-rye together over his head, or, to use another ill.u.s.tration, sufficiently high and dense to hide completely a horseman who diverges from the road or track. With the wild-rye are mixed bunch-gra.s.s, blue-joint, and quant.i.ties of the wild-pea vine. And the country north and south of it, though bare, is not barren and mountainous; but in the spring and summer, before the gra.s.s is up to its full height, a man can ride and even drive his wagon, day in and day out, until he gets out of the boundaries of Oregon.

The preparations which the settlers make for the winter consist mainly in cutting and storing for hay the natural gra.s.ses of the country. Fort Harney, which has been until lately a post held by two companies, has stabling for four hundred horses. Five years ago the troops got cut and stacked from the surrounding country nine hundred tons of choice hay.

Neither in this valley are the winters very severe. Until railroad communications are provided, the spa.r.s.e settlers have to abandon themselves to isolation from the outside world, because the snow lies deep on the plateaus and ridges which extend between them and the haunts of civilized man. But within the limits of the valleys the inhabitants enjoy life in winter. The snow does not lie long or deep; and from so many sources that I am forced to credit it comes the information that no one accustomed to American winter in any of the Middle States need have any apprehension in coming to live in any of the valleys I have named.

Turning westward from the Snake River and traversing the Malheur Valley and the Harney Lake Valley, the traveler may follow one of the military wagon-roads--that one whose fortunes in the violent and scandalous attempts on the t.i.tle to its granted lands I have before referred to.

From Camp Harney to Prineville, the princ.i.p.al town in the southern portion of Wasco County, the distance is about one hundred and forty-five miles. For between thirty and forty miles the road runs through Silver Creek Valley, or along land watered by its affluent streams. The description I have given of valleys in Eastern Oregon applies to this. The country on either side of the road consists of rolling hills, covered with bunch-gra.s.s and sage-brush, and occasionally spa.r.s.e juniper. Settlement in this valley is very recent.

But thirteen families had taken up their residence there previous to and during the fall of 1880, and several more are going in this spring.

[Sidenote: _GRINDSTONE CREEK VALLEY._]

Then Grindstone Creek Valley is reached. This is one of the head-waters of Crooked River. A perfect network of creeks and streams is pa.s.sed before the main Crooked River is reached, and each stream and creek brings fertility to the land on either side of it and through which it runs.

A farmer named Moppin has the credit of growing the first grain on Grindstone Creek; and there, in the harvest of 1880, he raised six hundred bushels of fine oats on nine acres of land, and grew one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes on less than two thirds of an acre; several of the potatoes weighed two pounds and upward.

Then, following down the course of the Crooked River Valley, we pa.s.s through a country which is described in the following terms by a settler of eleven years' experience:

"This Crooked River Valley is about seventy-five miles long, and extends almost due east and west. It is a beautiful valley, with little or no timber in it, with the exception of willows along the river. The average width of the river is about one hundred feet. Now comes the stock country on the south of this river, and along its entire length is one line of hills and plateaus, thickly covered with bunch-gra.s.s of the best quality. Every few miles comes in a creek from the highlands back on either side. On these streams, from head to mouth, with but few exceptions, are good farming-lands.

"At this time there are hundreds of thousands of acres of good land lying idle, waiting for the industrious farmer to fence and plow and raise grain on. But what is the use? There is no market for the grain except in limited quant.i.ties, as we have no facilities for shipping to the outside world. The consequence is, that if a man does not have money enough to go into the stock-business, he won't come here at all.

The one great trouble is to get our supplies. Within a year after the completion of a railroad to this locality the people over in your section will be surprised at the vast amount of grain received from here. As it is now, we have to drive our fat cattle from one to two hundred miles in the winter to find a market, and by the time we get them there they are poor. Give us a railroad, and we can ship our fat stock five hundred miles to market, and afford to sell cheaper than those who live in your (Willamette) valley. We do not have to feed at all. We mark and brand a calf, turn him out on the range, and, when he is four years old, sell him for twenty dollars cash--net profit about seventeen dollars. Does that pay? Give us facilities for getting to a better market, and it will pay better."

Pa.s.sing still eastward after leaving Prineville along this Crooked River Valley, and then to its junction with the Des Chutes River, the country retains its fertile and promising character.

[Sidenote: _A FARMER'S OPINION._]

A farmer of twenty years' experience in Oregon, and who is a thoroughly reliable man, writes thus: "I have known this country well for several years. This fall (1880) I have taken a journey through it right along east, traveling slowly and with a view to settling. What my opinion is you may judge when I tell you that I have made up my mind to settle in the Crooked River Valley, where I shall go with my family in the spring.

"I know no part of Oregon that pleases me better. You have the best of land for wheat, oats, and potatoes. You can get a good garden, and grow all the vegetables you want. You have unlimited range for your stock, where they will get fat on the natural gra.s.ses, and where you can put up all the hay you want. Cattle, horses, and sheep do equally well out there. You are going into a healthy climate, away from all fever and ague or any other sickness of that nature; and you are going to a place where the land is bound to be worth four times its present value when the Oregon Pacific Railroad is opened."

Beginning the ascent of the Cascades, you pa.s.s through and over some twenty miles of rough lava country, interspersed with strips of scattering timber-land, and then come to Fish Lake and Clear Lake, the paradise of the fisherman, the hunter, and the berry-gatherer and botanist.

Before I leave the description of Eastern Oregon, let me quote from one more letter from a settler of last year out in the Prineville country: "I am located on a ranch on Camp Creek, and eight miles below the famous 'soap-holes' (silver-mines). We can raise almost anything out here, unless it is a mortgage. We have all the potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, and beets we want; all were raised on our ranch, and, by-the-way, they were immense. I pulled one turnip that measured thirty-four and a half inches in circ.u.mference, and quite a number ran as high as thirty inches. Early-rose potatoes do remarkably well here.

I have in about five acres of rye, and will sow about twenty acres of wheat and oats in the spring."

I should add that the towns in Eastern Oregon, away from the Columbia, are beginning to a.s.sume considerable importance.

Baker City was described in December, 1880, as having about one thousand inhabitants, while the amount of business transacted would average fully $450,000. There were then six substantial fire-proof business structures, and two large school-buildings, namely, "St.

Joseph's" and "The Sisters of the Holy Names." The former is said to be a large four-story structure, in brick and stone, of the pure Gothic style of the fourteenth century, with accommodations for about one hundred and fifty boarding and day scholars; it is managed by a Roman Catholic priest named De Roo.

Prineville is a very lively and bustling place, with about the same number of inhabitants. It is growing fast, several fine buildings having been recently erected, among them a convenient and substantial church. There are three large general stores, supplied with heavy stocks of goods; from this, as a distributing center, the stockmen and ranchers for fifty miles and more in every direction fetch the necessaries of life. In the summertime ten or a dozen heavily-loaded wagons may be seen any day starting out along this road (which was called no road!) for their distant homes.

[Sidenote: _WARNINGS TO SETTLERS._]

It must not be a.s.sumed that all Eastern Oregon could be divided off into farms of the character of these choicer pieces which such men as I have referred to have chosen and settled on. There is many a rough, stony hill-side, where the spa.r.s.e vegetation struggles for life in the crannies of the rocks. There is many a stretch of sandy, alkaline plain, where the dingy sage-brush grows, with here and there a tuft of bunch-gra.s.s; there is many a gully where the thirsty steer would look in vain for water, even in a dirt-hole, to quench his thirst.

But all this is fully consistent with the fertility and attractiveness of the valleys and slopes I have described. For, remember, we are dealing with fifty thousand square miles of country, on which, if the existing farms were marked on a large scale-map, they would be hardly noticeable in the vast expanse of land waiting for settlement and population.

But he would be a short-sighted man who should think of farming in Eastern Oregon, as it now is, save in a few accessible spots, where proximity to a road will provide a market at his door for the produce he has raised. In Northeastern Oregon, where the great crops of wheat are beginning to be grown, the farmer is at the mercy of the Transportation Company, which hitherto has sucked the oyster and left the farmer the sh.e.l.l. For what profit can there be in growing wheat at thirty and thirty-five cents a bushel, that same wheat being worth one hundred cents in Portland, and the difference being absorbed in freight and charges?

And yet, so great is the charm of novelty, so p.r.o.ne are a large number of the emigrants to this State to try a new place, that land up there fetches from five to fifteen dollars an acre, just about the same price for which they could buy a farm in the valley foot-hills, where wheat was worth seventy-five cents against the thirty-five, and where churches, schools, post-offices, and telegraphs are already provided.

CHAPTER XXI.

Southern Oregon--Its boundaries--The western counties--Population--Ports --Rogue River--Coos Bay--Coal--Lumber--Practicable railroad routes--The harbor--Shifting and blowing sands--A quoted description--Cost of transportation--Harbor improvements--Their progress and results--The Umpqua--Douglas County--Jackson County--The lake-country--Linkville --Water-powers--Indian reservations--The great mountains--Southeastern Oregon--General description--Industries.

Southern Oregon is defined generally as bounded on the west by the Pacific, and starting from its western boundary is bounded on the north by the Calapooya Mountains, shutting in the Umpqua Valley, and then running eastward, taking in the lake country. In this division are included the western counties of Douglas, Coos, Curry, Josephine, Jackson, Lake, and the southern half of Grant and Baker. A great portion of the last-named counties is yet unsurveyed.

The western counties already possess, according to the census of 1880, a population of 29,081 souls.

The portions of Grant and Baker Counties properly belonging to Southern Oregon have only about two thousand people, the reason being that this country is truly inaccessible, being so far distant from the seaboard, and hardly traversed by a road.

Southern Oregon possesses several rivers and their attendant seaports.

The most southerly is the Rogue River, which has a course of about one hundred miles, running through a very fertile but secluded valley. The bar at the entrance is shifting, and the channel very variable; but it is entered by both small steamers and by the coasting schooners which ply along the coast, with San Francisco as their port of delivery.

Coos Bay, some sixty miles to the north of the Rogue River, needs a fuller description, as it is the headquarters of the coal and lumber business of Southern Oregon. Detailed reports of the coal-basin give not less than seventy-five thousand acres of coal-bearing land, estimated to produce from the one vein at present worked not less than four hundred and fifty million tons of coal. As many as six workable seams are, however, known to exist, including one which has been prospected to eleven feet in thickness. Five coal-mines have been opened, which are capable of producing about two thousand tons of coal daily. The working of these mines is of an inexpensive character, much of the mineral being accessible from adits or galleries delivering their produce on the hill-sides.

The lumber shipped at Coos Bay is yielded by four large steam saw-mills, with an aggregate capacity of about one hundred and fifteen thousand feet per day.

There are also four ship-yards, from which between forty and fifty vessels have been launched, even up to two thousand tons burden.

The value of coal and lumber exported from Coos Bay was upward of $445,000 in the year 1877, according to the statistics collected by a committee of residents, when application was about to be made to Congress for an appropriation for the improvement of the harbor. It was then reported that a railroad was found to be practicable from Coos Bay along the Coquille Valley across the Coast Mountains. Such a line would then pa.s.s through the Umpqua Valley to Roseburg, with a practicable extension up the North Fork of the Umpqua River and through the Cascade Mountains into Eastern Oregon.

[Sidenote: _SHIFTING AND BLOWING SANDS._]

It was ascertained that the chief difficulty in improving the entrance to the port lay in the enormous quant.i.ty of movable and shifting sand, driven along the coast southward by the prevalent summer northwest winds, and then returned by the winter southwest gales.

So violent is this action that it is thus described: "Large tracts to the north of Coos Bay and along the rock separating its lower part from the sea, where once stood farms and pine-forests, are now buried to the tops of the highest trees. Immense quant.i.ties of this wind-borne sand are constantly going into the bay, and by its swift currents are carried out to form the bar, or be deposited in the bight to the east and north of the cape."

Let me quote a short description of this section of the country, on which before many years the tide of immigration must roll in. The writer is the Hon. B. Hermann, who is doing all in his power to draw public attention to his district:

"Ten-mile and Camas Valleys, being respectively ten and fifteen to twenty-five miles from the terminus of the Oregon and California Railroad at Roseburg, are without any other outlet. The cost of teaming to this point, added to the present exorbitant rates of railway freights, discourages the farmers of those sections in the cultivation of the soil. And yet some of the best and most extensive wheat-fields of the country are within those circuits, while a vast area is left annually to grow brush and weeds, and to remain of comparatively little value, which should otherwise contribute to the harvest of thousands of bushels of the finest grain.

"From Camas Valley, and along the Middle Fork of the Coquille River, until its junction with the main stream is reached, a distance of twenty-eight miles by survey, three fourths of the route is without even a wagon-road communication, travel being by trail, with ox and sled, saddle and pack horse. And yet there is found a goodly population, having substantial improvements, some very good farms in cultivation, with flouring-mills for the local accommodation.

"The land is very fertile, and capable of growing the usual cereals and esculents to perfection, but, owing to the great difficulty of transporting the productions to market, a very small portion only is cultivated, and much remains vacant, subject to homestead and preemption....

"From the junction with the main river, and following the latter to near Beaver Slough, or Coquille City, the point of diversion of the route toward Coos Bay, an enterprising community is found, owning bottom-lands of rich alluvial soil, a great portion of which is now being cleared of timber, annually placed under cultivation, and large crops of grain garnered. This same remark applies to all the remaining portion of the main Coquille Valley, a distance of forty miles or more to the sea, and also along the North and South Forks, as well as the smaller tributaries. For a distance of seventy-five miles inland the Coquille Valley is capable of extensive agricultural development.

Already this distance is closely peopled, all lands on the main stream settled, and improvements slowly made. Much grain is now grown here, a large proportion manufactured into flour by the various mills for home consumption and shipment to Coos Bay, while a considerable quant.i.ty of the grain is exported to San Francisco through the mouth of the river.

[Sidenote: _COST OF TRANSPORTATION._]