of Baker county have been taken up by practical manufacturers of cement, and active work to develop the deposits over a large scale is now organized. Of the copper deposits in Baker and Josephine Counties regular shipments of ore or matte has been going on for some time. And of the deposits of soda in Lake County, the state has leased the Summer Lake deposit to a California Company, while the Oregon Borax Company is now at work to develop the deposits in Alkali Lake in the same County.

There are many Salt Springs in the State but they have never been utilized on a commercial basis.

The discovery of paying mines has been a powerful factor in the settlement and upbuilding of the state. In the first place it settled the Indian question in both Southern and Eastern Oregon. The gold miners were a very positive lot of people. All they asked was to be let alone to dig gold; and when the Indians would not agree to that proposition the tug of war came. Either the gold miners must go, or the Indian must go and it was the Indian that had to go. In the second place the mines furnished a reliable currency on which to do business, and plenty of it; and that started the wheels of commerce, built the steamboats on the Columbia, gave Oregon's chief city its first substantial and enduring start as the commercial metropolis of the Columbia river valley. In the third place, the mines gave many a hard pressed farmer the means to pay off his debts and to build a comfortable home and improve his farm. In the fourth place it gave a start to the towns in the mining regions, like Jacksonville, Baker, La Grande and The Dalles. All these towns, and many others, got their start on gold miners' gold, and they have been powerful agents in or ganizing society, building school houses, churches, highways and all the means of improving the country and inviting settlements. The gold miners gold was a positive and enduring benefit and blessing to the State. Therefore, comfort. and good health to the hardy old prospector and miner; and may his days be long in the land that his courage and toil reclaimed from barbarism and delivered over to civilization.

CHAPTER XIX

1843-1911

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS-THE FIRST FERRY AND CANAL THE FIRST MAIL CARRIERS THE FIRST STEAMBOATS—THE FIRST EXPRESS LINES THE FIRST TELEGRAPH-THE FIRST RAILROADS

The work of internal improvements in Oregon commenced in the Legislation of the Provisional Government on June 22, 1844. The first propositions were for grants of franchises to John McLoughlin, to Hugh Burns, and to Robert Moore to establish a ferry across the Willamette river at Oregon City. Burns being the owner of a townsite on the west side of the river succeeded in getting the franchise.

At the same time an effort was made to give McLoughlin a franchise to construct a Canal and Locks around the Falls in the river. This proposition was renewed from time to time in favor of McLoughlin, but never adopted. The same proposition was afterwards in different Legislatures revived from time to time but never passed until 1872 when an Act was passed by the legislature giving to a Corporation controlled by Bernard Goldsmith and Joseph Teal, a state subsidy of $200,000, and the necessary legal rights to prosecute the work. Under that Act the Canal was built and has been operated down to the present time, developing an enormous water power in the interest of private manufacturing corporations, as well as electrical power generation. To get rid of those franchises given away by the State Legislature and made valuable by a gift of State money, and make the Canal free to all common carriers, the State and National Governments has been compelled to pay the private corporation over a half million dollars, getting nothing for the money but the Canal, and leaving in the hands of the private corporations the water power rights of much greater value than the Canal. A lot of inexperienced old ladies, or ten year old children could certainly have done better for the State than the Governors and Legislators that represented the State in this stupid, if not criminal management of the public interests.

The first wagon road proposed in the Provisional Legislature was on June 24th, 1844, when Mr. Lovejoy presented a petition from residents of Yamhill asking for the location and construction of a road from the Yamhill river south to the forks of the Willamette, about one hundred miles.

The first carriers of letters or mail generally, were private persons acting independently of any government authority and charging their own rates for the service; the usual charge for carrying a letter from Southern Oregon to California was fifty cents. After the gold mines was discovered in Eastern Oregon, private persons engaged in carrying the mail, and they were however

soon superseded by the messengers of the Express Companies carrying both mail and gold dust. The first mail carriers in the Willamette valley usually started from Oregon City going up one side of the valley and down the other side distributing their mail from house to house, or leaving it at central points with the pioneer storekeepers.

The first mails carried by authority of the United States in Oregon was in the closing months of 1847. Hugh Burns had been executing a contract with the Provisional Government in 1846 to carry the mail every six months from Oregon to Weston, Missouri, for fifty cents for each single letter sheet; and other persons had in much the same way been carrying letters to parts of the Willamette valley and down to Astoria. But the authority of the Provisional Government was merely nominal. In 1847 the U. S. Postal Department appointed John M. Shively Special Postal Agent for Oregon, and he thereupon advertised and let contracts to carry the U. S. Mails from Oregon city to Astoria, and from Oregon City to Marysville, which is now known as Corvallis.

The next enterprise after the mail carriers, and even ante-dating them somewhat was the transportation on the rivers by little boats propelled by sails or oars as the necessity of the case required. There was a regular line of these public carriers between Oregon City and Fort Vancouver; and at all times boatmen could be hired for special service to carry freight or passengers.

THE FIRST STEAMBOATS

Out of the sail boat traffic grew the necessity for larger accomodations, and the ambition of the townsite proprietors soon formulated the scheme for the first steamboat. For the supremacy and to be first on the water with a steam propelled craft, Astoria and Milwaukie were rivals. Oregon City, Vancouver and Portland were even larger and more pretentious towns; but Astoria and old Milwaukie had the superior energy and courage for the venture.

There has been a great deal of discussion as to whom was due the credit for building and operating the first American steamboat on the rivers of Oregon. As the man is still living in Portland who knows all about this history, we will give his story of the whole matter and settle the question for all time.

As to the building of the old Lot Whitcomb, Jacob Kamm can truthfully say "all of which I saw, and a part of which I was. The Lot Whitcomb was launched at the town of Milwaukie, six miles above Portland on Christmas day, 1850, now sixty-two years ago. In his notice of the early steamboats, Judge Strong seems to think that the Columbia, a boat projected by General Adair, and built at upper Astoria in 1850, was the first boat. But that fact can't be well decided between the two contestants for the honor, as both boats were built in the same year, and there is no accessible evidence showing which boat "took to the water" first. Strong says that the mechanics building the Columbia were paid sixteen dollars a day for their work, and the common laborers handling lumber were paid from five to eight dollars a day in gold dust. They certainly fared better than the men working on the Whitcomb, for they got no pay until the boat was running and earning something, and then they had to take pay in wheat, and farmers produce, and convert it into cash or "store pay" as best they could.

The history of the Lot Whitcomb is mixed up with the struggle between

ཝ་