Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/348

248 on the Pacific coast can show anything like a parallel. The exhibit proves conclusively and in the most appreciable manner the rapid strides of our city towards wealth and greatness. . . . Every house is occupied as soon as finished, and not infrequently houses are bespoken before the ground is broken for their erection. . . . Rents are justly pronounced enormous."

The finest buildings of this year were the New Market theatre of A. P. Ankeny, sixty by two hundred feet, on First and A streets, extending to Second, and the Masonic hall on Third and Alder, of three stories, and a Mansard roof, still a very prominent building, and finished in the Corinthian style.

The number of steamers registering in the Willamette district were thirty-one; of barks, one; brigs, six; schooners, two; scows, two; sloops, four. The total value of property assessed was ten million, one hundred and fifty-six thousand, three hundred and twenty dollars, with an indebtedness of one million, one hundred and ten thousand, one hundred and five dollars. The population as estimated reached eleven thousand, one hundred and three.

In 1872, Ankeny's New Market theatre was completed at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars, and the Masonic Temple at eighty thousand dollars. A Good Templar's hall was built on Third street costing ten thousand dollars. The Clarendon hotel was built on north First street near the railroad depot. Smith's block, a row of warehouses between First and Front streets and Ash and Oak, was built this year at a cost of fifty thousand dollars. Pittock's block on Front near Stark was completed at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. Trinity church erected a house of worship on the corner of Sixth and Oak streets, at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. Dekum's building on the corner of First and Washington streets, of three stories and still standing, costing seventy thousand dollars, was begun in 1871, and completed in '72. The home for the destitute was built this year.

In the line of shipping there were five ocean steamers plying to San Francisco, the John L. Stephens, an old-fashioned side-wheeler being the largest, carrying one thousand, eight hundred and thirty-seven tons. Coastwise tonnage aggregated one hundred and nine thousand, nine hundred and forty-nine tons; in the foreign trade there were eighteen thousand, nine hundred and forty-four tons. From foreign countries there arrived twelve barks and two ships, with a total capacity of nine thousand, four hundred and forty tons. Imports—that is strictly from foreign countries—were seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and twenty-five dollars; exports to foreign countries six hundred and fifty-eight thousand and six hundred and fourteen dollars. The west side railroad was running to the Yamhill river at St. Joseph, and the east side to Roseburg in the Umpqua valley. Large fires occurred in 1872 making a total loss of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The population was estimated at twelve thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine.

In August, 1873, a great fire occurred, burning twenty-two blocks along the river front south of Yamhill and a part of Morrison street. The fire began at about 4:30 o'clock A. M. August 2, 1873, while the summer drought was on, and, by popular opinion at the time, was due to incendiarism. It began in the furniture store of Hurgren & Shindler on First street near Taylor. Fastening on the oils and varnishes in the work room, the energy of combustion was so great as to send up a shaft of flames through the building far into the air, with dense smoke accompanying, which soon burst into sheets of fire, and involved the entire structure. The alarm of the bells and the cries of the firemen aroused the city, and the streets were soon crowded with men. There were wooden buildings close by, the Metropolis hotel, the Multnomah hotel, the Patton house and a saloon, carpenter shop and foundry, on the same block; and within a quarter of an hour the whole was under the flames. The fire passed through