The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1893-07-07
YAQUINA BAY AND THE O. p.
r. r.

2. w. johnson, general freight
and passenger agent of the Ore
gon Pacific Railroad Co., at San
Francisco, appeared in the San
Francisco Journal of Commerce.
1t gives information which cannot
become too familiar to the people
OF Oregon:
at might be Of some interest 10
the business community to know
Of the present condition of the
Yaquina bar. Formerly and be-
fore the jetties that are being con-
structed by the government were
extended to near completion, some
difficulty arose at times, causing
delays that in the present exten-
sion of the jetties have been Ell
tirely overcome. The bar proper
! is not over 600 feet in width and
but a few years since strong
tide coming into the bay would
wash the sands upon the top of
this narrow ledge to a considerable
depth, obstructing temporarily the
! channel. But this difficulty has
been entirely removed, and at
present, practically there is no
bar. The jetties extending out
several hundred feet confne the
current to comparatively narrow
channel, thereby increasing its
velocity. It is now sufficiently
strong to keep the bar swept en-
tirely clean of sand down to the
hard rock, and so protects the en-
trace to the harbor that during a
gale the breakers which formerly
rolled in from the northwest with
great force, is entirely destroyed
by the projection of the north
jetty. With these most favored
conditions, it is not putting it too
strong to say that the entrance to
Yaquina harbor is one of the safest
OH the Pacific coast. And while
the protected entrance and con-
dition of the bar is all that could
be desired, when the harbor is
reached, it matters not how rough
the weather may be outside, there
is scarcely ripple on the surface
Of the bay. And while the harbor
is not large, it is so completely
nd-locked that shipping is en-
tirely safe from the most severe
1westerly gales. These facts should
be thoroughly. understood by our
marine insurance companies, and
if they do not, they surely ought
| W grant ~" iiSul dIlCO W OuI
merchants for this as for the most
favored harbor on the coast. With
such a harbor as Yaquina, the
farmers of the great Willamette
valley have an outlet for their
grain and other produce that
enable them to reach the San
Francisco market. and thereby the
markets of the world, at freight
rates sufficiently low to afford the
producer a fair margin of profit,
which was an impossible matter
before the construction of the Ore
gon Pacific Railroad. The Oregon
farmers are quite as much inter-
ested in giving their support to
this route as are the merchants
who receive their support from
these same farmers, and who are
paid the same money received by
them from the grain and produce
dealers in San Francisco. This
favorable condition of things could
not have existed had it not been
tor the building of this line running
down to the sea from that great
valley, which more resembles the
valley of the Po in Italy than any
other in the world.
"While the Oregon Pacific
Railroad now reaches one of the
most fertile sections of the Pa
cifc slope, it will, when ex-
tended east of the Cascade Noun
tains, become an outlet of ter
ritory that is an empire in ex-