Portland Place

“ The ducks emit their bronchial quack;
But all day long from dawn to dark
The crossing-sweeper’s trade is slack.
The Langham porter’s wand’ring eye
Encounters ne’er a human face;
No smoke curls upward to the sky—
The blinds are down in Portland Place.
The thoroughfare is broad and wide,
The vestry keeps the roadway clean,
And I can walk on either side,
Or ’gainst each separate lamp-post lean.
I’m king of all that I survey—
As sad as Selkirk’s is my case—
Oh, soon, to save my reason, may
The blinds go up in Portland Place!
The Shirt Buttons.
(AFTER SWINBURNE.)
FF! ”

“ We all walked down together, and this gentleman, turning with enthusiasm to my sister and me, said, "I think your father living here is just the right man in the right place!" My sister and I looked at one another; it had been so hot that day, yet we had not been able to open our windows to let in the air because of the abundance of smells which came in with it. If Turner Street was the "right" place, we, at least, did not appreciate it.
At the end of February we removed to 10 Portland Place (as it was then called) , Circus Road, St John's Wood. It was a queerly-arranged house ”

“ In the winter of 1814, the first building was erected at the foot of Washington Street. In 1845, Lovejoy and Pettvgrove laid off sixteen blocks of the townsite and named the place Portland by the process mentioned above. Captain John Couch of Newburyport, Massachusetts, had been in the Columbia River trade and soon recognized the strategic importance of the locality of Portland. He made settlement in the place in 184546, and became an important addition to the community. In the fall of 1845, Lovejoy sold his interest to Benjamin Stark and moved to Oregon City. ”

“ Well I staid at Ant Sally's a week or two, and I went about town every day to see what chance I could find to trade off my ax handles, or hire out, or find some way or other to begin to seek my fortune.
And I must confess the editor of the Courier was about right in calling Portland a pretty good thriving sort of a place; every body seemed to be as busy as so many bees ”

“ The town was originally laid out by Washington himself, and divided off into streets, or rather wide avenues, which are crossed by other streets of great breadth; but though the streets are named, in many of them no houses are yet built, and those that are have a mean appearance, owing to their being unsuited in height to the great width of the streets, which are in many cases, I should think, three times the width of Portland Place, and long in proportion. ”

“ The fact is that nowhere, perhaps, is the Spirit of Place more coy and difficult of access than in modern Portland, having retreated before barracks, fortifications, and prison, before traction-engines and signs of commercial prosperity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To foreigners, indeed, the task must be hopeless. How should they avoid taking their standard of the whole from the circle in which they move? They see the interior of houses where wealth, talent, political influence, and sounding names meet together in habitual and familiar intercourse: how can they imagine that what they see there are not the acknowledged manners of the "upper classes?" Yet nothing can be more erroneous. Portland-place differs as much from Belgravia, as Regent-street does from Bond-street. ”

“ Portland has four producers and consumers cooperatives—an oil company, elevator, creamery, and store. Across the street from a large Lutheran church in the western part of the town stand the now unused buildings of Bruflat Academy, one of the first private educational institutions in the State, established by the local Lutheran Church in 1889. Portland and vicinity were first settled in 1871, and the place became a boom town when the railroad arrived in 1881. ”

“ 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 ”

“ You cannot keep some people out of the kitchen, merely because their grandfathers or grandmothers came out of it. A poor man and his wife walking along in the neighbourhood of Portland-place, he said to her peevishly, ‘What is the use of walking along these fine streets and squares? ”

“ But it did not cost any money to claim it if the true location could be determined. And so there were, counting in Portland, the ten locations we have named; and the result was a contest for the survival of the fittest; a purely evolutionary movement in commercial developments.
Every townsite proprietor had his unanswerable reasons why his town was the right place for the great city, but not one of them, except Hall J. Kelley, who has not been counted among the competitors, ever supposed there would be a town of more than twenty thousand people. The Oregon City lot holders with Dr. ”

“ Thornby Place is but two stories high, and its spruce walls of Portland stone and ashlar work rise sheer out of the green sward; in front, Doric columns support a heavy entablature, and there are urns at the corners of the building. The six windows on the ground floor are topped with round arches, and coming up the drive the house seems a perfect square. But this regularity of structure has on the east side been somewhat interfered with by a projection of some thirty or forty feet—a billiard room, in fine, which during John's minority Mrs Norton had thought proper to add. ”

“ HUMOE.
ird Portland
1 visit the Lewis and Clark Fair in 1 remain here permanently. Real Es- here could be nothing more certain
ADDITION
most delightful place in Portland for
t desirable residence district in the city. A level plat- view of the city, the river, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens,
and within easy walking distance of the business IS improved streets, gas, electric lights, water mains, jme-builders. Seeing is believing. Locate your home is certain to enhance is value.
STATE COMPANY
PORTLAND, OREGON
The Summer Girl. ”

“ To-day it is estimated at 30,000, or, including the suburbs of East Portland and Albina, at 40,000, and a handsomer city of its size can not be found in the United States.
In everything that distinguishes a great metropolitan city, the progress of Portland has been even more remarkable than the rapid growth of its [Pg 41] population. The handsome business blocks that line its principal streets bear witness to the magnitude of its trade and commerce, while its churches, schools and other public buildings testify to the high moral tone and refined taste of its citizens. ”

“ A noticeable feature of Portland is the snug and homelike appearance of the city. The streets are narrow—too narrow, indeed, for the display of the fine structures already erected and in progress; the squares are small, affording frequent streets and corner lots—so small that many of Portland's capitalists have appropriated a whole one to themselves, giving a perspective to their tasteful mansions which their business houses lack. ”

“ Portland has one of the deepest and best harbors in [Pg 352] the world, with a depth of forty feet at low tide. Its surroundings are exceptionally favorable for a commercial city, and were it not for its geographical location, it being so far north of the great areas of population, it would undoubtedly have gained a prominence over most of the Atlantic cities. But Boston and New York drew all but the provincial trade and commerce, and with a sparsely settled country at its back, there was little to build up Portland and give it great prosperity. ”

“ With such a beginning, with the growth and development already achieved, with an invincible position and natural advantages which cannot be reversed or diminished, Portland is entitled to be called the "City of Destiny"—a destiny assured to be the greatest city of the Pacific coast of North America. ”

“ Portland is indeed a city of homes, and workingmen own their own houses to an unusual degree. As the visitor traverses Portland's streets, he sees amply demonstrated the propriety of the cognomen, the "Rose City." Almost every yard boasts its roses, and on almost every porch the scarlet rambler or some other climber casts its rich colouring. Soil and climate are said to produce an ideal combination for the finest grades of roses, as well as of many other species of flowers. The Portland Fair of 1905 was the means of beautifying a section of the city near Macley Park. ”

“ Portland stands alone in its founding and development. In less than sixty years it has arisen from an unbroken forest, uninhabited save by wild beasts and native Indians, separated from its native hearthstones by two thousand miles of unpeopled deserts, plains and mountains, to a city and seaport, one hundred and ten miles from the ocean, that ships more lumber than any other city in the world, more wheat than any other city in America, except New York, and handles more money every day than any other city in the nation of its class. ”

“ The mournfullest task of memory lies in realising how large a toll is yielded in a few fleeting years to the unsparing tax-gatherer Death.
Portland, although devoid of the fertile lands which encompass Port Fairy and Warrnambool, had yet beauties of its own. Its situation was romantic. Lofty cliffs rose from the beach, and from many a picturesque eminence the residences of the townspeople looked on the broad ocean and the peaceful waters of the bay. ”

“ The alternation of these farms with long tracts of forest, where spruces and pines stand a hundred and fifty feet high, and myriads of wild things have grown in generations of tangle, gives to the country around Portland a charm and flavor peculiarly its own; even into the city itself extends something of the same charm of contrast and antithesis; meandering footpaths, or narrow plank sidewalks with grassy rims, running within stone's-throw of solid brick blocks and business thoroughfares. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Portland has a population of 130,000 and is a most beautiful city. It has a jobbing trade amounting to between $150,000,000 and $175,000,000 a year and also a heavy export trade. Its exports of wheat and lumber are very large. The buildings, churches, residences, and parks of Portland are thoroughly modern, and electricity, generated at Willamette Falls, plays an important part in all manufacturing, street car locomotion, building and street illumination, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Powerful and comfortable steamers stem the torrent of the mighty river and at the rapids of the Dalles, close to the mystical, mythical Bridge of the Gods, a system of locks has challenged and overcome Nature’s mastery of her aquatic highway. Portland is famous for its hotels and hospitality, its fine streets and buildings, its clubs, its schools and churches. ”

“ 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 ”

“ There was a time when they were altogether too wealthy in Portland. Every man had business of his own to attend to and was so deeply engaged in it that he overlooked the business of the city. They did not take hold. ”

“ No matter, the longest afternoon must have its evening; an hour or so more and they would be in Portland, surrounded by all the conveniences and safeguards of civilization, free at last to draw breath of ease in the land of law, order, and sane living. ”

“ 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. ”