River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-03-26
WONDERS OF THE NORTHWEST.
Rapid Growth of Trade and Indus
tries in the Cities of the
Pacific Coast.

In the northwest everything seems
to have happened within the last ten
years: events which would be of epoch
making Importance in any country at
any time have here crowded one upon
another with wanton prodigality, so
that the northwesterner. pumped
down in the whirl Of great things, can
himself hardly grasp their full signi-
fcance, contenting himself with con-
fused superlatives, says Ray Stannard
Baker, in March Century.
Think of this march of events! 1t
was barely eight years ago that the
gold fields of the Klondike were
brought to the knowledge of the world,
causing a rush of Americans to the
northwest, and building up suddenly
a new and important business for the
Puget sound ports, where the miners
QUILTED and took ship. Following the
Klondike excitement, came the various
Alaska discoveries, and Seattle and Ia
coma were and are the natural head
quarters for most of the supplies
shipped nOrthWard as well as the en-
try point for the returning miners with
their treasure, not little of which is
left to enrich the people of the ports.
Hardly had the gold excitement
Gained to the PAGES of a steady bust
ness enterprise when the Spanish war
broke out, and these Pacific cities were
thrown into the turmoil of visiting bat
tleships and of provisioning and trans
nnrtino no army IF ba pbiIinninac
Then came the opening trade with our
new lnsular possessions in the Pacific
the Chinese war and its call for equip
ment and its stir of soldiery and trans
ports, followed by the recent CONNER
cial expansion of Japan, with its trade
demands. And now an element has
just entered into the calculations of
the cOast--the construction of the
Panama canal-which will revolution
ize whole departments of the worlds
trade and exercise a profound influence
for good or evil on the cities of the
northwestern coast.
Many of the events, it is true, notably
the opening of the door to the far east,
are mostly prOmissory assets; and yet
their prophecy of a golden future has
not been without it's profound effect
on the growth of the Pacific cities and
the attraction of energetic men with
money. To the Pacific ports will ulti-
mately come most of the trade of the
Philippines, worth $6O,OOO,O0O annual
ly, and a growing share of the billion
dollars or more of the annual business
g IL
| East Indies, to say nothing of the large
foreign trade of Australia and New
Zealand. Alaska, once regarded as a
hopelessly distant and irreclaima BILE
waste Of mountains and snow, is also
progressing with wonderful rapidity,
not only in it's mines, but in the devel-
Opment of its fisheries and in the util-
lzation of it's forests and it's agricul-
tural resources, so that to-day the
Alaskan trade is of much import 1nce.
While these world events were
crowding upon one another, the devel-
opment of the country tributary to the
coast, upon which the solid progress
of the cities must ultimately rest, was
going forward with unprecedented
rapidity. Western Canada was open
ing to settlement, is opening now, in
marvellous manner; railroads were
building; schemes for irrigating the
arid lands were in course of develop
ment; crop production was increasing;
timber was being cut from an almost
inexhaustible supply, to supplement
the waning forests of Maine and Mich
igan; coal mines were being opened,
and salmon caught-all the forces of
industry working together with a
rapidity which must always remain a
worlds wonder.