Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/960

672 The flood of 1861 cleared the way for the paper mills that now occupy the site of old Linn City. Paper of a coarse quality was first made at Oregon City in 1867, by W. W. Buck, a pioneer of 1845. Later Mr. Buck built another mill with capital furnished by the publishers of the Oregonian, and successfully manufactured printing and wrapping paper, which was all consumed in and about Portland. In 1888-89 larger paper mills began to be built at the falls, until now the three, the Crown-Columbia, the Willamette Pulp and Paper and the Hawley mills are among the largest in the world. Between five and six million dollars are invested in the paper industry at Oregon City, employing a thousand men with a payroll averaging about $70,000 monthly. Seventy-five million feet of logs per year are converted into paper to be shipped to every Pacific port, China, Chili, Australia, Alaska and New Zealand. The Willamette, the largest of all, manufacturing newspaper only, with a daily output of 170 tons, received one of the largest orders for print paper on record in December, 1910, the contract calling for two million dollars' worth, to be delivered to Harrison Gray Otis of the Los Angeles Times.

Besides the woolen and paper mills, Oregon City has a number of sawmills in the town and suburbs, an iron foundry, and the electric plant that lights the city of Portland. A trolley line connects the two cities, completed in 1893 by James and George Steele. The first suspension bridge in Oregon, costing $30,000 was built in 1885-6, connecting east and west Oregon City. A commission house is doing an extensive business, an ice plant, steam laundry, a water system owned by the city, a public library and free reading room, are also features of the town. A commercial club with rooms in the new Masonic Temple is doing splendid work, as also are the Woman's club, of which Mrs. J. W. Norris is the president and leader in civic improvement; the Rose club founded by Mrs. George A. Harding; the Derthick, a musical organization established by Mrs. E. E. Williams; the McLoughlin Memorial Association, E. G. Caufield, president, that has restored the historic home of the founder of the city; the Willamette Valley Chautauqua Association, the largest educational gathering in the state, that for seventeen years has met at Gladstone park, attracting thousands of people and the most noted talent in the country. The present population of Oregon City is 4,287, and probably 10,000 including its suburbs. West Oregon City, Bolton, Canemah, Park Place, Gladstone, and Mt. Pleasant. In a professional way, besides the clergy and school teachers, Oregon City has eight physicians, nine dentists and sixteen practicing lawyers. Churches of all denominations are now represented, some of them with enlarged and modern buildings.

From time immemorial the "Hyas Tyee Tumwater" was a rendezvous for Indians in the fishing season; over the Willamette falls they fought, Clackamas and Klamath, Multnomah and Molalla. But dead men tell no tales. Indian burial places overlooked the falls on both sides, perched in trees, on rocks, on scaffolds, and later in the ground after the white man's fashion. As late as the sixties these graves might be seen decorated with strips of blankets, tin pots, kettles, and whatever the departed had prized in life. Twenty feet of the Canemah bluff cut off by the railroad was an Indian burial ground, also across the river along the present picturesque walk to- the paper mills. All these places have been dug over by relic hunters who carried away skulls, jawbones and archaeological treasures.

As settlers advanced, the Indians moved their camps to the first bench, the second, and finally to the third, where for years boys and girls found small Indian pockets or caches with beads and arrow heads. All over the present McLoughlin heights and beyond, old timers point out localities of Indian camps and graves, A larger Indian cache was a cave in the face of the high bluff between sth and 6th street. This cave was entered from above, out over the edge, where a single frail sapling is all that prevents the adventurer from slipping to death below. In this cave, extending sixty feet back under the rocks,