# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 4/From Walla Walla to San Francisco

FROM WALLA WALLA TO SAN FRANCISCO.
By Capt. John Mullan, U.S.A.
From the Washington Statesman (Walla Walla) of November 29 and December 6, 1862.
For those who have not made the journey direct from Walla Walla, through the agricultural heart of Oregon, and across the mountains through the mining region of northern California, there is much of interest and pleasure; and though the trip should be fraught with much personal discomfort, there is much to repay the traveler in the collection of statistics, and in seeing a region where the wilderness of yesterday has to-day given place to homes, where material prosperity, at least, arrest the attention of the traveler at every mile of the journey. The mode of conveyance from Walla Walla to Wallula is by stages that run daily between these points, and where the journey is of six hours and a cost of $5 brings you to the banks of the Columbia, whence you take steamers for the Des Chutes Landing. The improvements along the banks of the Walla Walla, in the shape of new and additional enclosures for farming purposes, during the last two years, have been many, and mark with unerring certainty the future of the Walla Walla country, as the distributing center for a radius of three hundred miles of country, now fast developing in all the elements of material, social, and political prosperity. It has more than once occurred to me that the Walla Walla River, by a system of locks, could be advantageously used as a line of connection between Wallula and Walla Walla, and one needs but see the long line of wagons and pack trains, ​heavily freighted for the interior, to become convinced that either this or some more rapid and economical means is positively demanded, in order to connect the heart of the valley with the Columbia River. Economy at the present would argue in favor of converting the river into a canal, but the prospective wants of the country are much more in favor of a railroad connection. For a distance of eighteen miles below Walla Walla the nature of the face of the country is eminently suited in its present condition for laying a railroad track; and thence to Wallula the character of work being either excavation in sand, clay, or soft rock, will enable a road to be built at economical figures. The Touchet and the crossings of the Walla Walla River will require heavy bridges but good abutment sites are to be had, and the streams not being subject to overflow, no impediment will ever be had from this cause. It could be safely stated that a capital of $600,000 would construct and equip this road, and when it is known that not less than one hundred thousand tons of freight, at $20 per ton, and ten thousand passengers, at $5 each, pass over this line annually, it does seem strange that capitalists are not disposed to move in the matter in a practical shape. It is a project in which every citizen could become interested. The farmers could supply all the ties needed; the mills are fully capacitated to supply all the lumber demanded, and the surplus population from the mines and those out of employment could advantageously supply all the labor needed in its construction; and with the valley of Walla Walla to supply every necessary of life, to me it is anything but an Utopian idea, and I feel warranted in believing that another twelve months will not roll around before the matter is taken up with a view to its practical execution. The teams now freighting on the road will not necessarily be thrown out of employment, but the increasing ​development of the interior will cause them simply to seek new lines upon which to transport this same freight after the railroad shall have deposited it at the city of Walla Walla, which nature has constituted a commercial center, and from which will be distributed to every point of the compass the merchandise which their wants demand.
Reaching the Columbia at Wallula one is pleased with the commercial character which this point is fast assuming. Freight strewn along the levee for half a mile—stores erected, commission houses plying their vocations, and everything giving an earnest of a prosperous future. This site has doubtless many advantages as a commercial point; but so long as men shall desire pleasant homes,—where the eye is as desirous of drinking in draughts of pleasure and beauty as the pocket is of accumulating wealth,—where mills, farms, gardens, and pleasant enclosures can be had,—where the products of the fields are garnered with a short transportation to a ready market—just so long will Walla Walla and not Wallula be the chief emporium and point of business for the interior, and for supplying the more immediate demands of the Walla Walla Valley. That Wallula will always be a point where commission houses, a few stores, and one or more hotels will always be supported, no one can doubt; but looking toward a large and growing city with all the pleasant appurtenances that make life happy, I can not but conceive that its growth must become circumscribed within the above limits.
We took passage on the pleasant steamer Tenino, and in eight hours were landed at Celilo, a point some two miles below the Des Chutes Landing, where the Oregon Steam Navigation Company have already formed the nucleus of a thriving village. The freshet of the past season has strewn the banks of the Columbia with cord wood in ​abundance—which commands $10 per cord. The John Day's wood yard, however, is the chief depot for fuel. Here, too, one notices the marked progress that is daily making its onward march to the interior. Here we saw two steamers building, one already launched, owned by Captain Gray, and still another at Celilo, of large dimensions. There is no doubt we are far in advance, in point of boldness and daring, in the question of river navigation on the Columbia, of those similarly engaged on the eastern waters; and the success which has thus far attended the efforts of those who dared to move in the navigation of the Upper Columbia, has only emboldened them to greater efforts, and it is no dream to feel that the day is not far distant when the Snake to the American Falls, and the stretches of the Columbia from Wallula to Fort Colville, and the Clark's Fork, from Park's Crossing to Horse Plain, will all be tested by steam and thus made tributary to the growing wants of trade and travel.
The fare from Wallula to Celilo is $10. A ride of three hours brings us to The Dalles—which point, too, is showing visible signs of a healthy improvement; and the increasing trade to the mines of John Day's and Powder rivers is destined to make it a point of great commercial import. Whether the idea entertained by Mr. Newell, and other men at The Dalles, of a direct trade from San Francisco to The Dalles, shall ever be realized, is not so easy to be determined. It certainly has a favorable location for the full consummation of such an idea—and we all know what magic results gold can be made to produce, and without desire of detriment to Portland, I should heartily desire to see such a happy result attained. The will to do it, and the means with which to do it, are the only two essentials needed; and if these are had, it will be done—and the sooner the two former are ascertained the sooner will the commercial idea (grand in its ​conception and pregnant with so many grand results) become a matter of past history. The railroad company have resumed the work of grading and ballasting, and it is the desire of the company to have the cars running by the first of next May. The roadbed is prepared for some five or six miles out from the city, and the iron track laid for half a mile. My own convictions are that the railroad, eventually, is to be more beneficial to Walla Walla than The Dalles, but that the latter is also to derive much benefit no one will doubt.
We found the line of opposition steamers running, which, having the tendency to reduce the rates of freight and travel, was a thing that the commercial and traveling public were but too glad to see. The passage from The Dalles to Portland was only one dollar. That competition on this immense line will be fraught with healthy results no one will doubt. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company, as the pioneers on an untested river, do certainly merit much credit for the bold hazard they so successfully made, and merit reward as such; and though many complaints (founded in justice, doubtless,) have been urged, still the history of all monopolies has shown a greater degree of extortion than I have heard urged against this company. But so long as the Columbia River shall remain an open sea I do heartily desire to see competition seek here a channel of investment—and which it will always do so long as it is found to pay. All philanthropic ideas of "parties desiring to serve the public, without being remunerated," will find no believers among the merchants and travelers of the Upper Columbia. The merchant and traveler will take that line where the rates are the lowest and accommodation the best, irrespective of the owners of the line or those who pioneered them through to a success. At least this is the history of the commercial past, and I see no reason why ​it should not be the history of the commercial future. Just so soon as capitalists find that putting steamers on the upper Columbia is a paying investment, steamers will be put on; and, unless the capitalist is so convinced, it will be a difficult task to cause him to turn his capital into such a channel.
This age is, preëminently, an utilitarian one; in which facts and figures are, particularly, the weapons with which the capitalist wages his financial war. Armed with these, his victory is in his own hands; not so armed, it is in those of some one else. The portage of the Cascades, heretofore so great a bugbear in the trip from The Dalles to Portland, is now made in a brief hour on the cars, without detriment or danger. An extra dollar for riding on the cars is charged, though, if you prefer it, you can walk on the road in nearly the same time, free of cost. No traveler passes over this portage without awarding to Colonel Ruckle every praise for the bold prosecution of his bold project, and no one begrudges him the ample reward which he is to-day deriving in token of his past labors. This portage is on the Oregon side; but it is to be hoped that the difficulties on the Washington side, between Bradford and Bush, will be speedily adjusted, so that the steam cars, now running on a portion of the track already completed, shall connect the two termini of the portage, and thus reduce the time of travel within the minimum limits. The post at Fort Cascades is now abandoned, nor does it seem at present necessary to hold it under garrison, so far as the Indians are concerned. The question of a foreign war, however, would render it a key-point of marked importance.
A run of seven hours brings us to Portland. I fear, from the present appearance of Vancouver, that all chances of commercial rivalry with Portland have been ​banished. Capital is certainly not seeking it at present as a point of investment. The freshet has left its marks of devastation along the levee and lower portions of the city, and it will require much capital and energy to reinstate Vancouver in the position it occupied two years since; and if the idea of making The Dalles a large commercial emporium be ever consumated, I can not conceive that Vancouver will ever occupy a position of more than secondary importance, unless the western slopes of the Cascades should open up a gold-bearing region. In such an event Vancouver would necessarily become a point of fixed commercial importance; but so long as the permanency which now marks Portland shall continue to be maintained, and the question on the part of the citizens of The Dalles to make it a commercial depot shall continue to be agitated, so long will Vancouver stand the chance of being kept in the background. On the Lower River we traveled to Portland in company with quite a a number of emigrants destined to Puget Sound, and they all regretted that they could not have gone from Walla Walla to the Sound by land. This is a matter in which every citizen of Washington Territory is more or less interested. The road opened in 1853, by the Natchess Pass, has fallen into such a state, that, unless repaired and kept so, it will be useless for all practical purposes of emigrants for the Sound from the States. I understand that the Packwood trail is deemed by many preferable to the Natchess route; but whether we shall have a route via the Natchess, Snoqualmie, Packwood, or any other pass, is a matter about which those truly interested in seeing the Sound section brought directly in communication with the interior, will not fall out. The citizens of the Sound need a good road across the Cascades, direct from Wallula. The valley of the Yakima will doubtless give us a good line, and then across to the Wenatchee, ​via Packwood's Pass, either into Olympia or Steilacoom. The long interval which has elapsed since the Natchess Pass was traveled has naturally caused the line to fall out of repair. The emigrants who desire to locate on the Sound need a line by which they can carry their wagons, and over which drive their stock, and not be driven to take the steamers down to Monticello, thus increasing costs so heavy that it seems impracticable. This is a matter of great importance, not only for emigrants, but in order to bring the citizens of the Sound, by the most direct trade and associations, with those resident on the eastern slopes of the Cascades,—and is one of such importance that it is to be hoped that the attention of Congress will be duly called to it. Military necessity calls for such a line, and a military road should be so located and constructed.
The large crowd that daily assembles on the wharf on the arrival of the steamer from The Dalles is an unerring barometer of the interest felt in the development of the upper country; and a conversation with the leading merchant of the city convinced me that the trade of the Willamette—where the returns to the merchants are in flour, grain, hides, and fruit,—is small and of minor importance compared to that whence their returns are by daily steamers and in gold dust. The latter is immediately converted into coin and seeks new channels of investment, and is turned over a half-dozen times a year, whereas the former must bide its fortunate market and sales thus delayed from week to week and from month to month. The establishment of a branch mint, either at Portland or The Dalles, is becoming a subject of daily commercial necessity, and should such a branch be established, if the treasurer was allowed, as soon as the assays were made and the value of the certificate of deposit made known, to pay out the coin immediately for these ​deposits, much time would be saved to the depositor, and much gain and saving to the miner, whereas now, without a branch mint, the miners are forced to sell their dust to speculators, who must be paid for their time; and this payment is kept up till it reaches San Francisco—here from fourteen to twenty days are consumed before the dust is coined—though not more than two days before the value of the deposit by the assayer is determined. The treasurer has always on hand an amount of funds which could be paid out for the deposits made, which deposits, when coined, could replace that paid out, thus benefiting the miner by bringing him directly in contact with the Government, who has eventually to coin his dust, and save him time and "shaving" by the speculator, and to this extent materially benefits the country by distributing and disbursing the money in the very same region where it is dug from the earth. A branch mint for Oregon and Washington, and an authority for the assistant treasurer to pay out at once the value of the deposit as soon as the assay is determined, are two things which, if effected, would materially tend to benefit the miner, and hence the country; whereas now the time consumed in sending the dust from the mines and getting it back in coin must be paid for by somebody, and that somebody ever has been, and, unless these changes be made, will always be the miner. Just as quick as the dust of the miner is returned to him in coin in the minimum space of time and with the minimum "shave"—which in this case would be only the cost of transporting it to the branch mint and back,—then will the capital of the country be in the hands of the greater number, and that number a class of people who are interested in the material interest and prosperity of the country—and thus on [will our] roads, rivers, and works of internal improvement—our schools, academies, and all the elements ​of social and substantial happiness and wealth be added to and quickened by an impulse that is healthy in itself, and which aims at and desires healthy avenues of investments. Should such a branch mint be established, Portland would doubtless claim the site; but whether it be there, at The Dalles, or Walla Walla, is not a subject upon which there should be any feeling. Let us have it at one of these points; and if there is any one point where arguments could be adduced to determine the matter to the exclusion of the others, that point is at Walla Walla. For it is here whence the greater bulk of gold dust must flow; and if not here, then at The Dalles—the great Golden Gate of the Upper Columbia.
Desiring to see a section of the country through which I had never passed we took the stage from Portland to Sacramento, which at the end of the first day's journey brings us to Salem—where I determined to lay over a day to visit the woolen factory, and observe the characteristics of the place. The ride through the Willamette from Portland to Salem is pleasant and refreshing,—large and well-tilled farms, orchards of great proportions, with their trees ladened with the golden fruit—peaches, apples, and pears, in most profuse abundance; neat and well-trimmed gardens, where the poetry of horticulture bespoke the appreciation of the owners of well-tilled acres. The style of farms, buildings, barns, and outhouses were all in good taste, and indicated the extent of means of the farmers of Oregon. The orchards of Oregon during the past twelve years have proven to be a source of golden wealth; nor is their value in the least diminished by the large amount of fruit being now raised in California. Many have asked where Oregon would find a market for her orchards when California should produce her own fruit, and though it is more than doubtful whether California will ever rival Oregon in the growth of apples, yet ​if this should prove to be the case, the mining sections of eastern Oregon and of Washington are to-day sending forth a message to all fruits growers to dry, preserve, and can all their fruits, and they offer even to-day a golden market that must forever consume all fruits so preserved; and I have no doubt but that those who will turn their attention to this employment of preparing fruits, either as dried or canned, must always reap a golden reward for their labors. I noticed at several points that attention was already being much given this species of labor, and the future will prove that the mining sections for dried fruits will guarantee an equally lucrative market for Oregon, that California has proven for her in green fruits in times past.
In point of natural beauty I do not think that the Willamette Valley compares favorably with the smaller but equally well cultivated valley of the Rogue River; but when we see once a magnificent outlet for all the produce of the farmer, and the absence of such an outlet in the latter, we are forced to prefer a home in the Willamette—where Ceres has erected her temple of large proportions, and where her votaries are annually basking in the sunshine of her smiles, her bounteous plenty. In passing through this rich and exuberant country I could not but regret that the donation law that first opened homes to the first settlers of Oregon was as generous as it was in the largeness of its grant—six hundred and forty acres, in other words, was too large a grant for the full and truly healthy growth of any new country. True, it required a great inducement to turn a pioneer colony toward the Pacific so early as '46 and '47; but I verily believe that one half the grant would have brought as many settlers as double the amount has done. The true index, doubtless, of the prosperity of a country might be regarded the ratio of its population to the square mile; ​but when we find only one settler to the square mile, the country, from necessity, must be sparsely populated; and this condition must hold for so long a period that detriment on a large scale must be felt. That the donation act has had, therefore, its disadvantages with its advantages no one I think will doubt,—taking the present as the standpoint from which to view the prosperity of the country. This, coupled with the fact that the lands were taken without any regard to the points of compass—thus ignoring our system of land surveys, so simple and yet so beautiful,—I can not but regret that the action of our Government could not have foreseen some of the detrimental results into which its generosity has led it. Of course, it is among the things of the past, but not on that account the less to be regretted. The experience in this matter may not, and, probably, never will find any field for application—for the spirit of all preëmption, homestead, and donation laws, as since passed, has studiedly held two things in view, namely, the minimum amount of land commensurate with the object to be attained by their cession and the most rigid adherence to the points of the compass in their location. In referring to the donation act, I do not cavil at the generous action of a generous government—for I but too well appreciate that it has had the effect to open to our grasp a golden continent, with avenues of trade and with wealth—which has built up a line of battlement of half a million of Freemen; not probably, in looking at the results attained, it might seem ungenerous to object, at this late date, to any of those measures that assisted even in part to bring about this result. But I am rather disposed to believe that the agricultural districts of the Pacific were occupied and filled more in consequence of the gold discoveries and to supply their wants than from the spirit which pervaded the donation acts; ​for the latter antedating the discovery of gold on the Pacific did not point out the market where the produce of well-tilled fields should be sold. The coincidences of that date, however, were most happy.
At Salem we found the legislature in session, and the excitement incident to the election of Mr. Harding as United States Senator having subsided, the body were moving in such business as looked toward the growing wants of the State. I found in Mr. Harding a plain, unpretending, and sensible gentlemen, and in whom the interests of Oregon will find a true representative. At the invitation of Governor Gibbs I visited the Committee of the State Fair, composed of delegates from all the counties. It was here decided to make Salem the site for holding the annual fairs; a point so central, so well suited in every respect, that there seemed to be great unanimity of sentiment in the matter. The grounds around are open and spacious, and you feel that you breathe the air and tread the ground of a rural city, in making a tour of its extent. It is one of the most beautiful localities I have seen in Oregon—on the right bank of the Willamette, with beautiful shade trees, neat cottages, not cramped or huddled together, but with ample spaces for gardens—with a fine view of the woods, which, in a vista of twenty miles, surround it—and, in the background, with the bold slope of the Cascades, renders it one of the most beautiful sites for a city to be found in Oregon. It is not only the political center of Oregon, but it is also destined to become a point of great manufacturing importance. It is surrounded by fine forests of oak, fir, pine, cedar. The large fields of grain here cluster around it as the center. Its pioneer woolen factory, turning its hundred of spindles, here rears its head, thus attracting toward it every milling interest. The same stream that turns its gristmills, turns its sawmills—and even then ​the water is not allowed to run to waste, but is again caught and harnessed up to the spindles of industry where the covering of the back of the sheep of yesterday is converted into a covering for your own back of to-day. No one resident north of California can visit the woolen factory of Salem without a feeling of pride and of pleasure; and as he sees the bales of blankets, of clothes, and of flannels, lading the wagons which stand ready to be freighted for every homestead in Oregon, he feels the glow of pride in thus seeing our own looms weaving wools of our own growth, and desires instantly to robe himself in garments that no foreign hand has woven, and from wool grown from flocks no alien hand has tended. Let "Home Industry" be patronized, home products be consumed, and the country will be benefited to such an extent that we shall not have idlers to stir up mischief nor rebels to stir up rebellion in either the North or South. Mr. Rector, the obliging and gentlemanly head of the factory, showed me through the compartments and gave me some valuable statistics relative to its annual growth. His intention is to double this year the number of spindles. The surplus wool, heretofore shipped to New York, will be retained and manufactured at home; thus, our clothes and blankets will all be supplied from wool which all can grow. Mr. Rector finds difference in the wools grown on the east and the west of the Cascades, and preference being given to the latter, as containing more oily or fatty matter, and hence requiring less oiling in the process of manufacturing. That grown to the east of the Cascades is thought to be not only drier but harsher—more dirty—but time and the proper attention to its culture will doubtless bring about changes. New breeds, housing in winter, and dry foothills for grazing, are all advantages which wool growers to the east of the Cascades can have on their side. There are few ​regions where finer grazing fields are to be had than the slopes of the Bitter Root Mountains; and the freedom from excessive dampness, the pure, fresh mountain springs, are all so many advantages, that I confidently look forward to the day when these many well-grassed slopes shall be covered with fleecy flocks, and when the waters of the many silvery streams that now flow through the Walla Walla Valley, shall be caught and used to turn the wheels of a woolen factory, from which shall be turned out all the fabrics needed to clothe the population destined to find homes to the east of the Cascade Mountains. The clothes made by the Salem factory compare favorably with those imported. One thing certain, there is no cotton in their fabrics. Flannels of every hue are turned out at forty cents per yard; blankets from $4 to $8, according to texture; and clothes from 75 cents to $1.50 per yard, according to fineness. It would be a most happy result if every merchant, farmer, miner, and professional man in Oregon and Washington would determine in his own mind to have at least one suit of clothes made from Salem cloth, and every bed to be covered by at least one pair of Salem blankets. This would be affording a practical proof of our pride in seeing established in our midst these factories, which must eventuate in the profit of individuals. It is much to be regretted that the immense and illimitable mill power at Oregon City is not now turned to good account. The disasters by fire and flood of the Linn City mills have been of such a sad character that the tendencies now are to intimidate capitalists, at least for a time, from embarking in similar investments at the same site. A substantial railroad is being built around the portage at Oregon City, destined to diminish the time and cost of shipment up and down the Willamette. The season for practicable steam navigation to the upper points of the river being over, but little ​business could be noticed on the part of those engaged in this enterprise.
While in Salem I called the attention of Judge Humason, of Wasco, and of Governor Gibbs, to the importance of establishing a mail line from Walla Walla to Fort Laramie, to there tap the present daily overland mail service, by which means our mails at Walla Walla could be delivered in fifteen days from Saint Louis, and in seventeen days to Portland—this in the summer season—or twenty to twenty-two days in the winter. At present our mails cross the continent to Sacramento, two thousand miles; thence to Portland, seven hundred; thence to Walla Walla, three hundred more; making a total of three thousand miles to travel before we get them; whereas I can guarantee a line by the route indicated of one half the distance and one half the time. I framed a memorial, which Judge Humason would introduce in Congress, for this line; and was promised by Mr. Harding his coöperation to see that the matter was not allowed to pass unnoticed during the coming winter.
Leaving Salem, a journey of twenty-four hours passes us through Corvallis and Eugene City; and through an exceedingly beautiful and rich agricultural country on to Oakland, where the celebrated "Baker Mills" are established, producing, it is said, the finest flour in Oregon. The disasters of the flood were too visible at each and every point, sweeping away bridges and ferries, and destroying property to the extent of thousands of dollars. A large structure across the Umpqua, costing $10,000, was thus carried off—its convenience being now replaced by a ferry. All along the road we passed small parties of immigrants who crossed the Plains this season; some in search of new homes; others to join their friends who years since had preceded them. The Umpqua is a ​beautiful valley in a high state of cultivation; the school-houses, dotting here a hill, and there a valley, betoken that the education of the youth of the country was not being neglected. Roseburg, the county seat of the Umpqua region, is a gem of a village; streets neatly laid out, and neat, white, frame cottages, giving the place a rare picturesque beauty, where mountain and dale, and the hand of refined culture, all joined in beautiful harmony. The line of telegraph posts extends throughout this entire distance from Portland to Canyonville—the farthest point south where they are as yet erected. It is fully anticipated to have the line from Salem to Portland in working order by winter; as also the line from Jacksonville to Yreka. The posts are supplied and erected by contract by the farmers and others living along the line, at a cost of from $1.25 to $2 per post, and the line when completed will cost $200 per mile. Local intelligence, and the interest which every citizen feels in the reception of intelligence, now bristling with so much import, will cause this line, as soon as placed in good working order, to pay to the stockholders fair dividends on their capital. This link between Canyonville and Jacksonville will be completed during the next season. I saw Mr. Strong in Yreka, and found him pushing ahead the line with all his characteristic energy. He deserves much credit for prosecuting this project thus far to a success that is to bring to our doors daily intelligence from the East, and it is to be hoped that the citizens of the Upper Columbia will move in the same matter as soon as the line is completed to Portland.
A ride of twenty hours brings us into the Rogue Valley and to Jacksonville, a region I regard as one of the most beautiful and picturesque to be found in Oregon. The valley is from twenty-five to thirty miles square, entirely taken up by beautiful farms and under high cultivation; ​with farmhouses and barns in good keeping with the character of its progress; grist and sawmills erected to supply the wants of its inhabitants, and with inexhaustible forests of timber. Gold mining is here carried on with much success; and it was interesting to see the lines of sluice boxes running through the streets of Jacksonville that turned out as pretty gold as any mine on the coast. Unfortunately for this fine valley, it has no outlet for its produce, and is dependent solely on a home market. Its supplies are brought in by the way of Crescent City, by a good wagon road, at a cost of four to five cents per pound. Oats here are 40 cents a bushel; wheat, 70 to 90 cents; lumber, $15 per thousand; labor from $30 to $40 per month. We observed, in squads, the ubiquitous Chinaman, moving from mining locality to mining locality, fleeing from the kicks of one to the cuffs of the other, with no fixed abiding place to be called his permanent home.
A location for a railroad line from Portland to Jacksonville is eminently practicable, and the citizens of the Willamette will be blind to their own interests if they do not so move in the matter so as to secure to themselves the advantages of the ample provisions made in the Pacific Railroad Bill for a connection between Portland and Sacramento; but south from Jacksonville there will be a severe problem for the engineers to solve, both in the shape of grades and tunnels. The Calapooia range will present an easy problem for solution; but the Scott's [Siskiyou?] and Trinity mountains will not be easily handled. They are high, broad, and broken, and no railroad line can be laid across or through them, except at most enormous cost. But that it is practicable, and will in time be built, I have no doubt. But my views relative to this location as a branch of the Pacific Railroad have been more than confirmed by a detailed view of its geography, and I ​still insist that a branch of the Pacific Railroad that will benefit Oregon and Washington as such can only be found by tapping the main trunk at or near Fort Laramie, and coming into the Columbia at or near the mouth of Snake River; and thence using the main Columbia to such a point whence freight can be shipped to and across the ocean. I made special inquiries relative to the depth of snow across the Calapooia, Scott's and Trinity mountains during the past winter, and learned that not less than eight feet fell upon these mountains; still the stage coach passed these mountains every day until the freshet suspended the travel; which was for the period of six weeks. The Scott's and Trinity mountains are higher than any mountains crossed by my road from Walla Walla to Fort Benton; and knowing that the question of snow with us is no more difficult than that met and overcome on this and other lines, I am sanguine to believe that a mail line from Fort Laramie to Walla Walla will prove eventually practicable. But the experimentum crucis, that will leave no lingering doubt even with the most uncompromising cavalier, will be afforded us, I trust, during the next twelve months; and that will deliver at our doors in Walla Walla the mails direct from Saint Louis in fifteen days. I am but too anxious that this last crowning success should be afforded us; not only to give us increased mail facilities for the present, but to awaken a practical attention to that region where the isothermal and isochimal lines have for ages past presented, and do still continue to present, to us meteorological phases as wonderful in their nature as they are destined to prove useful in their future results.
To those who derive pleasure in seeing the rough, rugged, wild face of Nature, made to wear the smiles of civilization and of progress, and to witness what money and labor can accomplish, I know of no point where they can visit to see these in all their grandeur than across ​the Scott's and Trinity mountains, which, in point of difficulty and rugged wildness, surpass any mountain region it has ever been my lot to travel, from the Columbia to the Missouri River. Toll roads lead over both of these mountains; one connecting Yreka with Rogue River; and the other, Yreka with Shasta. The road over Scott's Mountain is about twenty miles long, and made at a cost not far from $200,000; and the other, eight miles, made at a cost of $16,000. The mind that conceived the road, and the hand that executed it, were not cast in Nature's ordinary mould; genius of a higher order was Nature's gift to them. Those who invested their capital (for they were both built by private enterprise) are now being well repaid; of this, the long line of wagons and pack trains, freighted from Red Bluff to the northern mines, furnish unmistakable evidence.
A ride over Scott's Mountain amply repays one for all the labor required to make it; and can be made by no one who will not appreciate that bold enterprise that is to-day leveling mountains, leveeing valleys, bridging torrents, and, by the sound of pick and drill, even arousing Nature from her lethargy sleep—deep down in the very bowels of the mountains—throughout the length and breadth of California.
Leaving Rogue River, we pass at once from an agricultural to a wild, mountainous region, which constitutes the mining section of northern California, of which Yreka may be considered the center. It is a place of much trade, built mostly of brick, and presents a bustling appearance. It supports two newspapers, three or four hotels; has a large post office, and, at present, is the northern terminus of the State telegraph line. A cemetery, well arranged in its plan, forms the northern entrance to the city; the number of graves it contains shows that here as elsewhere death has done its work. A day's ​journey, and we come to Shasta, a mining town of one thousand people, possessing few attractions outside of a business locality. The road, approaching Yreka, winds near the northern base of Mount Shasta, a frowning snow peak, fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. Though grand and majestic, it does not compare favorably in either respect with Mount Hood—the father of all snow peaks on the Pacific. From Shasta a ride of a day brings us to Red Bluff—to which point steamers of light draught are still running from Sacramento, but with so many delays and uncertainties that the traveler prefers to continue the journey by the stage. At this point, however, we finally emerge from the mountains of California and enter upon the broad swelling prairie which constitutes the norther portion of the Sacramento Valley—where, though the country is mostly a waste, dotted here and there with clumps of oak, or openings of the same growth, yet where many large and inviting farming sections are had. At Tehama we cross the Sacramento, by a buoy-ferry, and, in a few miles, enter upon one of the most choice agricultural districts the eye ever rested upon—where grain fields are not measured by the acre, nor yet by the mile, but by the league. By a day's drive we passed through the extensive and rich fields of Major Bidwell, where eleven thousand acres of grain were being threshed—where his own mill stood ready to convert into flour the produce of his own fields; where his own mammoth store furnished hundreds of his employés with all the wants of life; where his own energy was opening, with his own means, a wagon road from the Sacramento River to the Humboldt mines; and where his own purse has already paid out $35,000, and backed by a willingness to pay as much more, in order to open up a new market for the exuberant products of so rich a soil as he himself possesses. The center of his large ​estate is the beautiful village of "Chico," where, in rural wealth as well as in rural simplicity, live an educated and contented peasantry, all more or less supported by the means of this bachelor millionaire—whose residence, on the banks of the Sacramento, is one of those architectural gems hid away amidst shrubs, trees, orchards, and groves, as if to avoid the gaze of him whose residence is of crowded cities and who is almost unworthy to breath the sweet perfume of a region where such bowers grow. May Major Bidwell long live—though bachelor he be—to dispense his bounties to a people who respect him for the liberal and generous manner in which he shares his wealth with those not similarly blest.
From Tehama the ride of half a day brings us to Oroville, a city well named, for situated as it is on the Feather River, it is in the heart of a rich mining country, where the miners have worked like so many beavers, and where the water of the Feather River is made to run in pipes and reservoirs into lakes for hundreds of feet above the level of the river, at the site of the town. This river is crossed by a ferry. A steamer is said to have once landed here from Sacramento, but such occurrences I regard as rare. The river is rapid; boils and surges over a rocky and rugged bed, and joins the Sacramento at Marysville—to which point a night's ride brings us—continuing to pass through a rich agricultural region, under a state of high cultivation. Marysville is a large, prosperous city—houses, mostly of brick—at the junction of the Yuba and Feather rivers. Thence on to Sacramento, (a journey of eight hours' staging,) the road is over a level, agricultural district, throughout which the piles of drift timber and the absence of fences, in many places, and the presence of boats and bateaux, all told that the water had been here supreme not many months ​past; barns with their roofs a mile distant; houses without any; outhouses and dwellings with a watermark up to the second story—and in many localities no dwellings at all, where commodious and comfortable tenements had been—all told of the presence and the power of the waters of Sacramento when charged with fullness on its way to the ocean. It seems to me that a system of high levees is the only thing to reclaim hundreds of acres of fine swamp land along the Sacramento, and to prevent the repetition of these disastrous results, which made the people poor and retard the growth of the State. Sacramento is already surrounded by a high levee which may protect it another season; but the levee should begin at Marysville and extend to Sacramento. It will, of course, be expensive, but it will repay the labor in the end.
Between Marysville and Sacramento we passed the large and magnificent claim called "Sutter's Ranch," though not under a high state of cultivation. The old pioneer is now poor, but his friends are sufficiently zealous in his behalf to see that his wants go not unsupplied. One can not pass over this region and at the same time observe how rapidly the Sacramento River is being obstructed by the immense deposits of sand and sediment which its current is daily bringing down, thus forming bars and deltas destined not only to intercept but probably to suspend at no distant day navigation to its upper waters,—without feeling the pressing importance of a railroad connection between Sacramento and the more northern regions of California. Already are parties out viewing and prospecting a road through Noble's Pass, where it is proposed by some to carry the Pacific railroad line.
That California will be covered with a network of railways is only a question of time, and that time determined ​by the low rates of interest that will cause capitalists to become interested in these great works of internal improvement. Local trade and travel must always be great, and must always increase so long as gold shall be mined, and that period seems to be illimitable.
From Sacramento we took passage on the fine steamer Antelope, for San Francisco, which in six hours and at a cost of $5 brought us to the end of one section of our journey. There are no opposition steamers on now and hence the monopolists command the river. The signs of the devastation of the flood marked the entire distance from Sacramento to the bay of San Francisco. But here and there we found the inhabitants raising their dwellings a story, and by levees and other improvements trying to reclaim their fields, as well as to defy the freshets of coming years. No one can pass over this exceedingly interesting region from Portland to Sacramento without feeling a thrill of pride and of pleasure to see what American energy and American capital have accomplished during the past fourteen years of its occupancy; and to picture in imagination what the next fourteen years may produce, would almost render oneself liable to such an unjust criticism that I would forbear to enter upon a theme so pregnant with interest; suffice it to say, let those who have not made the trip, make it at least once and see for themselves pleasant homes and well-tilled fields, grand mountains, useful rivers, forests of orchards, and oceans of grain; miles of sluice boxes and tons of gold; and the beauty of a region redolent with the songs of thrift and industry—and if they be not well repaid for all the fatigues of a mountain journey, the fault will certainly be theirs, and not the bounty of generous nature, who with lavish hand has spread so many pictures of the grand and beautiful— ​nor yet the fault of the inhabitants by the wayside, who by culture and improvement have framed these pictures in gilded and golden casements, and where contentment and happiness are the visible garments in which everything would seem to be enrobed.