Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/486

 he Pacific

Mail Steamship Company abandoned their opposition to Portland; the steam- ship company running all their ships to Portland, and WhitcomD running his steamboat from Portland to other points. It cost Coffin, Chapman and Lowns- dale in immense sacrifice in town lots to purchase the Gold Hunter and run her until the contest was decided. But they were equal to the occasion, and if their successors in real estate holding and business at Portland had possessed one-tenth of the energy and public spirit of these founders of the city, Portland would have been larger today than all the Puget Sound towns and cities com- bined.

In guessing at the location of the chief city of Oregon a lot of men missed their chance to get into the millionaire class. F. W. Pettygrove sold out a half interest in the Portland townsite for $5,000 worth of leather not then tanned, and went to Port Townsend on Puget Sound and died a poor man. Each of the townsite men had inflated ideas about city values, when only one guess could prove correct. They all saw the vision of vast wealth foreshadowed in the lines :

"Behind the red squaw's birch canoe

The steamer smokes and waves. And city lots are staked for sale.

Above old Indian graves; I hear the tramp of pioneers.

Of nations yet to be ; The first low wash of waves which soon

Shall roll a human sea. ' '

Two important facts combined to locate the principal city of the North Pacific coast at Portland. The first in importance was that of a ship channel from the Pacific ocean to tliis townsite; the second point was the farmer's prod- uce. Without that there would have been no city here. Fort William, St. Helens, St. Johns, and Linnton each had the first advantage equally with Port- land, but they were left behind in the race because they lacked the other advan- tage. The other point was equally vital when the race for commerce com- menced, for no matter how many ships could come in over the Columbia bar and come up the river, they must have some cargo to carry away. And they could only get that at a point where the farmer could come with his produce, and it must be the shortest practicable haul between the farm and the ship ; and Portland alone of all the other points offered that advantage. Portland alone of all the other points could complement the end of the ship channel with the shortest wagon haul to the farm and could thus halt the ship where the wagon unloaded. In these days of railroads wagon transportation would cut no figure. But in 1845, when the railroads had not even then reached the Alleghany Mountains from Atlantic tide water, the city must -be where the wagons and ships could meet. The scattered farmers of the Tualatin Plains of Washington county, hauling in their produce and hauling out their supplies through the old Canyon road, was a mighty factor in locating Portland as the chief city. And it is a notable fact that for more than half a century the people of Portland and the people of Washington county have always stood shoulder to shoulder in all enterprises to promote each other's welfare. When it was pro- posed to build railroads up the Willamette valley more than forty ye