# Atlantis Arisen/Chapter 29

CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT ABOUT SPOKANE?
The route of the Northern Pacific to Spokane from Walla Walla is a tortuous one, and for a large part of the distance an uninteresting one. It is haying-time, the weather is warm, and travel dusty. The road winds among hills after the manner of water seeking its level. Prescott, named after an officer of the company, is a pretty place between hills, the approach to it being along the Touchet River bordered by thickets of mockorange. From here to the Snake River there is little to attract the eye. The Palouse country north of the Snake appeared more thrifty. Along the streams were dense groves of poplar, birch, and willow, and thickets of wild roses. Endicott is in a good farming region, and well built for a small, new settlement. I observed several tree plantations along the route through Whitman County. About Colfax the hills are dotted with pines. I had a glimpse of Steptoe's Butte, where that officer was badly beaten by the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indians in 1858. On that butte he buried most of his command and ​
cached his howitzers previous to a stolen retreat to the south bank of the Snake River.
Farmington seemed a town of considerable population, with good houses and fencing. Rockford is in the edge of a lumbering region, and is an old town built scatteringly on the piney slopes, which furnish timber for milling. Taking it all in all, there is little to remark on the journey, which ends after nightfall.
I was told in Walla Walla that I should not like Spokane Falls, because it was "right in the woods." If this had been said about many places west of the Cascades, there would have been no surprise; but a town "right in the woods" in the arid region called a halt to my previous and, as I believed, wellfounded impressions. It was therefore with curiosity that I peered through the window beside me, as night drew on, to catch the first view of the northern forest which I was assured surrounded the Phoenix of the Plains. But before I had discovered it the train rolled into the well-lighted streets of a cheerfullooking town, and the guard called out "Spokane!" By good luck I went to a hotel just below the falls which gave the city its name, and where I enjoyed from my room a view different from, but strongly reminding one of, the great cataract of Niagara. It is true there is not the heavy roar of a large lake pouring over a great height as at Niagara, but there is enough water and enough fall, or rather succession of falls, all roaring and foaming together, to make a good deal of noise and a very attractive spectacle. To the music of these waters I slept joyously, if I may be allowed the term, and waked the following morning with a feeling of exhilaration to commence my quest for information.
What a strange town! Ten years ago it was a pioneer settlement of half a hundred houses, and bad been struggling up to this degree of grandeur for a previous ten years. Only ten months ago thirty business houses, valued at six million dollars, were consumed by fire. To-day the only reminders of this disaster to a young city are the piles, not of burnt rubbish, but of fresh building-material, which obstruct the broad avenues. Nor are the buildings which are replacing the former structures of a temporary nature, but of granite, brick, and iron, from three to seven stories in height, and fashioned after the most elegant modern styles. An opera-house costing over a quarter of a mil ​
lion, a hotel costing nearly two hundred thousand dollars, a handsome post-office, cable and electric street railroads, electric and gas lighting, the power furnished by the falls, water-works, and every other modern appliance of a luxurious civilization, are to be found here. Yet Spokane Falls is three hundred and seventytwo miles west of Helena, the nearest city on the east, and four hundred miles east of any western metropolis, standing alone between the Missouri Eiver and Puget Sound, with seven railroads radiating to all the points of the compass, and bringing to it the contributions of an immense area of trade.
The population of Spokane Falls is about thirty thousand. There are, I am told, a hundred business blocks, costing from thirty thousand dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each, covering the burnt district, and a thousand residences being erected. These latter are chiefly of a cost to suit people of moderate means; but the city contains a goodly number of elegant and even sumptuous dwellings, excelled by few in any part of the United States, and the impression conveyed by a tour about the streets from which business is excluded is that there is an unusual number of refined homes in proportion to the population. This impression is confirmed by the testimony of house-furnishing establishments, more goods of a costly character being sold in Spokane Falls than in any other town in Washington. How far the merchants themselves are responsible for this extravagance—for in too many instances it is extravagance —can only be conjectured; but I know that the same fully prevailed in California in an early period, and that it was accounted for not only by the facility with which money was acquired, but by the fact that cheap goods were not imported, and there were no local manufactories, therefore people were compelled to buy that which the market afforded. The excuse of the merchants was that for such long distances and high rates of freight it did not pay to import cheap articles. This truth at once points to the importance of home manufactures.
The city has four daily newspapers and several weeklies, nineteen churches, numerous schools, public and private, three colleges, a home for the friendless, seven banks, a mining exchange, and many handsome public buildings. It has mills for grinding wheat and sawing timber, a smelter for the reduction ​
of ores, and a number of factories in lumber, stone, iron, pottery, lime, and other articles in daily demand and use. The sales of real estate in Spokane Falls for the year ending in December, 1889, amounted to eighteen million seven hundred and fifty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-three dollars, and for the first seven months of 1890 to ten million eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
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. The total output of lumber for 1889 was thirty million feet; while the ore shipments from Coeur d'Alene Mines in the same period were seventy-two thousand tons, of an aggregate value of four million three hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The total of freight brought by the railroads to this city in the last year was about fifty thousand tons, and the freight-bills paid aggregated two million dollars.
The city, notwithstanding its recent losses by fire, paid subsidies to railroads to the amount of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and subscriptions to various city institutions to the amount of three hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars.
Page 367.
The plain on which Spokane Falls is built is finely adapted to the purpose. The bluffs recede from the river by several broad terraces to the high mountains of the Spokane and Cceur d'Alene Banges on the north and east, and melt away into tbc rolling plains of the Palouse and Big Bend countries. The long slopes up from the river are beautifully wooded with pines, which stand apart with grassy intervals, giving the country a park-like appearance, and causing me to smile when I remember the repulsion of my Walla Walla informant towards the forest gloom I should encounter in this timber region.
Until within a comparatively recent period the country about Spokane Falls was unoccupied. During the period of mining excitement in the '60's, there was a great deal of passing back and forth to Colville and Northern Idaho, but the prevalent opinion that the country was worthless except for cattle-ranges deterred settlers of a more enterprising class. About 1870 two men, J. J. Downing and S. E. Scranton, built a small saw-mill at the falls of the Spokane, which in 1873 they sold to James N. Glover, who disposed of an interest to C. F. Yeaton. They had also laid out a town-site, which they did not sell. There seems to have been some settlement by this time, for these owners found it advisable to enlarge the capacity of their mill from five hundred feet to two thousand feet per diem. A tradingpost had been connected w T ith the mill from the start, which the new owners enlarged, and a few more people had gathered in the vicinity, waiting for the Northern Pacific Eailroad, when its financial agent, Jay Cooke, failed and railroad construction ceased, and after a tedious waiting of five years, from 1873 to 1878, the mill was again sold, to A. M. Cannon and J. J. Browne, together with a half-interest in the town-site laid out by the original owners. In 1876 a flour-mill was erected (which is evidence that the agricultural capacity of the country had been discovered) by Frederick Post, after whom Post Falls in Idaho is named. The occurrence of Indian wars in 1873 and 1877 drove many of the settlers out of the country, whom the military hastened in their flight.
It is amusingly related, in view of the present status of the country, that General Sherman expressed himself in this wise: " This country is not fit for white men, at any rate. Give it up ​
for a reservation for the Indians, and go elsewhere. If you are bound to stay, you may as well make up your minds to keep your guns ready and fight it out. We cannot cover this immense territory with a few companies of troops." However, a post was established at Coeur d'Alene, and named Fort Sherman, and the people remained.
The resumption of work by the Northern Pacific brought an increase of population, and when the road was opened to Portland, or to the Columbia River, in 1883, Spokane Falls had fifteen hundred inhabitants. At the present rate of increase it will have in 1893 eighty thousand. A great Northwestern exposition is to be held here this year,* at which specimens of minerals found in the adjacent mountain regions will be among the most important exhibits, although grains, fruits, and woods will attract much attention for their excellence.
I was shown a novelty recently discovered at Fort Spokane, at the mouth of the Spokane River. It is a white sand of a cubular form, looking like granulated sugar. When found it is in a compact form like rock, but on being struck with a hammer falls into loose particles. The only mineral known to resemble it is found in Fostoria, Ohio, and is used for making glass. In this city this snow-white sand is used in finishing plaster, and makes a wall like marble, on which the most delicate tints can be brought out in frescoing. As for marble, there are mountains of it along the Spokane River, and a rose-colored building-stone which calls to mind Ruskin's "Stones of Venice."
The second day after my arrival I took passage on the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern for Medical Lake, fifteen miles from the city, and a popular resort. The road winds among the hills, in company with the Spokane River, which is, everywhere that I saw it, most picturesque and interesting. The windings bring into view over and over again the city at the falls, until having climbed high enough the road enters a region of fir, cedar, pine, and tamarack, not much resembling the forests of West Washington, but sufficiently woodsy to justify a plainsman in warning a metropolitan against it.
By comparing the locality with my recollections of history, and with Lawrence Kip's "Army Life on the Pacific," and "Indian Council in the Yalley of the Walla Walla," I perceived that this was historic ground, where Colonel Wright, had fought the Spokanes at the Battle of the Four Lakes, when he so humbled them that they have made no more trouble to the present time.
Medical Lake is two miles long by one-half mile in width, and sixty feet in depth. There is a bluff shore on the west side covered with pines, and on the east side a bold and treeless elevation, on which the town is laid out. Taking a carriage at the train I drove by a pleasant road along the west shore of the lake a mile or more to some pleasure-resorts on the water side, and back around the north end to a hotel near the lake, and afterwards made a voyage to its south end in a steam-launch. Having thus seen it from all points, I visited the works where the salts are manufactured by evaporation of the waters, and was shown over them by their superintendent, Hr. Middaugh, who also exhibited various testimonials to the remedial value of the waters, and the salts extracted from them.
An analysis of a gallon of the water gives, in grains—
16.370 9.241 Traces 63.543 .233 .526 .186 .175 10.638 Traces Traces .551
Sodic chloride . . Potassic chloride . Lithic carbonate . Sodic carbonate . . Magnesic carbonate Ferrous carbonate Calcic carbonate . Aluminic oxide Sodic silicate . . . Potassic sulphate Sodic diborate . . Organic matter . . ​
101.463
Various tales are related as coming from the Indians concerning the cleansing and healing qualities of the lake water; but the simple story of a herder with a band of scabby sheep who after being washed in the lake recovered of their.sores appealed most strongly to my belief, the sodic quality being so evident in the water as to recommend it without argument as an antiscorbutic. All this is not at all romantic,—I always avoid " health resorts" where one meets unwholesome people,—nevertheless, Medical Lake is a pretty place, with a population of nine hundred inhabitants, many of whom, it is said, have been healed of their infirmities by the lake waters.
On the bluff west of the lake is the State Hospital for the Insane, a large and handsome structure, which is not yet finished and furnished, but which adds a noble feature to the landscape. At the close of a pleasant day I returned to my hotel to listen to the music of the falls, and again to ponder upon the wonders of that strangely rapid development of material resources which is seen in its most surprising forms in the Northwest.
Perhaps one should not be surprised who studies the situation of Spokane Falls, which is the centre, as has already been indicated, of a great extent of productive country, whose conformation and arrangement are exceedingly fortunate. Within one hundred and fifty miles of Spokane are no less than twelve rivers. Of these the Columbia, Snake. Okanogan, Pend d'Oreille, Kootenai, and Spokaqe are important. The others are the St. Mary's, St. Joseph's, Coeur d'Alene, Methow, Colville, and Priest. The branches of all these make up a fine system of natural irrigation. Besides the use to which these streams can be put in floating the timber of the mountains to market, they are objects of beauty, and a joy to the resident or traveller alike. Several of them are connected with lakes charmingly picturesque in appearance and navigable. There are, besides, a great number of smaller lakes within a radius of forty miles,—one for every mile,—while in a radius of one hundred miles there are, large and small, fully eighty. The best known and most beautiful of these are-Lakes Coeur d'Alene, Pend d'Oreille, Kanisku, Diamond, Loon, Spirit, Fish, Hoodo, Hayden, Kootenai, Upper and Lower Arrow, Okanogan, and ​
Chelan. Some of these lakes are nearly one hundred- miles long, with a width of one-third that distance. Spirit Lake is one of the smaller class, and a bit of Swiss scenery, while Cceur d'Alene is widely celebrated for its beaut}', and Lake Chelan, in the Okanogan country, with an area of fifty square miles, is only waiting to be as well known to become its rival.
Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, or that portion of it known as the Pend d'Oreille River, furnishes some of the wildest and
LAKE PEND D'OREILLE.
grandest scenery to be found anywhere. It is a stream from onehalf to three-quarters of a mile in width between the lake and the Columbia, but when within twenty-five miles of the junction it rushes through a canon twenty feet in width, with walls from two hundred to six hundred feet in height. The water boils and tumbles, throwing its waves up forty feet. The gauge of a former flood is seen in a tree-trunk lodged between the walls ​two hundred feet above the ordinary stage. Below the canon a few miles is a fall of great height. This is in the Metaline mining district, of which I shall have more to say in another place.
The whole of East Washington lying between the forty-eighth and forty-ninth parallels is divided into three parts of about equal extent; that lying east of the upper Columbia is spoken of as the Colville country, and is both agricultural and mineral in its resources. A separate account being given of its several mining districts it is necessary here only to remark that it contributes daily from forty to one hundred tons of smelting-ores to the works in Spokane Falls.
Colville Valleys is a body of rich land, which extends from the mouth of Colville River to within forty-five miles of Spokane Falls. In the days of the Hudson Bay Company's occupation Fort Colville was a point of the greatest importance to the American missionary settlements, one of which was on the Little Spokane River, and the others at Walla Walla and on the Clearwater, in Idaho. All the wheat the southern missionaries had to eat for several years came from the Colville Yalley, and was carried on horseback to their station, one hundred and fifty miles!
The Roman Catholic fathers also established missions, a little later than the Protestants, in the Colville country and among the Cœur d'Alenes and Pend d'Oreilles. Of the Protestant missions there remains hardly a trace, but the Catholics still hold their ground. The first log house of the Catholic mission at Kettle Falls, on the Columbia near the company's fort, may still be seen, but the spirit of it has removed to the newer town of Colville, a dozen miles east of the Columbia. This place was the joint result of mining and military matters, a post having been established here during the Indian disturbances of 1859, which followed upon the rush to the British Columbia mines. Some French and half-breed settlers, with a few Americans, remained in the valley upon farms, where civilization is at length in danger of overtaking them. A railroad—the Spokane and Northern—passes up the Valley to Colville, and terminates beyond at Little Dalles of the Columbia, where the great river offers one of its several obstacles to navigation.
​The railroad takes a nearly direct northerly course, striking the upper valley of the Little Spokane. Within a year considerable improvement has been made within reach of the road as fast as it was opened. Walker's Prairie, named after Elkanah Walker, Presbyterian missionary of 1837, and forty-five miles above Spokane Falls, has now a settlement,—Squire City, or Springdale,—wdth several business houses, and a daily mail, whereas twelve months ago there was no trading-post within thirty-five miles. The railroad and the discovery of mines at Chemokane have made the difference. Walker's Prairie is a good farming country, where grain grows enormously high and vegetables marvellously large. There are few settlements as yet in the southern part of Stevens County (named after General T. I. Stevens), and those few quite insignificant.
Chewelah, a place of importance on account of its mines, spoken of in another place, is at the foot of the Colville Valley. From here to Colville City, twenty-three miles, the road runs through a natural meadow, and, as hay is a profitable crop, there is little inducement to cultivate the soil. The town of Colville, which contains about eight hundred inhabitants, is picturesquely situated at an altitude of about fourteeen hundred feet, with the valley on the west defined by timbered hills beyond, and mountain walls encircling it on the north and east. The air of this region is recommended for throat diseases, and the beautiful drives about Colville are certainly an inducement to test it. The country around is adapted to dairying, hop-growing, and fruit-raising rather than to the production of cereals, which require more room to become profitable. Streams are numerous. Snow falls and remains without drifting during the winter months, melting into the earth in the spring.
But Colville does not depend upon the value of its soil for farming. It is the centre of a rich mining district, and boasts of a smelter which turns out three and a half tons of bullion per day, while already the erection of substantial improvements in building has commenced.
The Spokane Northern Railroad has a branch from Colville to the Columbia River at Marcus, a distance of eighteen miles, and from Marcus north along the Columbia to its terminus at Little Dalles. A number of town-sites have been surveyed ​
along the line of the railroad from Colville to Little Dalles, of which Kettle Falls, below Marcus five or six miles, is the most promising. Should the government clear the channel of the Columbia of the obstructions at this place, and the Indian reservation be opened up, all of which seems probable in the future, Kettle Falls might become a not unworthy rival of Spokane Falls. Much of this now merely suggested greatness will depend on the route of the Great Northern Railroad.
The Columbia from the mouth of Spokane River flows sharply west, though with many a deviation from a true course, for sixty miles as the crow flies, to the mouth of the Okanogan or Okinakane River, a large tributary from the north which parallels the main river above the bend made at the mouth of the Spokane, and forms the western boundary of a reservation set apart for the Colville Indians after the disturbances of 1877. This tract of country is unsurveycd and little explored, but is understood to be a mountainous region, containing small and fertile valleys. It is doubtless rich in minerals and timber, but at present is held by about seven hundred Indians, who do (if they do nothing else) a good deal to preserve a small portion of the earth's surface in a state of nature.
See page 368.
Spokane Falls, being west of the Columbia and quite as near Tacoma as Spokane. But the latter is making all the effort to connect it by railroad to itself, and will undoubtedly prevail,— the Spokane and Northern and the Washington Central both reaching out after it. A more particular account of the Okanogan mines is reserved for another place.
The remainder of East Washington included between the Columbia and Snake Fivers on the west and south is divided by popular consent into the "Big Bend country," consisting of six or seven millions of acres enclosed by the western bend of the Columbia, whose southeast line extends from a point twentyfive miles west of Spokane Falls to Pasco, near the junction of the Columbia and Snake Fivers, and "the Palouse country," which includes all of Whitman County, or all the country on the Palouse Fiver and its branches.
A subdivision of the Big Bend country is known as "Sagebrush land," and this strip, unfortunately for the pleasure of travellers of the present period, is on the main line of the Northern Pacific Failroad. The soil is a light sandy loam, which is not any where available, without irrigation, for the purposes of agriculture, but in this case is also "scabby," or roughened with outcroppings of basalt.
The western part of the Big Bend country, embracing between four and five million acres, was originally covered with the nutritious bunch-grass, and wherever bunch-grass grows the land is good for farming without irrigation,—a discovery only made in recent times. One may travel a whole day (by stage) between Moses's Fancho and the mouth of the Okanogan Fiver without seeing in any place .ten acres of land which cannot be ploughed and which will not return a rich harvest. I have it from good authority, Judge W. Lair Hill, of Seattle, that the Big Bend country contains "two thousand square miles of the finest wheat land on earth," and I learn from residents in it that there are no less than fifty thousand acres in crop this year which will yield twenty-five bushels to the acre. Its only way out, however, is by wagon to Ellensburg on the west side of the Columbia. No wonder the people of Spokane, Ellensburg, and the Big Bend country are impatient for a railroad.
Waterville is the county-seat of Douglas County in this great ​
wheat-producing region, but is waiting for the completion of the Washington Central to start it on a career of prosperity, to be supplemented by the arrival of the Great Northern, whose route is not yet selected.
There are a number of towns in that part of the Big Bend country included in Lincoln County, near the Columbia, among which Wilbur is spoken of as taking the lead as an agricultural centre. A country that grows wheat and oats six feet, and rye eight feet in height, should have towns every thirty miles, and is a good land in which to place the agricultural college.
Coulee City, on the Columbia, is a striking example of the growth of towns in this age of town-building. A quarter of a year ago there was nothing here but a camp of railroad graders. All about waved perennial grasses, while the view was broken here and there by dikes of crumbling basalt, and the only moving things in the landscape, aside from the railroad graders, were a few cattle feeding, a rabbit, perhaps, followed by a sneaking coyote, or a curlew lifting its watchful eyes and long bill above a tuft of the prevailing bunch-grass. But now! Well levelled streets stretch from one side of the town-plot to the other. Two good bridges span the creek on which it stands; substantial buildings are rising all along the main avenue; wellstocked stores and business houses of every class are in place, and the improvements belonging to a railroad division station are already here. A system of water-works is under construction, a school-district is organized and a school-house under way, with a church-building in contemplation, a seven-column newspaper on the spot, and a bank promised. Such is the method of all these railroad or land-company towns. This one is expected to be the terminal point for freight going to Okanogan, Methow, Lake Chelan, Wanacut Lake, Waterville. Douglas City (on the road from Sprague), and the Conconully country. So long as it holds this position it will make progress, and in the end establish itself on the merits of the Big Bend country.
Coulee claims the attractions of being in the midst of "the best agricultural lands to be found out of doorsa cool climate in summer, but one that will bring to perfection all the fruits of the temperate zone. In the vicinity is a bottomless lake surrounded by a natural park, and that by scenes of the utmost ​
grandeur, all of which features conspire to make this a charming smnrner-resort. Most of this is evident and true. But one ■wearies of the immensity and even of the scenic attractions of the great Northwest: you travel so far to find something that, although undeniably fine, differs from the view in some other place only by so-and-so.
And yet right here w T e have at hand one of the winders of the earth,—the Grand Coulee. It used to be called the "Grand Coulee of the Columbia," from an impression that the waters of the great river had some time run through it. Closer observation has done away with that theory of its formation, and it is now seen to be a rent in the earth, over one hundred miles in length, and from three to eight miles in breadth, with walls in many places over one thousand feet in height. These walls are basalt, thrown out at four several periods, as the rocks give evidence. All the curious features of the place are easily explained if w T e bear this fact in mind. But this rent in the lava was made after the last of these outflows had cooled and hardened, because the opposite sides match. There are no traces of the action of water, no gravel, no water rolled boulders, no indications of detritus at its lower end, which is at Island Bapids of the Columbia, as its upper end is just west of .Coulee City.
Among the many curious forms of the rocks is one called the Steamboat, from its resemblance to a river boat. It is in the Coulee, about eighteen miles from Coulee City, and the stern-post of the steamer is fourteen hundred feet above the bottom of the chasm. Only on the eastern side can one climb to the deck, but once there a fine view of this enormous crevasse is obtained. About half-w T ay up a five-hundred-foot slide of loose angular rock, on the ascent to the Steamboat, are two deposits of ice, which melting a little on the surface furnish icewater to the thirsty, and are called "ice-springs." It is thought the snows of winter furnish the water and a draught of cold air the freezing, this having been carried on until a solid body of ice has formed among the rocks, which melts a little by day and freezes again by night, so that the supply remains from season to season. It is not clear to me, however, how it is that not enough heat gets into the interstices of the rocks to liquefy the ​
ice in the course of a summer, when the sun's reflection from the walls of this crevice is intense. In the bottom of the Coulee are numerous lakes and ponds, which gleam like silver on their emerald background.
Toward its southwestern end the Grand Coulee is divided into smaller fissures, but nowhere except here at Coulee City is there a crossing which could be used by a railroad; and this one fact secures for this place a certain future.
That strip of country through which the Northern Pacific main line is built has no towns of any consequence, present or prospective, unless Pasco, by its position with relation to the Columbia River and railroads, should come to be of significance, as before intimated. It is the county-seat of Franklin County, as Ritzville is of the adjoining county of Adams. Ritzville is named after Philip Ritz, formerly of Walla Walla, a noted fruitgrower, and an enterprising citizen of East Washington in anterailroad days. There is a land-office at Ritzville. Lincoln County lies north of Adams, and is out of the sage-brush belt. It only partly belongs to the Big Bend country, and joins Spokane County on the east. Its county-seat is at Sprague, named after General J. W. Sprague, of Tacoma, for a long time an officer of the Northern Pacific. It has a population of two thousand, and is a point of shipment for wheat, cattle, wool, and other productions of the country. It is well built and enjoys a large trade.
Cheney, once the county-seat of Spokane County, and a seemingly prosperous place, has apparently lost its hold upon fortune, and has a look of collapse about it. It is prettily situated on a plain, with a growth of young pines on a gentle slope above it. From Cheney the Northern Pacific runs a line northwest to Medical Lake, and thence north, northwest, and west, through a farming country, to Davenport in Lincoln County, paralleling the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern, and making, probably, for the Big Bend country. Davenport is a new town of one thousand inhabitants, in a region which possesses grazing, agricultural, and mineral land. A good deal of fruit is raised and marketed from here; and there is a large area of good land unimproved.
The Palouse country is comprehended within the limits of ​
Whitman County, named in honor of Dr. Marcus Whitman, superintendent of the Presbyterian missions in Oregon Territory from 1836 to 1847, when he was killed, with his wife and others, by the Cayuse Indians, who had become jealous of and infuriated against Americans, on account of the annual immigrations arriving in the country for several years previous, and for other reasons. As the first American settler in Washington, Dr. Whitman is entitled to the distinction of having his name given to the finest agricultural county in it.
The Palouse country, which really includes a portion of Spokane County, is about one hundred and fifty miles in length by an average width of fifty miles, embracing four million five hundred thousand acres, two-thirds of which, or three million two hundred thousand acres, is available for wheat-growing, and yields more grain to the acre than any other portion of the United States. But only about one-third of this three million two hundred thousand acres is under improvement, and only about eight hundred thousand in wheat. At the low average (for this country) of twenty bushels per acre, the crop would amount to sixteen million bushels. If only twelve million bushels were marketed at fifty cents per bushel, the crop would bring six million dollars; and accordingly, as the fields are looking wonderfully well, bright hopes are entertained of a profitable year.
[But let me here write between the lines that it is not every year that a full crop may be expected, and that the best farmers summer-fallow their fields, taking a crop only once in two years, thus saving the expense, as great for a poor as a good year, of putting in and harvesting on the off year, while they get a double crop after letting the land lie idle.
The year 1890 was a good one all over East Washington, and the amount of wheat raised in the Palouse, Walla Walla, and Big Bend countries did not fall short of thirty million bushels. Farmers looked at their fields and expected to grow rich quickly. But behold how the unexpected happens! Although the transportation companies were informed of the prospects of an unusual demand for their services, they' made no preparations to meet it. The market prices opened fairly, but declined when it was found there was an overplus. Wheat-elevators and storehouses were filled, and thousands of tons lay piled upon the ​ground exposed to the weather. Freight-cars could not be obtained to carry it either to Chicago or Tacoma, and one general wail went up from the Palouse country as prices went down. The railroad and elevator companies were accused of combining against the farmers. The facts when sifted down seemed to show that the railroads had been negligent; that the people themselves were negligent in not securing river-transportation to Portland or not making known to European ship-owners the amount of the season's crop; but, even if all the wheat raised had been carried to Portland and the Sound, there was not storage for it while vessels made a four-months' voyage from Liverpool to receive it.
The lesson of that year seems to be that railroad and other transportation companies, while they have caused and encouraged the development of the country, have not themselves been able to keep pace with it. It seems to teach also that there should be intelligent organization amongst the agriculturists, and means provided against loss. The Columbia River is the natural and economical outlet for the grain fields of East Washington and Oregon. Yet, since the Oregon Railway and Navition Company have owned the steamboats on this river, navigation has become so far secondary to wheel service that at The Dalles, in November, sacks of wheat were piled ten feet high, and from a quarter to half a mile in length of line, besides that which was housed! It was thus accumulated at first for lack of transportation, and afterwards held for higher prices. Steamboat service, such as the Oregon Steam-Navigation Company formerly furnished, would have given the needed relief, the grain have been moved earlier, and prices have remained firm while vessels came to take it away. But, why should vessels come? Why do not American vessels go as they are needed? This being a question of political economy to be settled by Congress or Legislature, I leave it unanswered.
It should here be remarked that this blockade in transportation causes little distress. It is chiefly embarrassing as affecting the mercantile class whose collections are impeded by it. The good effect will be to set the farmers thinking what they can do to prevent a recurrence of similar misfortunes. Already the Palouse country agriculturists are agitating the ​he
proposition to build an independent railroad to Puget Sound, while others along the Columbia propose a steamboat company. But the great railroads are not going to allow independent companies to succeed, although the fear of them may compel a better service.]
It is not to grain alone that land-owners are now giving their attention, although when wheat-raisers have a good year they make money in one season. Fruit and vegetables are more profitable per acre, and fruit once in bearing gives very regular returns. To any observer it is evident that not more than half enough fruit is raised for the. requirements of the population. Indeed, how should it be, when the population doubles every year or two? But fruit is no longer an experiment in the Palouse country, and large orchards are being planted along the Palouse Biver, while in the Snake Biver Yalley this is the chief interest of the settlers. Spokane depends on the Snake Biver Fruit Growers' Association for peaches, pears, prunes, and small fruits. Even the Walla Walla crop of berries and peaches may have to be helped out by their abundance. But while fruit is shipped from California, as it now is, to this distant region, it is evident there is room for new orchards.
Colfax, at the south fork of the Palouse Biver, of which I have before spoken, is the county-seat of Whitman, and a thriving place of seven or eight hundred. It was founded about 1876, and is touched by railroads from three directions,— roads that go everywhere but in a straight line, seeking freights from the great grain centres. One of these is over the line in Idaho, at Genesee; another, also in Idaho, at Moscow; Garfield, Farmington, Salteese, Oaksdale, Bosalia, all in Whitman County; and another at Bockford, in Spokane County. Most of these roads were or are being constructed by the Oregon Bailway and Navigation Company.
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.
But it is not for minerals alone that the Idaho annex to Washington is valuable. Besides the rich lands about Moscow and Genesee, the large bodies of timber on the Coeur d'Alene and Pend d'Oreille Pi vers, or that can be brought to the mills at Spokane Falls, either by floating from the Coeur 'dAlene, or by railroad when the Great Northern is completed to this city, constitute one of its most valuable resources.
Lake Coeur d'Alene receives the waters of the Coeur d'Alene, St. Joseph, and St. Mary's Rivers. Along each of these and on the mountains grow the white and yellow pine, cedar, and tamarack. The quality of this timber is equal to that of Puget Sound, and the cost of getting it out is small. The business of " booming" logs to Spokane Falls is already begun, one mill there cutting one hundred thousand feet per diem.
Clarke's Fork, or Pend d'Oreille River, runs out of the lake, which is a large one, and, as I have before said, falls into the Columbia, and consequently cannot be used for booming logs to Spokane Falls. But Priest River, which flows out of Kanisku Lake into Pend d'Oreille River, near the lake, has upon its borders one hundred thousand acres of pine, cedar, and tamarack, some df the pines having a diameter of six feet, and trunks that are clear of limbs one hundred feet from the ground.
There is on the upper Kootenai, or Flat-Bow River, lying chiefly within the United States, and on the eastern prong of the bow which gives the river its name, an almost unknown region, which is only now beginning to be heard of. It is watered by many streams falling into the Kootenai, namely, the Mooyie, one hundred and fifty miles in length; the Yakh, ninety miles long, and half a dozen creeks of considerable size. The mountains lying south of the Kootenai are heavily timbered, and those on the north less densely covered, with the bunchgrass growing between.
See page 371.
Ranchmen are already driving herds in here, which settlers will in time drive out. The country will not be improved, however, until it is drained, above the boundary line, by a canal from the Kootenai River to the Upper Columbia Lake, a distance of little over a mile, a scheme in which an English syndicate is interested. There is at present an annual overflow in the bottom-lands below the boundary, which it is believed will be relieved by the canal in British Columbia. Mineral discoveries are being sought for in this region, and to some extent found, in galena and floatcoal.
The route to this new wilderness is via the Northern Pacific Railroad to Kootenai Station, on Lake Pend d'Oreille, thence by toll-road to Kootenai River, eighty miles, and by boats of a quaint fashion the remaining distance, or as far as the explorer pleases to go,—for there is a good depth of water for over two hundred miles up into British Columbia, where no doubt it will soon be the fashion to go for a summer's outing.
At Hauser Junction on the Northern Pacific, which is just east of the Idaho line, a branch road runs south to Post Falls on the Spokane River, which is the outlet of Cceur d'Alene Lake, and thence to Coeur d'Alene City at the head of the lake. This beautifully-located place, with Fort Sherman, is much resorted to by travellers and residents. On its southern shore is about to be erected a club-house, where the mining men resident in Cceur d'Alene mining district may spend their Sundays. Is this suggestive of Cape May or Long Branch? It is the same thing with a difference. It is nineteenth-century luxury in the midst of the exciting race for wealth in a virgin world. There is a mountain opposite Post Falls which the Indians regard as having a benign influence upon the lives of those lovers who seek its influence at the time of their marriage. It is haunted by a spirit which answers to the Greek god Hymen. Here are held the wedding festivities of the Cceur d'Alenes who truly desire love and unity.
The scenery of these lumbering and mining regions is on a grand scale. It educates the eye of the most commonplace beholder, as it also broadens his knowledge of natural science by illustration and his views of the authorship of the great book of creation by inference. The men found in wilderness places ​are often an agreeable surprise, from the number of things they are able to teach the conventionally educated. But it is not uncommon to find among prospectors, surveyors, miners, and lumbermen, college-bred men, as well as specimens of the genus homo of every other variety. The rarest of all is to find one resembling the type invented for literary effect by writers of American fiction, and badly copied by our cousins over sea. If there is one in all this Northwest, he remains hidden from my observation.