The daily intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.]) 1876-1881, 1877-10-17
Editorial Cn-resnondenceI
ALL LAONG THE COAST.-VI.
EMPIRE CITY.


Sunday afternoon, with cloudless
skies and blue Mediterranean Ike seas,
brings US over another of those shallow,
foam-vexed bars into Coos Bay, a
long, winding, narrow ford. reminding
one of our salmon Bay on larger
scale. The port of entry and county
seat Of Coos county is Empire. from
which our good steamship Is namcd},
situsted seven miles up from the bar.
but to the traveller coming in from the
SEA ana looking over the fiat bar, seem
ing 10 sit queenlike at the verge of
ocean.
Empire city is q small place OF only
a Few hundred inhabitants, though the
county seat and nearest landing from
the sea.-bearing about the same rela
ton to Marshfield further up the bay
that Astoria does 10 Portland and Port
Townsend on the one hand and Tacoma
on the other does to Seattle
Marshfield is about twelve miles dis
tant by water -four and one-haIf by
land and is reached daily by the little
sternwheelcr Satellite We could not
visit it and SO must refrain from de-
scription.
Empire City at the present time does
not wear prosperous look. Its saw
mill is shut down, and so are the princi-
pal coal mines on account of the stress
of hard times in San Francisco. The
California drouth tells OH them there
harder than on us. The advantage we
possess in the superiority of our har-
b RS and facilities on the Sound is de-
veloped in the case of Goes Bay even
more strikingly than in tina: of Eureka,
for at the latter place they have some
agriculture to depend upon which helps
them out.
The place has three hotels, several
stores and saloons, "A courthouse, church.
school-house. etc. One newspaper is
published there for the entire district.
the Coos Bay Ne,cs, formerly conducted
by L. b. Merry, now of the staff of
this paper.
There are no noticeable improvements
in the neighborhood around-the ruff
of ragged spruces and snarled black
cedars closes right down upon the
village within a block or two OF the
beach and there are no ,treets or side
walks worthy of the name of town.
The soil in the vicinity is sandy and no
attempts have been made at agriculture
or gardens; though We are told there
are farms on the COquille river and
dyked marshes further up the bay in
the direction Of Marshfield.
The chief charm of the bay is the
beauty aud vafiety of the marine life
in which it aboun ds-the many colored
and various sea- grasses, polypcs and
slgae that drift about in endless profu-
sion upon its restless tide. The sedges
of the tide meadows left bare at low
tide, are the home of numberless huge
and lusty crabs which afford admirable
sport to the lovers of that crustacean
dainty. On the bar grow few dwarf
evergreens about the dimensions of
Christmas trees-the rest is hummocks
and dunes Of white sand. Though it is
but fling, as it were, from the foot of
the town to the winter turmoil and
wrecking anger of the great deep, plainly
in sight, the little two-masted craft once
inside can always nestle there in per-
feet safety and security. Along the
single of the narrow bar that forms
the breakwater to the harbor, night
and day the great white pillows of old
ocean are bursting in thunder ceaseless-
ly. The entrance over the bar is
crooked and not wider than O Puget
Sound river tributary. We crossed &C
high tide with clear atmosphere. the
leadsmau calling out fifteen feet.
We lay snugly ensconsed in Coos bay
Tor rather inlet during the afternoon
and night waiting for favorable tide
and clear weather to enable us to get
over the bar.