Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/266

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240
ATLANTIS ARISEN.

ment. It has railroad and river transportation, which, with its natural resources, ought to secure for it a prosperous future.

There is a curious mixture of English and Indian words in the nomenclature of this part of Washington, and indeed of the whole State. Take the names along the railroad from the Columbia to the Sound. There are Carrol, Kelso, Coweeman, Freeport, Stockport, Tucker, Castle Rock, Olequa, Sopenah, Little Falls, Mill Switch, Winloek, Napavine, Newaukum, Chehalis, Centralia, Skookum-Chuck, Seatco, Tenino, Gillmore, Spurlock, Plumb, Bush Prairie, Tumwater, Olympia.

The railroad does not touch the pretty village of Claquato, on the Chehalis River, an old-fashioned, quiet, respectable-looking place before the railroad brood of towns came into existence. We are not permitted a glimpse of its tidy orchards, gardens, gray, unpainted frame houses, and its modest "Claquato Academy," which showed the reverence of the pioneer for education, and its equally modest wooden church.

A short distance from Newaukum, which is on a branch of the Chehalis River just east of Claquato,. is Chehalis, the countyseat of Lewis County. It was first laid off in 1873 and called Saundersville, after the owner of the land. Its location was a fortunate one, and it became the seat of county government in place of Claquato, which had long enjoyed that distinction. It was the centre of a fine agricultural district, and, being upon the railroad, soon began to show considerable activity. During the year just passed it has had a remarkable growth, owing not only to its natural resources, but to railroad building on two lines, either of which will connect it with the sea, one at Gray's Harbor and another at Shoalwater Bay, or, as it is now called, Willapa Bay. These roads make the lumber business active. Eastern men, I am told, are negotiating for a site for a woollenmill. water-power being conducted to the town by a flume from the Newaukum. There is a pump-manufactory located here, and other industries looking this way. A railroad line is projected to connect with Hunt's system, in East Washington, via Yakima Valley, which road will go to Willapa, it is said; and the Union Pacific has made a survey from Seattle to Portland which closely parallels the Northern Pacific through Chehalis County. All this is very exciting to real-estate dealers, and also