Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/927



VANCOUVER

Oregon, are in plain sight from all parts of the city; while in clear weather a great part of the city of Portland is in plain view, stretching up and down the Willamette and across the peninsula to the front door of Vancouver.

The city has fine schools, one college, a seminary for girls, a great hospital, several banks, fine hotels, great lumber mills, eight churches, the Washington State School for Deaf, Dumb and Blind, a street railway system, and the United States army barracks. Within the last two years the largest railroad bridge in the United States has been erected across the Columbia river at this point; and the city is now a railroad center with direct connections to Oregon and all points south to San Francisco; also to Tacoma, Seattle, and all points north to British Columbia ; also to Spokane, and all points east to the Atlantic states ; while an- other road is in course of rapid construction which will open all the great central Oregon region to the trade and business aspirations of Vancouver business men. No city on the Pacific coast is better situated to command trade and commerce than Vancouver. Four miles of dredging to deepen the ship channel to the mouth of the Willamette river will permit the largest ships that enter the Co- lumbia to come up to Vancouver and dock and receive cargo. Its history is most interesting ; its climate is that of perfect health ; its resources for wealth and prosperity are incalculable ; and the opportunities it offers for comfortable homes, profitable business and continued prosperity, are not equaled by any other point in the state.

The remarkable history of its past seems to guaranty great prosperity in the future. Vancouver has been the birthplace and home of great works. Dr. John McLoughlin founded Vancouver, and Vancouver became the homing port and center of attraction for the sea rovers, forest rangers and pioneer immigrants of all the great northwest. It founded civilization in an empire of the greatest possibilities, and became the unwilling nursing mother of the first American gov- ernment on the Pacific coast. And when human activities and commercial pos- sibilities reached the point that demanded the combination of capital to open the country to trade and commerce, Vancouver became the home for the first great transportation company of the northwest. Fifty years ago the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was incorporated in the then little village of Vancouver. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company opened the Columbia and eastern Ore- gon to the trade of the world, and became the foundation and father of the Ore- gon Railroad & Navigation Company that built 2,000 miles of railway in Oregon and Washington. And a half century later in the same village, now grown to be a city, the Oregon Trunk Railway Company is incorporated to open central Oregon to all the benefits of railroad transportation and trade and commerce with all the world. Let us hope and prophesy that the "Oregon Trunk" will accomplish as great results for Vancouver and Oregon as did the pioneer Navi- gation Company.