Spokane

“ It was evident from every sign that we were nearing the arid belt of eastern Washington, the great semi-desert plateau that is looped in the bend of the Columbia between the mouth of the Spokane and the mouth of the Snake. The towering split crest of Mitre Rock marked the approach to the slack stretch of water backed up by the boulder barrage over which tumbles Spokane Rapids. The run through the latter was to be our real baptism; a short rapid passed a few miles above proving only rough enough to set the raft rolling in fluent undulations and throw a few light gobs of spray over her “bows.” ”

“ The city of Spokane, in eastern Washington, clearly illustrates the control which physical features exert upon the settlements and industries of men. The Spokane River, soon after issuing from Cœur d'Alene Lake, flows out over the volcanic plains of Washington. In the course of a few miles it descends into a shallow cañon by a series of cascades and waterfalls. The water-power furnished by these falls has determined the position and growth of Spokane. The falls brought sawmills and manufacturing plants, and these in turn brought people and railroads. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Butte is like travelling from Chicago to Denver. Its future must be great. It has no rival. Eight railroads, three of them transcontinental, assert its supremacy. Southward stretches the most prolific grain empire in the world. ”

“ SCULPTORS have not yet chiselled the glory of the founders of Spokane, for most of the pioneers of that city, heedless of remote epitaphs, still hurry over its now "populous pavements," multiplying their wealth. Boys born in the first year of the city's incorporation have not yet reached the age of suffrage. Less than thirty years ago the settlement began with three citizens and a sawmill. It has developed into a brick and granite city of nearly fifty thousand. ”

“ A great city, the creation of a few years, but to the casual traveler, more or less uninteresting, broiling and sizzling in the August sun, treeless, for the most part, and to that extent cheerless. But the volume of business transacted is large and the business buildings are fine and the people, grown richer, are building new houses and surrounding themselves with the luxuries which American people everywhere seek after and prize.
Leaving Spokane, going westward, one enters the great wheat country, a plateau lying between the Rocky Mountains and the coast ranges. ”

“ On whatever side viewed, either past or present, or in the forecast of the future, Spokane is worthy of careful study. Its extensive railroad system and its network of electric lines reaching the many lakes, garden and fruit tracts, and rapidly developing suburbs, are concentrating the interests of a vast and wealthy region. ”

“ 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 [521] 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 Tecumseh, Colonel Wright accomplished at Spokane Plains for the Northwest in demolishing the league of tribes under the Spokanes. ”

“ The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative wheat-raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport, where luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining-halls of that most splendid hotel in the West.
The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already in the army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber of Commerce. ”

“ A century ago a few brave men blazed perilous trails through the wilderness of the far Northwest but their picturesque adventures gave no hint of the city of wealth, industry, and architectural beauty that was to rise on both banks of the Spokane cataract. ”

“ I noticed one large woman who seemed to pride herself upon her person, which she took pains to set off in the most becoming manner by means of a blanket wrapped around her. The road to the Spokane House was over a sandy prairie, interspersed with groves of pine. Crossing a dividing ridge with high and steep banks, we came into the prairie in which the Spokane House is situated, in which were two Spokane villages. We inquired for Garry, and I sent him a request that he would visit me at my camp. The train we found a mile below the junction, across the Spokane. ”

“ It will be readily seen how great an area and what vast resources Spokane Falls claims as tributary to itself in Washington. But there remains to be added the rich mineral regions of Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai. There may and will build up rival cities in the Colville and Big Bend countries, at no very distant day; but the pan-handle of Idaho does not seem adapted to such designs, at least in its northern end, therefore Spokane
seems quite sure of a share in the wealth being extracted from its mines. ”

“ Many years ago Francis H. Cook, pioneer Spokane newspaper editor, acquired land on the summit of the moun- tain, built a cabin there, and began a campaign to have the area set aside as a recreational center. For a long time the only way to reach the summit was by trail; then a poor road was built; in recent years the construction of a good road with an easy grade brings the park within an hour's drive from Spokane. From the lower pine-covered slopes the road winds upward, skirt- ing the great ledges of weather-stained granite that jut out from the mountain side. ”

“ Half-breeds were breaking wild ponies, cow-boys were packing, roping, and instructing the tenderfoot, the stores swarmed with would-be miners fitting out, while other outfits already supplied were crawling up the distant hill like loosely articulated canvas-colored worms. Outfits from Spokane and other southern towns began to drop down into the valley, and every train from the East brought other prospectors to stand dazed and wondering before the squalid little camp. Each day, each hour, increased the general eagerness to get away. ”

“ In the center of all this immense territory is located Spokane Falls, like the hub in the center of a wheel. The word immense is not used unwittingly, for the mountains and plains and valleys make up a country that in Europe would be called a nation, and in New England would form a State. Only a far-off corner of the Union, it may seem to some readers, yet there are powerful empires which possess less natural resources than it can call its own. ”

“ Captain Armstrong left by train for Nelson the evening of the 27th, and the following morning Major Laird drove Roos and me back to Gerome. For a considerable part of the distance we followed the highly picturesque route along the Spokane River, stopping for lunch at the hydro-electric plant of the Washington Power Company at Long Lake. This enterprising corporation has power installations already in operation on the Spokane which must make that stream pretty nearly the most completely harnessed river of its size in America. ”

“ November 24.—Ascended the Columbia River by steamer, with six miles of portage, to the Dalles, where I took the Northern Pacific train for Spokane Falls, having daylight from Pasco Junction.
November 25.—Nothing could be more unjust to the country than the location of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which runs most of the way to Spokane Falls in a coulée (or dry river bed) , which completely hides most of the farming land from the traveler. ”

“ This sturdy young giant of the North arises from her ashes stronger, more attractive, more substantial, than before. And there is abundant reason for solid faith in the future of Spokane Falls.
It is the metropolis of a region 200,000 square miles in extent, including 50,000 square miles of Washington, or all that portion east of the Cascade Mountains, more than half of Idaho, the northern and eastern portions of Oregon, a large part of Montana, and as much of British Columbia as would make a State as large as New York. ”

“ Between December 10, 1812, and January 15, 1813, McKenzie made the trip from Spokane to his post, cached his trade goods, and made his way to Astoria. Under winter conditions, it would be extremely difficult for him to even make the trip from Spokane to Fort Boise in this short time, as the air line distance between the two is more than two hundred sixty miles and much of it would be across mountains covered by many feet of snow. Also, it would not be feasible to send eighty horses across this trail in the spring before the high trails were open. ”

“ SPOKANE FALLS
is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West. When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow around him. ”

“ The bad man of melodrama is an execrable creation of fiction, whose counterpart was not [527] 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. ”

“ If you inquire of a citizen of Spokane Falls what makes his city what it is, he will answer you that on one side lies a vast region of the richest agricultural lands, rapidly being populated by intelligent farmers, which whether sown to grain or used to pasture stock are productive of great wealth, and on the other hand there are mining and timber regions productive of even greater wealth. ”

“ In all directions around Colville and Kettle Falls, up the Sans Poil and Kettle rivers, are opening mines and farms, one of the most promising sections of all the promising State of Washington. Time forbids us to visit all the lakes in this wonderful lake section. But we must see the most important. While at Spokane, we should not fail to go, by trolley or train or auto or horseback, to the greatest of all Spokane resorts, Cœur d'Alene Lake. ”

“ Trade in the Kootenay District of British Columbia antedated the building of Astoria by three and a half years, and that in the Flathead Country of Montana by one and a half years, and that at Spokane, Washington, by at least six months. The cities that have become the commercial centers of these interior districts have not been built upon the exact sites of the early trading posts unless that may be said as to Spokane, Washington, but have all been built along the same established Indian trails or roads, and these have become the transcontinental railroads of today. ”

“ Prior to August 16, 1877, bands of Indians of the Spokane and other tribes occupied, for hunting and fishing, the extensive territory now comprising the eastern part of the state of Washington, in which they had not then ceded to the United States any part of their rights. In the spring of that year certain of these Indian tribes commenced hostilities against the white settlers which resulted in war with the United States, in which they were urging the Spokane tribe, then at peace, to join. ”

“ The greater part of the population of Spokane is native born, less than 20 per cent claiming foreign birth. Second-generation national groups are, however, well-represented — Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians in particular, and Italians, Greeks, Scots, and French to a lesser extent. Among racial minorities are 1,000 Negroes, most of whom are engaged in service trades; a few score Chinese in restaurants, laundries, and truck farming; a number of Indians, who wander in and out of the city; and some Japanese. ”

“ From the city of Spokane all corners of the Inland Empire are easily reached. Five transcontinental lines enter the city and two others operate trains; while a network of electric lines serves the immediate vicinity, penetrating the territory as far south as Colfax, Palouse, and Moscow; southwest to Medical Lake and Cheney; and eastward to Hayden Lake and Coeur d'Alene. Highways have been built through the most scenic sections along the river valleys and up into the mountains. Each mode of transportation unfolds a different panorama. ”