The gold movement began the evolution of varied industry that was necessary for the growth of the country.[1]
The value of the gold treasure extracted from the rocks and earth of the interior region of the Pacific Northwest and Montana was very large in the then undeveloped condition of this region. In the best years, 1861-67, the treasure amounted to $20,000,000 in gold a year, or $140,000,000 for the period. British Columbia yielded $3,000,000 more a year. This com- bined gold yield was nearly three-fourths that of California in the same space of time.[2]
Before the gold period which began in 1858-60, the region, of which we are reading, was the most remote, and had the scantiest white population of any part of the Nation. News from the Eastern centers was four to six weeks old when it reached Portland, Oregon, by way of the California overland stage route, and thence by ocean steamship northward. The mails came to Portland by sea twice a month.[3] The admission of Oregon as a state, February 14, 1859, became known in Oregon a month afterwards.'^ Lincoln had been ncnninated four weeks before knowledge of the event reached Oregon and Washington.® The interior region east of Cascade Mountains was an aboriginal wilderness, except at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts, and along the beds of a few streams where "prospectors" had moved the rocks and gravel,* near the Old Oregon Trail and the Barlow Road^^ towards the Willamette, and up and down the travel route of the Columbia River between The
7 News of the admission of Oregon was published in The Oregouian, at Portland; March 19, 1859*
8 News of the nomination of Lincoln was published in The Oregouiam, June 23, i860. The nomination took place May 18, i860.
? Reports of gold by Indians of Kamloops are said to have been made as early <2. The real hunt for gold did not begin until i8S4-55* Frequent reports of gold in 1855 a(>pear in the files of The Oregonian of that year.
10 The Barlow Road, across Cascade Mountains, was opened in 1845-46.
- ↑ "As if by magic the tardy wheels of commerce were unfettered, human thought and energy unshackled and turned loose with determined purpose to meet the great emergency and reap the golden harvest" (P. W. Gillette in the Quarterly, vol. v. p. 125).
- ↑ For further discussion of this matter see later in this article, p. 161.
- ↑ In 1856 there were two steamboat mail routes in Oregon — Portland-Astoria and Portland-Oregon City — a total of 144 miles. There were coach mail routes of 95 miles, and horseback or pack-horse routes of 729 miles (Quarterly, vol. viii, p. 193, by Thomas W. Prosch).
