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 water navigation now extends 150 miles along the northern boundary of Oregon, and, with the completion of the ship railway above the Cascades, will extend to 250 miles. The Snake River runs along the eastern boundary of the state for 150 miles, and is navigable for a considerably greater distance from where it enters the Columbia. The Willamette River which empties into the Columbia just north of Portland is navigable as far as Eugene, 150 miles from Portland. The region between the coast and the Cascade ranges, and the northern fringe of the state along the Columbia and Snake rivers are well supplied with railroad facilities. The vast area of Eastern Oregon, however, has been hitherto practically without railroad service. This immense territory is finally being opened up (1910) by the construction of railroads by two rival systems through the Deschutes Valley.

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
The State Board of Education is composed of the governor, the secretary of state, and a superintendent of public instruction. In each county there is a superintendent who holds office for two years, and each school district has a board comprising from three to five directors whose term is three years. The state course of study provides for eight grades in the grammar schools and four years in the high schools. The state university at Eugene and the agricultural college at Corvallis complete the state school system. An irreducible fund of $3,500,000 has been secured by the sale of part of the school lands of the state. In 1884 Congress set aside sections 16 and 36 of all the public domain in Oregon for public schools. For many years previous to 1909 there were four state normal schools, which were practically local high schools subsidized by the state. The subsidy was withdrawn by the legislature of that year, and there is now one state normal located at Monmouth.

The state university was established in 1872. The agricultural college at Corvallis, which also gives a college course in the liberal arts and sciences, has about one thousand students. There are a large number of denominational colleges and secondary schools in the state. At Salem, the state capital, are located the charitable and penal institutions of the state, viz., the schools for the blind and deaf mutes, the insane asylum, boys reform school, and the penitentiary.

Explorations
In 1543 the Spanish navigator Ferrelo explored the Pacific Coast — possibly to the parallel of 42, the southern boundary of Oregon. Sir Francis Drake in The Golden Hind (1543), carried the English colours a few miles farther north than Ferrelo had ventured. The same point was reached by the Spaniard Vizcaino in 1603. In 1774 Juan Perez sailed in the Santiago from the harbour of Monterey and explored the north-west coast as far as parallel 55. The following year the Spanish explored the north-west coast under Heceta, who, on his return, observed the strong currents at the mouth of the Columbia. Nootka Sound was visited and named by the English navigator Cook in 1778. The visit of Cook had important consequences. The natives loaded his ship with sea-otter skins in exchange for the merest trifles. The value of these skins was not suspected, until the ship touched at Asiatic and European ports where they were sold for fabulous prices. The commercial value of the north-west had been discovered. The ships of all nations sought for a profitable fur-trade with the Indians, and the strife for the possession of the territory entered a new phase. Captain Robert Gray of Boston discovered the Columbia River in 1792 and named it after his ship. The country was first explored by the American expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5. Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia, the first white settlement in Oregon, was founded in 1811 by the American Fur Company under the direction of John Jacob Astor. Two years later the Northwest Company (a Canadian fur company) bought out Astoria, and maintained commercial supremacy until it merged with the great Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.

This latter company dominated Oregon for a quarter of a century. The Oregon country at that time embraced an area of 400,000 sq. miles and extended from the Rocky Mountains on the east to the Pacific Ocean and from the Mexican possessions on the south to the Russian possessions on the north. In 1824 a commanding personality arrived on the Columbia as chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Co., in the Oregon country. This was Dr. John McLoughlin (q.v.), the most heroic figure in Oregon history. Realizing that the great trading post should be at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, McLoughlin transferred the headquarters of the company from Fort George (Astoria) to Fort Vancouver. He refused to sell liquor to the Indians, and bought up the supplies of rival traders to prevent them from selling it. He commanded the absolute obedience and respect of the Indian population, and Fort Vancouver was the haven of rest for all travellers in the Oregon country. Speaking of McLoughlin's place in Oregon history, his biographer, Mr. Frederick V. Holman, a non-Catholic, pays him the following just tribute: Of all the men whose lives and deeds are essential parts of the history of the Oregon country, Dr. John McLoughlin stands supremely first, — there is no second.

Missionaries
The first tidings of the Catholic Faith reached the Oregon Indians through the Canadian employees of the various fur-trading companies. The expedition of Astor in 1811 was accompanied by a number of Canadian voyageurs, who some years later founded at St. Paul the first white settlement in the Willamette Valley. These settlers applied in 1835 to Bishop Provencher of Red River (St. Boniface, Manitoba) for priests to come among them to bless their marriages with their savage consorts, to baptize their children, and revive the Faith among themselves. It was in answer to this petition that Father F.N. Blanchet and Modeste Demers were sent to the Oregon country in 1838. On their arrival the missionaries found a log church already erected on the prairie above St. Paul. Meanwhile another request for missionaries had gone forth. The Indians in the Rocky Mountains had repeated the Macedonian cry to their brethren in the East. In 1831 the Flatheads with their neighbours, the Nez Perces, sent a deputation to St. Louis to ask for priests. They had heard of the black robes through Iroquois Indians, who had settled among them and thus transplanted the seed sown by Father Jogues. It was not until 1840 that Bishop Rosati of St. Louis was able to send a missionary. In that year Father De Smet, S.J., set out on his first trip to the Oregon country where he became the apostle of the Rocky Mountain Indians. A peculiar perversion of the facts concerning the visit of the Indians to St. Louis got abroad in the Protestant religious press and started a remarkable movement towards Oregon. The Methodists sent out Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834, and the Methodist mission was soon reinforced until it was valued in a few years at a quarter of a million dollars and became the dominant factor in Oregon politics. The American Board Mission was founded by Dr. Marcus Whitman, a physician, and Mr. Spalding, a minister. With them was associate W.H. Gray as agent, the author of a History of Oregon which was responsible for the spread of a great deal of misinformation concerning the early missionary history of Oregon.

The savage murder of Dr. Whitman in 1847 was a great catastrophe. Dr. Whitman, who was a man of highly respected character, opened his mission among the Cayuse Indians near Fort Walla Walla. His position as physician made him suspected by the