lumber each tree would produce. All appeared perfectly sound, and I do not believe there was a windfall on the entire tract. It was certainly a sight that appealed as much to the sentiments as to the commercial side of the situation.
I experienced no difficulty whatsoever in making the locations. Arriving at the section corners, I would arrange four persons so that each could see the particular quarter section intended for him, at the same time giving each locator a slip of paper upon which was written the description of his proposed claim. Leaving them there, with directions to circle around over a space of about half a mile in order to be able to testify that they had been on each legal subdivision, as required by law, and could therefore be in a position to act as witnesses for each other when the final proof was made, I would proceed to another section, and so on, until the whole tract was thus taken. As fast as one group of locators had finished their inspection, they would take the back track, pursuant to my directions, and appear before United States Commissioner Bell at Prineville for the purpose of attesting their timber entries. In this manner the entire tract of 108 quarter sections was covered inside of a week after we left Prineville.
On my return I encountered several wagonloads of locators en route to my camp, intent on getting a claim, but they met with disappointment, as everything was gone. The 108 people whom I filed on these lands were all from Crook county, mostly residents of Prineville. Some of the families included from two to fifteen members, all eager to get hold of a tract of timber land.
Upon my return to Prineville I went to Commissioner Bell's office and was informed that he had recorded 108 filings, so I thereupon made arrangements to advertise the final proofs. The law requires that these notices shall be printed nine successive weeks in a newspaper nearest the land. The Deschutes Echo filling the bill in that respect, I requested the Commissioner to have the final proof notices sent to Editor Palmer, of that paper, and also paid him $1,080 with which to meet the necessary advertising charges.
The history of the establishment of the paper in question is both unique and interesting, as showing the mushroom growth of things in this Western country. Taking advantage of the requirements of the General Land Office that timber notices must be published in a newspaper nearest the land affected, Editor Palmer secured a second-hand printing outfit and established himself at Bend, Ore., in the very heart of the forest. His plant consisted of an antiquated Washington hand-press that had seen better days, and a few dilapidated fonts of type, besides the other paraphernalia incident to a cheap outfit of this sort. I doubt whether the whole plant cost him more than $50.
Felling a yellow pine tree, he leveled off the stump, and after spiking his press to this improvised foundation, was ready for business, and proceeded to grind out timber land notices at $10 apiece. The journalistic venture was a success from the start, the $1,080 that I paid him being a mere bagatelle in comparison to the aggregate earnings of the sheet. Within six weeks from the date of the first issue, to my certain knowledge the paper printed no less than 1,500 land notices, and nobody but a wooden nutmeg Connecticut Yankee would ever have devised such a money-making scheme.
The timber land business was booming in the Deschutes country around Bend, and now they have a city there of several thousand inhabitants. Following the march of progress, the Echo moved from its primeval quarters into more sumptuous surroundings, and soon had a splendid establishment of its own, being considered one of the leading newspapers of central Oregon, but I understand that it has since suspended publication.
People came rushing into the Bend country by scores in search of timber claims. From 100 to 150 came on one train quite frequently. Some of them hailed from Minnesota, some from Wisconsin or Michigan, while the Dakotas and other Middle Western states were well represented in the new immigration. They would get off at Biggs Station and take the Columbia Southern Railway
