Portland, Oregon

“ To accomplish this result the pioneers who founded the city of Portland passed through every phase of human experience. Toils, labors and dangers beyond number or description; joys, sorrows, pains, suffering and death. The unmarked graves by the wayside of those who fell in the march to Oregon were thousands. The dust and heat at times were intolerable. Think, if you can, of a moving mass of humanity and dumb brutes, often mixed in inextricable confusion, moving along in a column twice as wide as Portland street. Here and there were drivers of the loose cattle lashing them to keep moving. ”

“ And by this time (1850) although growing slowly, Portland had gathered in quite a village population of active, earnest men, who not only had their own property interests at stake, but had a genuine friendship for the townsite proprietors. And it was decided that a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together, was the thing to do and get in a steamship in the interest of Portland. This sentiment being conveyed down to San Francisco, the side-wheel steamer Gold Hunter took in a cargo for Portland, Oregon, and came up to see how the town looked. ”

“ Its foundation and existence stand for a principle; it is the result and fruit of evolutionary forces which could not be turned aside; and it has been, and must continue to be the nerve center towards which and from which tend all the historic ideas and influences which turned the tide of dominion from Russia and Great Britain, and made Portland, Oregon, in fact and truth, unconsciously, the guiding star of that empire which westward took its predestined and irresistible way. ”

“ No class of citizens have persistently advocated and insisted upon these reforms with higher motives and less selfishness than the doctors of Portland ; and the consequence is that Portland, Oregon, is about the healthiest place to live in the United States ”

“ These observations do not apply any more to Portland than to other cities — not even as much. Look at old Virginia, when a colony of farmers, producing George Washington, Thomas Jefiferson, John Marshall, James Madison, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, John Randolph, "Light Horse Harry" and Richard Henry Lee. The world never before, or since, beheld such a group of intellectual giants. Every man of them reared on a farm. ”

“ No estimate can be made of the value and influence of such a man, and such a life, in such a city as Portland, and a new country like Oregon. It is beyond all estimation, above all praise, and immeasurable. Such men never die. ”

“ This is not mentioned to be excepted to, but to show that Portland, Oregon, is not only one of the most liberal, religious and enlightened cities in the world in this year of 1910, but it is also to be ranked as the place where religious work and worth must be rated for what it really does for humanity, rather than what it professed to do. ”

“ When it is taken into consideration that Portland, Maine, is nearly two degrees'farther south than Portland, Oregon, and that roses are blossoming in the gardens of the latter, while snow lies white and winter winds whistle over the leafless gardens of the former, the older city has no occasion to feel concerned for the comfort of its godchild. ”

“ The far Northwest bordering on the sea caught flotsam and jetsam, caught problems, as seaboard regions always have and always will. The city of Portland, Oregon, shares in these matters, though it is old, settled, and much disposed to quiet. Portland’s main concern in life is the growing of roses; but early in the war Portland had already thrown away her rose-growers’ club and set her hand to the ax rather than to the garden trowel. As a city, it is a good place for roses, but a poor place for alien enemies. ”

“ There is not a single large city in the United States, except Portland, but what had for its foundations some sort of authority or law from a sovereign ruler or government. Portland was in a worse position than in a country where there was no law, and no claim to the country, by any state or nation. ”

“ It is not hard to understand the fact of so many townsite locations having been made in the vicinity of Portland. Everybody in the country in those pioneer days, could see as well as we can now, that there would be somewhere above the Columbia river bar, a town started which would grow into a great city, and make a fortune or fortunes for the lucky proprietors. Every man had his individual ideas of the proposition. The city would either be at Astoria, where Astor located, or it would be up near the mouth of the Willamette river. It would be wherever the ships cast anchor to discharge cargo. ”

“ They are wondering if it was an accident, or did that man think it all out by himself, and come here and drive down the first stake for Portland, Oregon, in the midst of the mighty forests.
After the native red man, according to all reliable evidence, the first white man to come upon this townsite and say, "This is my land, here will I build my hut, here will I make my home," was William Overton, a young man from the state of Tennessee, who landed here from an Indian canoe in 1844, and claimed the land for his own. ”

“ Buildings are going up in all parts of Portland, streets graded and planked, wharves stretching their proportions along the levees, and a general thrift and busy hum greet the ear or attract the attention of a stranger upon every street and corner. ”

“ The scattered farmers of the Tualitin plains of Washington county, hauling in their produce and hauling out their supplies through the old Canyon road, was a mighty factor in locating Portland as the chief city. And it is a notable fact that for more than half a century the people of this city and the people of Washington county have always stood shoulder to shoulder in all enterprises to promote each other's welfare. ”

“ Portland from Council Crest If you happen to be wandering in the wonderful William- ette Valley in June, do not fail to see the Rose Festival in Portland. For months the roses hold their glory in her soft warm air. Nor must you fail to climb her Council Crest, a sort of an Acropolis; because from this lofty elevation you can see the city of Portland below you, spread out, trim and trig, like a corner in New England. There are the quiet Co- lonial houses, there are the clean busy streets, all engirdled by groves of fir and cedar, all brightened by rose gardens that are roses all the year. ”

“ The facts which have induced thousands of Portland's citizens to hold on patiently and stubbornly until time should prove the correctness of their views, are the facts which have made the city what it is, and will produce the great Pacific coast city of the future. The viewpoint of the pioneer was, that Portland was the nearest point that an ocean-going sailing vessel could get to the Willamette valley farms. ”

“ Portland has so much advanced in improvements, since we were there four months ago, that we should have hardly known the place. It shows every evidence of prosperity, which we are extremely happy to see in every town in Oregon.
From Portland, we proceeded down the Willamette passing Milton on the way, to the junction of the Willamette and Columbia, thence up the Columbia six miles to Vancouver—where on our arrival we were saluted by the thunder of cannon from the Fort, and the friendly greetings of the citizens of the place. ”

“ Portland would continue to be the commercial center of that district, unless it were found that sea steamers could "at all times ascend to the foot of the Cascades." The vast region drained by the Columbia River was one which impressed the observer as incapable of sustaining a flourishing civilization. This, said he, "is the general view to be taken of Oregon from the Pacific to the summit of the Rocky Mountain Range, a region only fit, as a general rule, for the occupancy of the nomadic tribes who now roam over it, and who should be allowed peacefully to remain in its possession." ”

“ The gold fever practically settled the Indian question, and opened eastern Oregon to settlement. The demand of the miners for transportation soon placed steamboats on the upper Columbia, and gold dust poured into Portland for goods, and the city grew and prospered beyond all former experiences.
The continued influx of immigration from the east by wagon road, and of business men by ocean steamer, steadily but slowly built up the city and state; and the people, becoming restless under the changing territorial governors, clamored for a state organization and home rule. ”

“ The city of Portland has been fortunate in that it has never suffered but a single financial panic that has wrought any very great hardships to the people in general or seriously injured current business transactions. But in the panic of 1893, the city of Portland was not an exception. It suffered in common with many other business centers of the United States ”

“ Portland is a surprisingly well-built city, with so many large shops, so many elegant dwellings, and other signs of prosperity, as will make you credit the assertion of its inhabitants, that it contains more wealth in proportion to its population than any other town in the United States. ”

“ But while Portland may justly claim to be the peer of any city of its size in the United States in all that pertains to social life, in the attractions of beauty of location and surroundings it stands without its peer. ”

“ THE idea of a citizen of Portland, Maine, being able to send a message to a citizen in Portland, Oregon, by wireless, and without cost, is of course very wonderful and extremely attractive. Nothing like it has ever been possible before in the history of the world. The co-operation of a few unknown but nevertheless kindred spirits between Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon, by means of which the message is handed on, adds a touch to the whole scheme and makes it almost Utopian. ”

“ Being the first city of importance north of San Francisco, and the brain of our northwest coast, Portland was full of energy and vigor, and believed thoroughly in her future. The great Oregon Steam Navigation Company had their headquarters here, and poured into her lap all the rich trade of the Columbia and its far-reaching tributaries, that tap Idaho, Montana, and even British America itself. So, also, the coastwise steamers, from San Francisco up, all made Portland their terminus, and added largely to her commerce. Back of her lay the valley of the Willamette, and the rich heart of Oregon ”

“ They were two widely different men of Portland: one magnetic and light-hearted, with money and social position, who accomplished things dashingly and easily by instinctive genius; the other of ungregarious personality and touched by the contagion of Oregon somberness, with scant earnings and without social status, who put into his thick book the most work that has ever gone into an Oregon volume; one with clubs named after him in many cities and looked upon by the foreign nation he died for in somewhat the same way as Byron in Greece and Lafayette in America ”

“ From the plentitude of its own resources, it will be enabled to sustain its own operations, and will hasten on to its own majesty, and to a proud rank on the earth." (Hall J. Kelley, in his prospectus for a city where University park, Portland, is now located, 1832.)
"I say the man is alive, full grown, and is listening to what I say, who will yet see the Asiatic commerce traversing the North Pacific ocean—entering the Oregon river—climbing the western slope of the Rocky mountains—issuing from its gorges—and spreading its fertilizing streams over our wide extended Union! ”

“ East Portland shared in the prosperity of the greater city, and having a larger extent of level land for town-site purposes, offered better facilities for building cheap homes for the working classes. The Portland Reduction works was located there, and opened in the spring of 1887, for smelting ores from the mines of Oregon and Idaho. Street cars were introduced here in 1888, connecting with West Portland by means of a track laid on a bridge over the Willamette at Morrison street, and with Albina by another bridge across the ravine which separates them. ”

“ Pettygrove sold out his interests in Portland, and the whole party sailed away in 1851, for Puget sound, where they founded the city of Port Townsend, and where they spent the remainder of their lives and strength in building up a city to eclipse Portland. Port Townsend has about two thousand population today, and Portland has twenty-five times as many, a clear proof that a man's backsight is always better than his foresight. ”

“ It is built on slopes rising gradually from the river banks into wooded hills, with tall mountains in the distance—a site of great natural beauty that is enhanced by the fine trees and lawns of the city. In the vicinity are numerous picturesque waterfalls; and Portland Heights, in the western part of the city, command a superb view of the distant mountains and the valleys of the Columbia and the Willamette. ”

“ And that is the way Portland got its appropriate name.
The town started slowly, and its rate of growth for the first three years was scarcely noticeable. Oregon City was the head center of all the Americans; the seat of government, the saw and the grist mill; and Vancouver did not invite and encourage settlers at that point. Men came and looked, and then passed on up the valley, or out into Tualitin plains and took land for farms. The people coming into the country were mostly farmers, had always been farmers, as had their forefathers, and had but little confidence in townsite opportunities. ”