Portland

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As for the last of the three Ports, or Portland, it is getting too prosperous to be as attractive as its less northerly neighbors. Meant for a fine old town, to ripen like a Cheshire cheese within its walls of ancient rind, burrowed by crooked alleys and mottled with venerable mould, it seems likely to sacrifice its mellow future to a vulgar material prosperity. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ George Washington's birthday anniversary, February 22d, is rose planting day at Portland, Oregon, and this patriotic remembrance of "the father of his country" is thus happily united with the festival that brings recreation, pleasure and joy to the hundreds of thousands of people who lay aside all business cares to rejuvenate health and strength.
Portland has in common with all other American cities, ample means of social culture, and society dissipation. Much of this has been noticed, but the great mass of what goes under the name of social culture is foreign to the purpose of this history. ”

“ The relation and connection of this city of Portland with this chapter of the life of the great La Salle consists in the influence which these acts of the explorer gave to the extension of American settlements and exploration towards the Pacific northwest. It may be adverted to now, and enlarged upon hereafter, that the French nation and the French people have always been, whenever occasion offered, friends of American ideas and institutions on the American continent as against other nations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The third great center of the life of this northwest coast is Portland. Solid, slow, rich, conservative. A hundred and twenty miles from the sea, but yet a seaport. Situated on the Willamette River, six miles from its confluence with the mighty Columbia. Already Seattle outstrips it in population, so a Portland man admitted to me to-day, yet Portland will always remain one of the great cities of the coast. It possesses many miles of fine docks; the waters about their piles are not quiet and serene, but swift and turbulent, sometimes mad and dangerous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To conclude from Portland's rapid growth and commercial supremacy that it is a typical "western" town, would be to strike wide of [562] the mark. One must go east from Portland to find the typical characteristics, good and bad, of a western town. Portland's character was largely formed before the railway came, for it had a population of nearly twenty thousand before there was connection by rail with the United States. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 altogether, it was decided that a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”