Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/559

 s|Aere are Noled Various Significant Facts Klaling to the

Pogress andGeneral Advancement of the PacificQast Qvniry

E.

Tillamook county, Oregon, is the dairy county of the Northwest by which all others are measured. Government reports refer to it as the Second Netherlands

Letting Down the Bars into Tillamook County, Oregon By EMERSON HoLT CHAMPION was the first white settler in

Tillamook county, Oregon. His name was Joseph G. and he hazarded a fifty-mile trip in a whale-boat from the mouth of the Columbia river, south on the blue Pacific to the entrance to Tilla

mook bay. He was in search of a land of evergreen slopes, mild climate, verdant valleys and untold potential wealth, stories of which carried by Indian lips had crossed the coast mountain divide and trickled down into the interior valleys. That was sixty-two years ago, or three years after eager pros pectors began a search of the California diggings for gold. Champion entered the promised land and made his camp in the heart of a hollow spruce tree. He found a realm of fascination: timbered steeps where the snow lingered through the summer months; forests of fir and spruce and cedar filled with bear and deer and feathered game; trout streams that purled down the hillsides to join the laughing waters of wonderful land-locked bays, promising future commercial and industrial activity and alive with salt sea delicacies from shrimp to salmon; a stretch of richly rugged ocean shore with miles upon miles of hard smooth sand beaches; and beautiful valleys clothed in an almost impenetrable undergrowth of rich natural foliage. 57o

That was the Tillamook country as seen by the first settler.

It has changed but little from that day except that a few thousand people have found their way into the county, founded homes, fenced farms or scratched lightly at the timber and fisheries wealth. There is still the same fascinating natural beauty; the same verdure-clad valleys, now wealth-pro ducing dairy farms; the same mild climate; the same wealth of practically untouched timber and fisheries. What held Tillamook back?

Remember, here is

wonderland almost in a stone's throw of Portland, the metropolis of Oregon. Progress and develop ment depend upon rapid transportation facilities. Until two years ago Tillamook county was without a railroad. Until then commerce must needs depend upon tortuous wagon trails over steep mountains or upon a more or less hazardous ocean voyage. Yet,

notwithstanding this handicap, Tillamook county made giant strides, gained fame for its products, fame for its good roads (second in rank of all Oregon counties) and fame for its scenic attractions. Here is a county ninety miles from Portland, rich in virgin wealth, just at the dawn of an industrial awakening, offering limitless opportunities to the settler, the capitalist and the manufacturer, and

SUNSET Advertisements are indexed on page 396