Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/531

Rh his opinion of the right, and with true public spirit, contributing to the improvement of the town and the development of the country.

Pettygrove erected a building for a store and put in a very small stock from his remnants at Oregon City. The business of the town moved imperceptibly; in fact there was no business worth mentioning. When a ship would come in, all that had money, furs, or wheat, would buy of the ship, and trade in their produce, so that merchandise at the store was a mere pretense.

The first item of improvement that so attracted the attention of the country as to have Portland talked about, was the starting of a tannery by Daniel H. Lownsdale in 1847—the first in Portland. As a matter of fact, however, there were three small tanneries at or near Oregon City, and many of the farmers up in the valley had been tanning deer and calves skins in a limited way, as nearly all the pioneer people knew something of the art of tanning skins; but the Lownsdale tannery was started as a business enterprise to accommodate the public and make profit to its proprietor. Hides would be tanned for so much cash, or leather would be traded for hides; or leather would be sold for cash, furs or wheat. Here was a start in a productive manufacturing business, and Lownsdale's tannery was the talk of the whole country, and advertised Portland quite as much as it did the tannery. This tannery was not started on the townsite, but way back in the forest a mile from the river, on. the spot now occupied by the "Multnomah Field" of the Athletic Association. And with $5000 dollars worth of leather, not yet tanned, Lownsdale bought out Pettygrove's interest in the townsite. After running the tannery for two years, Lownsdale sold it to two newcomers—Ebson and Ballance— who in turn sold it to Amos N. King, who then took up the mile square of land adjoining Portland on the west, known as the King Donation Claim, and which has made fortunes for all his children by the sale of town lots. Amos N. King was not much of a town lot speculator. It was a long time before he could muster up courage enought to ask a big price for a little piece of ground. He stuck to his tannery, and made honest leather for more than twenty years before he platted an addition to the city.

A leading citizen of those early days of Portland was John Waymire, who built the first double log cabin, and made some efforts to accommodate strangers and traders who dropped oft" the passing bateaux to look at the new city, by furnishing meals and giving them a hospitable place to spread their blankets for the night. Waymire further enlarged his fortunes by going into the transportation business with a pair of oxen he had driven two thousand miles all the way from old IMissouri across the mountains and plains. As the new town was the nearest spot to Oregon City where the ships could safely tie up to the shore and discharge cargo, Waymire got business both ways. With his oxen he could haul the goods up to his big cabin for safety, and then vrith his oxen he could haul the stuff back to the river to load into small boats and lighters for transportation to Oregon City. In addition to the transfer business, and the hotel business, Waymire started a sauanill on Front street. The machinery outfit would not compare well with the big sawanills along the river in Portland at the present time, being only an old whip-saw brought all the way from Missouri, where it had been used in building up that state. The motive power being one man standing on top of the log pulling the saw up preparatoiy for the