The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., January 12, 1900, page 4
HOOD RIVER VALLEY
Rapid Development During the Year
NEW SAW MILL COSTING $100,000
Strawberry Crop Netted $60,000 to Growers - Valuable Water Power That Could
Be Utilized
Cradled between the eastern foothills of the Cascade
ranger, blocked on the south by the broad base of Mount Hood, opening upon
and fronting the Columbia river on the north, is Hood River valley, one of
the most resourceful and beautiful of the lesser valleys of Oregon.
The valley and its incorporated town derive their names
from Hood river, an important stream the area of whose drainage basin exceeds
200 square miles, about one-half of which is adapted to the requirements
of husbandry. It is not, however, within the limits of this article to speak
at length of the manifold resources of Hood River valley, for what part of
Oregon is not abound in undeveloped resources, of its climate, a happy mean
of humidity and temperature, of health-giving air and unrivaled scenery,
captivating to the invalid and tourist; but rather of the material development
and growth that has come to it in the year 1899.
Confidence has been restored at Hood River, and we find
ourselves sharers, in a moderate degree at least, of those improved business
conditions that so happily prevail over our entire country. During the past
12 months the town of Hood River has increased over 50 percent in population,
and the growth of both valley and town has been unprecedented in their history.
Let us note some of the more important industries that have been established
at Hood River during the year.
First in importance is the plant of the Lost Lake Lumber
Company, Captain P.S. Davidson, president, situated on the Columbia river
near the mouth of Hood River. This plant comprises 60 acres of land, a two-story
mill building, the main part 256 feet long by 50 feet in width, with wings
for boilers, sheds, machine shops, etc. The mill is a two-band mill, with
two gang edgers, lath and shingle mills, and all up-to-date appointments.
Its battery of five boilers and an engine of 500 horsepower drive the machinery.
Steam takes the logs from the Columbia, steam turns them on the carriage,
steams carries the lumber from the gangs and cut-off saws to the yard, and
even dumps the refuse on the waste-pile. Captain Davidson makes but little
use of muscle in his modern mill. The mill has a capacity of 300,000 feet
per 24 hours, cost approximately $100,000, and commands the timber of the
Middle-Columbia from the Cascades to the Klickitat river.
The fine sawmill of Nicolai & Cameron, just completed,
also situated on the Columbia river, four miles west of Hood River, has,
I am informed, a capacity of 75,000 feet daily. Logs for this mill are to
be driven down the White Salmon river, in Washington, of which is being improved
for that purpose.
Davenport Bros. added a new mill to their plant during
the year.
From November, 1898, to November, 1899, this firm shipped
4,700,000 feet of lumber and 4,500 cords of wood, giving employment to 80
men and 14 teams. During the month of September they shipped 978,000 feet
of lumber, in addition to a large amount of wood, and paid $4,000 for the
labor. The value of value of their output for the year exceeded $40,000.
The aggregate capacity of these new mills for 1900 will
be nearly 300,000 feet per 12 hours, giving employment to a large number
of laborers, with corresponding pay-roll. The manufacture of lumber at present
is the leading industry at Hood River.
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FRUIT INDUSTRY OF THE VALLEY
Fruitgrowing is the second industry in importance. It
not need to be repeated that our fruits are the recognized standard of
excellence. The Hood River strawberry has yet to find its peer in any market.
Shipments of this berry for the season of 1899 approximated 40,000 crates
of 24 pounds each, returning to the grower, after payment of commissions
and freight, about $60,000.
As illustrating the volume of our fruit crop, I find
that our local box factory manufactured, during the year, 45,000 berry crates,
72,000, plum baskets and 6,000 apple boxes. As a further auxiliary to our
fruit industry, the Davidson Fruit Company completed last spring an extensive
cannery and preserving factory, with a capacity of carload of canned fruit
daily. Owing to the shortage of the fruit crop and the consequent high prices
paid for fresh fruits and in the markets, the year 1899 was unfavorable to
the business of this firm; yet they report having given employment to 90
persons, that their products have all been sold, even fruitful Los Angeles
taking a carload of canned strawberries.
Among other recent minor additions to the town, and one
liberally patronized, is a well-appointed bakery, with a daily capacity of
1,200 loaves.
As marking a new era of growth, we note with satisfaction
the erection of the first brick store building, now receiving its finishing
touches, of the property of A.S. Blowers & Son. The brick for the building
was brought from Newberg, but the contractor, Mr. Boyd, has bought machines
and will manufacture brick exclusively the coming summer.
It is well known that there is no better index of a community
than its schoolhouses, and during the past year three modern buildings of
this character have been erected in Hood River valley. The town is proud
of her six-room school building, built at a cost of over $8,000, and we have
in the country districts four two-room and three one-room schoolhouses that
would be a credit to any community of similar age and population.
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WHAT HOOD RIVER WANTS
Our wants are numerous, and in common with most Oregon
communities we need more people and more capital. We need a bank to facilitate
our rapidly growing commerce. We need a commodious hotel to accommodate,
more especially, our summer guests. But more than these we greatly need an
electric or steam-motor road extending some 20 miles up the valley of Hood
river. Such a road would have an assured and business up to its capacity
the first year after construction. It would pass along side of a mountain
of building stone in layers of varying thickness, and easily quarried. This
stone is fine granite, receives a high polish, has regular cleavage and great
resistant crushing force. Such a road would also intersect an extensive and
valuable forest, from which the great mill at the mouth of the river would
be supplied with logs, and many thousands of cords of wood shipped to supply
the great treeless country to the east as far as Snake river. Many other
forest products, local traffic and rapidly increasing tourist travel to Mount
Hood, would also contribute to the support of such a line of road as I have
indicated.
Hood River receives all the drainage of the north, and
east side of Mount Hood, and the melting snows in summer send down a large
and constant volume of water. The average descent of the river for the last
11 miles of its course is 60 feet per mile. A well-known Eastern manufactured
and capitalist who visited Hood River last summer said to the writer: "The
biggest thing you have at Hood River is your undeveloped water power."
Subsequently he employed a highly qualified electrical engineer to survey
and measure the river, with the result, as I have been informed, that it
would afford 10,000 horse-power per mile, or 100,000 horsepower for 10
miles.
Hood River is happily situated for the distribution of
her products, being in close touch with three transcontinental roads, and
is it not probable that with this great, cheap power at her threshold she
may become an important manufacturing center, and the silent wires convey
the surplus products of her motors to turn the industrial wheels of Portland?
Hood River. E.L. Smith.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer