In The Oregon Country - free ebook by George Palmer Putnam

The Southland of North America

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In the Oregon Country

Out-Doors in Oregon, Washington, and California Together with some Legendary Lore, and Glimpses of the Modern West in The Making Author of "The Southland of North America" etc. With an Introduction by...

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James Withycombe

Governor of Oregon G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1915 Copyright , 1915 BY GEORGE PALMER PUTNAM The Knickerbocker Press, New York...

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INTRODUCTION

HEN one has lived in Oregon for forty-three years, and when one's enthusiasm for his home increases year after year, naturally all that is said of that home is of the most vital interest. Especially is it acceptable if it is the outgrowth of a similar enthusiasm, and if it is well said. For a considerable span of time I have been reading what others have written about the Pacific Coast. In the general western literature, it has seemed to me, Oregon has never received its merited share of conside

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PREFACE

FTEN enough a preface is an outgrowth of disguised pretentiousness or insincere humility. Presumably it is an apology for the authorship, or at least an explanation of the purpose of the pages it introduces. But no one is compelled to write a book; and, in truth, publishers habitually exert a contrary influence. It is a fair supposition, therefore, when a book is produced, that the author has some good reason for his act, whether or not the book itself proves to be of service. Among many plausib

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Some of the material in this book has been printed in substantially the same form in Recreation whose Editor has kindly sanctioned its further utilization here. For the use of many photographs I am indebted to the courtesy of officials of the Oregon-Washington, and Spokane, Portland and Seattle railways. G. P. P....

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"Out West"

HAT is the most pronounced difference between East and West?" A Bostonian once asked me that. I was East after a year or two of westerning, and he seemed to think it would be easy enough to answer off-hand. But for the life of me I could find no fit reply. For a time that is—and then it struck me. "Everyone is proud of everything out West," said I. "Local patriotism is a religion—if you know what I mean." You who have lived on the Pacific Slope will understand. You who have visited the Pacific S

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The Valley of Content

REGON —the old Oregon Territory of yesterday and the State of to-day—is our very own. It was neither bought, borrowed, nor stolen from another nation. It is of the United States because our fathers came here first, carved out homes from the wilderness, and unfurled their flag overhead; through the most fundamental of rights—that of discovery, coupled with possession and development. The New England States we inherited from Britain, although the will was sorely contested. For Louisiana we paid a

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The Land of Legends

HE nomenclature of the Northwest suffered at the hands of its English-speaking discoverers, for much that was fair to the ear in the Indian names has been replaced with dreary commonplaces, possessing neither beauty nor special fitness. Two Yankee sea captains tossed a coin to decide whether they would name the city Portland or Boston. The Boston skipper lost, and "Multnomah," which was the old Indian name for the place and means "Down the Waters," became prosaic Portland. Because some Methodist

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The Land of Many Leagues

T was a very "typical" stagecoach. That is, it was typical of the style Broadway would have expected in the production of a Girl of the Golden West or The Great Divide . Very comfortably you may still see them in moving picture land—a region where the old West lives far woolier and wilder than it ever dared to be in actual life. However, this stage was neither make-believe nor comfortable. It was very real and very comfortless. The time was six years ago and the place the one hundred miles of wo

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How the Railroads Came

HEN the West moves, it moves quickly. The map of Oregon had long shown a huge area without the line of a single railroad crossing it. This railless land was Central Oregon, the largest territory in the United States without transportation. Then, almost over night, the map was changed. Normal men, if they are reasonably good, hope to go to Heaven. Westerners, if they are off the beaten track, hope for a railroad; and if they have one road they hope for another! You who dwell in the little land of

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The Home Makers

HE horses are ill mated, the wagon decrepit. Baling wire sustains the harness and the patched canvas of the wagon top hints of long service. "How far to Millican's?" says the driver. He is a young man; at least, his eyes are young. His "woman" is with him and their three kiddies, the tiniest asleep in her mother's lap, with the dust caked about her wet baby chin. The man wears overalls, the woman calico that was gaudy once before the sun bleached it colorless, and the children nameless garments

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On Oregon Trails

T Shaniko I denied being a land seeker. Yet such I actually was, although seeking Oregon, a land of plenty Where one dollar grows to twenty not because of the financial fruitfulness the verse implies, but rather because it was a land where outdoor pleasures are readily accessible. The logical outcome of land seeking is home making, and so in due course we became Oregonians; and now from our Oregon home we pilgrimage along the varied trails of the Pacific Playland, whose beginnings are but across

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Uncle Sam's Forests

NCE we reached a certain ranger station after sundown. It was the end of a long trail day, our horses were tired, we were fagged, and darkness was hard upon us. The only good grass in sight was the forty-acre fenced pasture surrounding the Forest Service cabin. So opening the gate we entered the forbidden land, unsaddled, and turned the horses lose. Just as we had the fire started and the coffee boiling, up came the ranger, with a star on his shirt and an air of outraged authority about him. "Yo

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A Canoe on the Deschutes

HERE are larger rivers than the Deschutes, and wilder, and some better for the canoe; many shelter more ducks, and a few more trout than does Oregon's "River of Falls." But if there are any more beautiful or varied I have yet to make their acquaintance. The Columbia is, of course, a continental stream whose very mightiness prevents any adequate comprehension of its entity; it must be enjoyed by sections, in small potions. The Willamette is almost pastoral, a sterner Western edition of the Englis

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Olympus

N the hilly residential section of Tacoma is a studio-workshop. On a certain September morning its inward appearance indicated the recent passage of a tornado—a human tornado of homecoming after a long campaign of camping. From dunnage bags, scattered about the floor, showered sleeping-bags, ruck sacks, a nest of cook pots, "packs," the rubber shoes of the north country, belts, knives, ammunition, and a thousand and one odds and ends. In a corner was an oiled silk tent, the worse for wear. Elsew

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"The God Mountain of Puget Sound"

ESS than fifty years ago what is now Seattle numbered scarce a thousand inhabitants, and the present city of Tacoma was a cluster of shacks about a sawmill. Puget Sound, to-day a highway of commerce, was an almost unknown inland sea, its waters furrowed only by the prows of Indian canoes. But for centuries beyond number the great mountain of Puget Sound has been as it is to-day, the mountain beautiful, dominating all the Sound country. In Seattle its name is Rainier, and Tacoma insists the city'

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A Summer in the Sierras

UR Western literary disciple, Bret Harte, is responsible for some such statement as this, through the mouthpiece of one of his lively mountaineers: "Tain't no use, you ain't got good sense no more. Why, sometimes you talk jest as if you lived in a valley !" Doesn't that epitomize the contempt of the highlander for the lowlander? A lover of the Californian Sierra reasonably would be expected to originate such a philosophy. For while all mountains approach perfection, existence in the California c

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The Southland of North America

The volume has many fine illustrations, and through its descriptive passages runs a vein of excellent humor."—N. Y. Sun ....

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The Winning of the Far West

A History of the Regaining of Texas, of the Mexican War, of the Oregon Question; and of the Successive Additions to the Territory in the United States within the Continent of America, 1829-1867 Edwards Professor of American History, Princeton University Author of "Kentucky in the Nation's History," etc. 8°. With Illustrations and Maps. $2.50 This volume is designed as a continuation of Theodore Roosevelt's well-known work, The Winning of the West . It begins with the history of the Texas Revolut

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Mountaineering and Exploration in the Selkirks

A Record of Pioneer Work among the Canadian Alps, 1908-1912 Corresponding Member of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society With 219 Illustrations and 2 New Maps. $5.00 A contribution to the description and history of a region that has been sadly neglected. The author is the first to have surveyed and photographed a large territory of the Selkirks, covering about 600 square miles in the northerly part. His superb photographs, some taken from the top of

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The Lower Amazon

A Narrative of Explorations in the Little-Known Regions of the State of Pará, on the Lower Amazon, with a Record of Archæological Excavations on Marajó Island at the Mouth of the Amazon River, and Observations on the General Resources of the Country Author of "In the Amazon Jungle" Late officially connected with the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Brazilian Federal Government With an Introduction by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh 8°. 100 Illustrations and Maps. $2.50 To readers of Algot Lange's former

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