Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/179



pioneer mining man of this region, places the output of the placer mines at one million five hundred thousand dollars annually, and of the quartz mines at two million dollars. A company is being organized to bring water upon a dead river channel, or lead similar to the Blue Lead of California, from which it is expected to derive one million five hundred thousand dollars annually, and which will be tributary to Baker City. This channel has yielded nuggets weighing from eight hundred dollars to three thousand two hundred dollars. “ Six miles from Baker,” says Colonel Virtue, “ there are farms upon one end of which the owner harvests forty, fifty, or sixty bushels of wheat per acre, and on the other end takes out gold dust at fifty cents a pan from his placers.”

Baker City has a highly picturesque situation, being upon a level plateau of three thousand feet elevation, surrounded by cones and peaks of a variety of forms, some wooded, others bare, and still others rising to the snow-line. The city is supplied with excellent water from three artesian wells, the water being pumped into a reservoir at the rate of sixty thousand gallons per hour. The religious sentiment of the population is represented by five church-edifices, well filled on the Sabbath. A thirty-thousand-dollar public-school building gives evidence of the value set upon educational facilities, as well as of the wealth of the community. The Catholics also have a school for young ladies. There are three newspapers, two of them dailies and weeklies. An electric-light plant furnishes illumination to the streets; and a street-car line runs from the railroad depot through the heart of the city. A new brick hotel—the War- shauer—is being completed, at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars. The foundation is laid by the Geroux Amalgamating and Manufacturing Company, with a capital of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, for an amalgamator, and in connection with it a found^ and general machine-works. The present manufactures are confined to planing-mills, flouring-mills, brickyards, etc. The Warm Mineral Springs of Baker are much resorted to. A national bank, assay offices, and a building and loan association facilitate business operations.

Baker City is the largest distributing point east of the mountains in Oregon, and in 1863 it was a stage station on the road