Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/125



Governor Oswald West in his inaugural message, announced a departure from the traditional Oregon custom followed in the selection of its indemnity school lands. Instead of waiting until a request for a selection is made by an intending purchaser of a designated tract, the governor proposes to arrange, if possible, with the national authorities to take a compact tract composed of contiguous sections from the Cascade Forest Reservation. The area preferred would comprise the drainage basin of some stream with large undeveloped power resources. This project of the governor has in view experimental state forestry and power administration.

Oregon is now entitled to some 50,000 acres of these indemnity lands. Should the selection be consummated as proposed, the care of the lands would naturally be entrusted to the students of the state institutions of higher education. This is part of the governor's suggestion.

The semi-centennial memorial number of the first issue of the daily Oregonian of February 4 makes a noteworthy historical document. In it are found many historical papers of permanent value, reprints of early views of Portland and photographic reprints of early issues of the Oregonian. The illustrative and printed material of the sixty-four large pages constitute a veritable doomsday book record of Oregon's present development.

In the early days of Merrick County during the fifties, there stood on the north bank of the Platte River south of what is now Central City, a giant cottonwood tree. This tree was close to the old Oregon trail, and for miles up and down the river there was not another tree to be found. Under its spreading