History

Portland has always had an industrious and vigorous press. The fathers of the city were not slow to perceive that among the things necessary to build up the city and make it known to the world was an active and enterprising press, and very soon after the city was started there was an effort to establish a newspaper here. The project was talked of for a considerable time before means were found of carrying it into execution. It was no easy matter to find a man who would undertake the publication of a newspaper in so young and small a … Read more

There have been but very few important changes among those officials who have had to personally superintend the actual and practical operations of the road during the past twelve or fourteen years. Mr. E. P. Rogers enjoys the distinction of being the ” Pioneer of the road.” Most of those prominently connected with the early organization of the road are dead. Among those may be mentioned J. H. Moores, I. R. Moores, E. N. Cooke, Joel Palmer, J. S. Smith, S. Ellsworth, James Douthitt, J. H. D. Henderson, Greenberry Smith, A. L. Lovejoy, A. F. Hedges, W. S. Newby, J. … Read more

Dr. Ralph Wilcox of New York, a pioneer of 1845, was the first physician, and also the first school teacher. In a little frame building on Front and Taylor Streets put up by Mr. McNemee he kept a school of about a dozen scholars. Dr. Wilcox was for many years prominent before the public as a citizen of Portland, and afterwards as clerk of the State legislature at Salem, and clerk of the United States court at Portland. Of others that fill out the dreamy picture of that distant past before ’49, may be mentioned a family by the name … Read more

Going down the slow hill once more one finds that B street heads, to speak in the manner of the mountaineer, in a stony canyon, whose natural roughness has been aggravated by gravel-diggers. Out of this rises, or did rise King’s Creek, a stream of most delicious water, which has now been consigned to more than Tartarean gloom in a sewer. In a cleft on. the left, which is soft and leafy with trees overhanging, and cool with the shade of some immense firs, begins an inviting path, gently rising, leading between two banks more or less bestrewn with leaves … Read more

The first Superintendent of the city schools was S. W. King, who was appointed in 1873. He was succeeded by T. M. Crawford, in 1878, who served until the appointment of Miss Ella C. Sabin, in 1888. The growth of Portland during the past few years is perhaps as clearly indexed by the growth of the common schools as by any other means. From the time the public school system had attained sufficient importance to be placed under the control of .a city superintendent, the number of pupils who have received instruction at the public schools, has increased from year … Read more

Next in line comes consideration of Portland’s advantages as a manufacturing point. First, as to raw material. It scarcely need be said that if Portland can reach every part of the Northwest by natural channels and roadways, she can readily obtain all raw materials produced in the section. Logs for manufacturing lumber may be brought up the Columbia or floated down it, or floated down the Willamette, or brought on rail cars from the forests to left or right. Materials for the manufacture of paper are found near. Woods for excelsior, furniture and ship-building are no less at hand. Wheat, … Read more

Dr. D. S. Baker, who became the millionaire of Walla Walla, was one of the men of this day in our city. In 1850 William S. Ladd stepped ashore at the little primitive wharf. He is a Vermonter by birth, although his early life was spent in New Hampshire. He developed his energies upon a farm, bringing into productiveness one of the most stumpy and rocky pieces of land in the Granite State. Engaging early in the work of school teaching, he amplified his academic acquisitions, and as employe at the railroad station in his place of residence gained business … Read more

The first river steamboat in Oregon was the Columbia, built by General Adair, Captain Dan Frost and others, at Upper Astoria in 1850. She was a side-wheel boat, ninety feet in length, of about seventy-five tons burthen, capable of accommodating not to exceed twenty passengers, though I have known of her carrying on one trip over one hundred. Though small, her cost exceeded $25,000. Mechanics engaged in her construction were paid at the rate of sixteen dollars per day, and other laborers five to eight dollars, gold. She made her first trip in June, 1850, under the command of Capt. … Read more

History of Portland Manufacturing: Conditions Which Cause the Growth of Manufacturing at Portland – Character of Early Manufactures – Present Condition and Magnitude of Manufacturing Enterprises of Portland.

Before the first white settler had sought to secure a habitation in the forest which marked the site of the present city of Portland, the region of which it is now the commercial center had passed through the most interesting period of its history. The progress of civilization in this portion of the New World, covering a period of nearly half a century antedating the founding of the city, after many heroic sacrifices and struggles, had led to the peaceful conquest of a vast area and to the establishment of American supremacy. The successive steps which contributed to these results … Read more

Any great commercial city, as London, New York, or the younger cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, would serve an equally good purpose by way of illustration. A commercial city is the point of storage, account and exchange for the commodities of the region. The advantages of Portland as such a center are at once apparent. As noticed above she is the “cross-ways” of the track between the mountains from California to Alaska, and the path made by the Columbia River from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. At this point are made four right angles, fixing the center … Read more