# All Over Oregon and Washington/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV.
ALBANY, AND OTHER RIVER TOWNS.
Albany, on the east side, is twenty-five miles south of Salem, in a tolerably straight line; by the windings of the river it is farther. It is about the head of river navigation in the low water of late summer. Between Salem and Albany are several small places, of no particular importance, chiefly on the west side of the river. At one of these—Buena Vista—considerable coarse earthenware is manufactured. Monmouth, near the river, is the seat of Monmouth College, under the control of the Christian denomination. Warehouses and shipping points are frequent along this portion of the river; for some of the most famous grain-raising counties border it. The Oregon and California Railroad connects this town with those already mentioned, and has already added a considerable interest to business, and value to real estate.
The Calapooia River enters the Wallamet at Albany. This stream furnishes fine water-power up in the foot-hills, where two towns—North and South Brownsville—are located. The former is a manufacturing place, having a woolen-mill, a flouring-mill, a planing-mill, and a tannery, besides machine-shops, and other similar establishments.
Albany was laid out as a town-site in 1848 by two brothers, Thomas and Walter Monteith. All that has been said of Salem, as a well-located town, applies ​equally to Albany. It is hardly less beautiful, none the less industrious, thriving, or intelligent; and is the third town in importance in Oregon. With a population of twenty hundred, it has four churches; a college building; the best court-house, out of Portland, in the State; a fine public-school building; two flouring-mills; two lumber-mills, and good, substantial brick stores in proportion. Every trade and industry is well represented; and the character of its people is not below that of any town of its size on the coast; while its business men are noted for their enterprise and public spirit. We are pleased to pay this tribute to Albany, where we met some very congenial people. There is no place in the interior of Oregon where the stranger is more likely to be pleased with his surroundings than here.
There are also many pleasant drives and resorts about Albany, and a fine view of that beautiful group of snow-peaks, the Three Sisters. Although there is much level prairie, there are also buttes and ridges so disposed about the valley as to give a charming variety to an otherwise monotonous landscape. Opposite Albany, on the west side of the river, is a belt of heavily timbered bottom-land, which is subject to overflow, and back of that rise the rolling hills of Benton County, dotted with magnificent spreading oaks.
Above Albany the pine-tree begins to appear, mixed with the fir, along the river-banks. The groves of timber are more scattering, and the country more level and open. Except the ash, maple, alder, and willow of the river-bottoms, there is little forest; but the isolated trees of pine, fir, and oak which beautify the plains, are of the handsomest proportions.
Corvallis, about a dozen miles above Albany, on the ​west side of the river, is about the same age with it. Its first proprietor was Mr. Avery, who still resides there. It is the first town of consequence on the west side of the Wallamet, and the only one excepting Eugene. The situation of Corvallis is remarkably handsome, having the river on one side of it, and the Coast Range sufficiently near it on the other to give the landscape the look of being framed in a semicircle of hills.
A road through the Coast Range directly west of Corvallis, furnishes this place communication with Yaquina Bay on the coast, thus giving it an independent sea-port. Besides this advantage which it affords to shippers, the bay has become quite a famous summer resort, through the facilities furnished by this road. The climate of Corvallis is also perceptibly affected in summer by the sea-breezes which find their way into the valley through the pass in the mountains along which this road conducts us. St. Mary's Mountain is a peak of the Coast Range in full view from Corvallis, and another summer resort for pleasure-seekers. One of the attractions is the delicious cream to be obtained from a dairy up on the mountain—which, with strawberries or huckleberries, is said to make a very fine dessert to a "basket" dinner.
Corvallis narrowly escaped being made the capital of Oregon Territory, and received instead thereof the appropriation for a State University. But the money was expended, and the only result is a pile of ruins—another example of how the Territory used the appropriations of Congress. The State is a much better economist.
Corvallis, with a population of ten or twelve hundred, supports three churches, an academy, and female ​seminary, besides common schools, and a college within a few miles of it. It has considerable trade; though, having been cut off from river navigation fully half the year, it could not have a constant trade which was not purely local. As it is situated in one of the best agricultural sections, the time when the railroad reaches it, which will be very soon, will see a rapid change in that respect. The Corvallis Gazette, a weekly newspaper, is a well-conducted journal.
Two or three miles south of Corvallis, on the east side of the river, is a new town called Halsy, an outgrowth of the Oregon and California Railroad. It is receiving a considerable number of settlers, and promises to be a place of some importance as a grain-depot.
The face of the country in this portion of the Wallamet Valley is extremely picturesque and beautiful. The narrowing of the valley toward its head brings mountains, plains, and groves within the sweep of unassisted vision, and the whole resembles a grand picture. We have not here the heavy forests of the Columbia River region, nor even the frequently recurring fir-groves of the Middle Wallamet. The foot-hills of the mountains approach within a few miles on either side, but those nearest the valley are rounded, grassy knolls, over which are scattered groups of firs, pines, or oaks, while the river-bottom is bordered with tall cottonwoods, and studded rather closely with pines of a lofty height and noble form.
Two tributaries enter the Wallamet between Corvallis and Eugene—the Muddy, from the east, and Long Tom from the south-west. The country on the Long Tom is celebrated for its fertility, and for the uncompromising democracy of its people. The school-master and the Black Republican, are reported to be alike ​objects of aversion in that famous district. It is also claimed for Long Tom, that it originated the term "Webfoot," which is so universally applied to Oregonians by their California neighbors. The story runs as follows: A young couple from Missouri settled upon a land-claim on the banks of this river, and in due course of time a son and heir was born to them. A California "commercial traveler" chancing to stop with the happy parents overnight, made some joking remarks upon the subject, warning them not to let the baby get drowned in the rather unusually extensive mud-puddle by which the premises were disfigured, when the father replied that they had looked out for that; and, uncovering the baby's feet, astonished the joker by showing him that they were webbed. The sobriquet of Webfoot having thus been attached to Oregon-born babies, has continued to be a favorite appellative ever since.
No inland town could have a prettier location than Eugene, and few a more desirable one for other reasons. At the head of the Wallamet Valley, it combines many advantages; Lane County, of which it is the county-seat, extending from the sea-coast to the Cascade Range, and including grain and stock lands, timber and mineral lands, with abundant water-power. It is also the starting-point of the Military Road, crossing the Cascades at Diamond Peak Pass, and traversing Eastern Oregon near its southern boundary, to Owyhee, in Idaho. It is presumable, at least, that this must be the course of a railroad at no very distant day.
Like all the towns in the Wallamet Valley, Eugene has recognized the value of the church and the school-house in the community. With a population of about ​nine hundred, it has five churches, an academy, and other public and private schools. In its early days, for it was founded more than twenty years ago, an attempt was made to have a college located here. The enterprise proceeded as far as the partial erection of a handsome stone building, when it was arrested, and has so remained ever since. Before the completion of the railroad the trade of Eugene could not be very great, owing to the want of means for transporting the products of the country to any other market than its own. Its inhabitants, however, enjoyed peace and plenty in their own homes; and perhaps were more intellectual and more social from their isolation. The literary professions are well represented, and the trades seem to thrive as well as in more bustling places. The office of the Surveyor General of the State is located here.
Three miles above Eugene is the new town of Springfield, already a thriving little place, with flouring and saw-mills, and several manufactories. Following up the Middle Fork of the Wallamet, leads us through a valley, heading in the Cascade Range, to the south-east. This valley, together with several smaller lateral ones, contains a considerable amount of excellent land, both for grain-growing and stock-raising. For dairy purposes, much of it is excellent; also, for wool-growing. Fine water-power may be obtained in numerous places, owing to the rapid fall of the streams coming out of the mountains. It is up this valley that the Military Road leads to the Diamond Peak Pass.
It is claimed that up among these foot-hills every variety of fruit and vegetables can be more successfully cultivated than on the prairie land of the great ​valley. Certainly it is evident that the resources of this part of the country, in soil, timber, water, and minerals, are unexcelled by any portion of it; and only its remoteness has hitherto prevented its settlement. Already the lands are beginning to be taken up, and settlers' cabins to appear on frequent claims on the Middle Fork of the Wallamet. McKenzie, or North Fork, is a large stream, with a similar country and advantages for locating. The South Fork is smaller, with the same general character.
A glance at the map of Oregon will show any one the horse-shoe shape of the head of the Wallamet Valley, with the Coast Range on the west, the Cascades on the east, and the Calapooias on the south.
This amphitheatre of mountains, running down into the valley in long slopes and ridges, furnishes it with superior facilities for a great variety of manufactures which depend on wood, water, stone, and such like materials. When these are to be found, together with a variety of good soils, adapted to all branches of farming, there can be no doubt of the future of such a country. From every side, the riches of these hills will glide down into the lap of that city which is situated in their midst.