Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/201



STORY OF THE RIVER-ITS PLACE IN NORTHWEST HISTORY

By HENRY L. TALKINGTON.

"Where rolls the Oregon" (the Columbia) is a query raised by a great American poet nearly a century ago, and the question today remains only partially answered. Two countries Canada and the United States and seven states, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, are, the sources of this mighty river and its various tributaries. The Columbia basin has a watershed of 250,000 square miles, embracing most of Oregon and Washington, all of Idaho, and parts of the other four states just mentioned.

At the close of the American Revolution England sought to crush the commercial energies of the American Republic. While she drove the traders of this country from the Eastern shores and the Great Lakes, their restless activities found new fields on the Pacific Coast and in the trade with China.

DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA.

To develop this trade some Boston merchants in 1787 sent out two trading ships. One of these was commanded by Captain Robert Gray. In the summer of 1792 as he was sailing along the Coast, a little north of the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, he on the llth of May entered the mouth of the great river which today becomes of so much commercial importance to this Northwestern country. He sailed up the river about thirty miles, giving it the name of his ship. He thought the river might be navigable for fifty miles, but today, a little more than a century afterwards, there are in the harbors of Lewiston boats which have navigated the river ten times that distance, and it is to be hoped that at no distant day the river may become navigable for many miles more.