Nature has been more than lavish in her gifts to St. Johns. Travel as many miles as you like and go where you will, it is highly improbable that you will find a spot with so many magnificent nature advantages as has St. Johns. The fine stretch of level land on which the city is located, the deep water of the two rivers, the navigable sloughs and the superb scenery which nature has painted with a master hand, makes the location an ideal one in every respect either for industries or residences.
Then the gifts of nature have been greatly augmented by the hand of man. Railroads have been constructed, trolley lines built, numerous industrial plants have been erected, streets have been laid out and graded and many other improvements made, so that St. Johns stands on the threshold of a mighty and glorious future. Any one taking a little journey around the immediate surroundings of this city cannot help but be greatly impressed with the outlook. We doubt if there is an individual within our gates who does not firmly believe that St. Johns has a future brighter than is accorded any other city in the entire Northwest. When it begins to further broaden and expand and development on a scale commensurate with its advantages begins, the faith in its ultimate greatness, held by all its inhabitants, will be proven to be well founded.
The past year in St. Johns has been one of progress. Building permits aggregating $100,000 have been issued and are for a better class of buildings than formerly erected. Over $25,000 has been spent in street improvement work. Parts of Tacoma, North Hayes, Philadelphia, Oswego, Polk, Buchanan, Richmond, Salem and Crawford streets are now in fine condition, and application for the improvement of Willamette boulevard, Stafford, South Ivanhoe, Hudson, Allegheny, Hartman, Lively, Willis boulevard, Pittsburg, East Burlington, South Hayes, Montieth, North Edison, New York, Philadelphia and Fessenden streets have been filed with the Council, or are being prepared, so that work can begin as soon as possible in the spring. Perhaps the greatest undertaking in the line of street work is the proposed improvement of Fessenden street, form Smith�s crossing to the river, a distance of over two miles. It is proposed to widen this street, on which the street car line now runs, to 70 feet, and macadamize it the full length and width.
The car company is preparing to dedicate its right of way to the city and the property owners are giving five feet each. This will make a driveway unsurpassed by any in the country and will connect at Smith�s crossing with the already famous Columbia boulevard. The cost of this improvement alone will be much more than the entire amount spent on street improvement this year.
Next in importance will be the improvement of Philadelphia street, from Hayes to the new city dock, now being built at its foot. This street is 100 feet wide and leads directly from the dock to the heart of the city, and will be the only really accessible driveway from the top of the hill. Richmond street which is a county road from Jersey to the river, has been graded by Supervisor S. W. Simmons and the property owners are preparing to lay cement sidewalks the entire distance along both sides to a distance of 3000 feet.
Steps are being taken to open up a driveway 60 feet wide from St. Johns to the Swift plant and this will be done shortly. It has been proposed to bond the city to raise part of the money, but it has been found to be illegal, and the necessary amount will be raised by private subscription.
Early in the year the matter of bonding the city for money with which to buy a site and build thereon a city dock was agitated, with the result that the matter was voted on at the city election and bonds to the amount of $60,000 voted for this purpose.
Acting for what it thought the best interests of taxpayers and property owners, the preceding Council purchased a site for a rock crusher across the river and contracted for a crusher and also for a road roller, which the present Council has had installed, and the city can now have good streets at a reasonable cost, excelling, it is said, the famous St. Helens rock in hardness and durability.
The schools of this city of 4500 people are on a par with those of Portland. Out of 1100 school children there are only four more girls than boys. These children are taught by 23 teachers, all female except Professor C. H. Boyd.
While the city has been making improvements rapidly, private enterprise has not been lacking. The St. Johns Lumber Co. has doubled its dock space and now can load two ships at once, having a dock 700 feet long and about the same depth. This company is also installing more boilers and engines and in other ways preparing for a greatly increased business the coming year. These improvements will cost $100,000 when completed and make the mill one of the most up-to-date plants on the coast. At present 300 men are employed.
The Portland Woolen Mills is once more working 120 hands full time, and reports that orders are coming in more rapidly than ever before. The St. Johns Shipbuilding Co. keeps from 20 to 30 men at work all the time, and is now doing the work on the Vancouver ferry, which it will have ready for business in about 30 days. N. J. Bailey will have the machinery for his furniture factory here soon, and will be ready to manufacture by the middle of February.
W. H. King is contemplating the erection of a three-story brick on his lot on the corner of Tacoma and Jersey streets, and the Knights of Pythias have bought a lot of M. L Holbook, located, opposite the Central school, and will immediately erect thereon a Castle Hall to cost $10,000 to $12,000. The Home Telephone Co. will also build in the spring.
Not least of the utilities which make St. Johns a desirable place in which to live is its water supply, furnished by the St. Johns Water & Light Co. This company has now 28 miles of mains, three big tanks, which hold 250,000 gallons, and a reservoir holding 350,000 gallons, which is connected with the mains under the hill and used in case of a breakdown of the pumps or when there is a fire. The city has installed 20 fire hydrants, and there are about 25 that belong to private parties. Most of these are along the water front among the mills and factoreis.
FUTURE BRIGHT FOR ST. JOHNS
The year 1909 will, from present indications pass into history as the most prosperous one in the history of St. Johns. The air is fairly teeming with rosy promises and bright prospects for a glorious spring and summer. It is hard to find a citizen within the borders of the city who is not imbued with the fact that there are particularly good times ahead. Even the worst pessimists grudgingly admit that prospects do “not look bad.” Real estate men are looking more cheerful and the smile is deepening on their good-natured countenances, merchants are becoming enthused with the air of prosperity that pervades the city, and the private citizens feel that all will be well with St. Johns this year. On every hand indications point to an era of new buildings and expansion excelling anything ever before experienced here.
And why not? In a political sense everything that money power and the great majority of citizens desired has been acquired in the United States, the dark gloom of the recent panic is rapidly vanishing and giving way to the bright light of a golden future, the fields promise to yield in abundance and the husbandman is supremely happy over the prospect, the trend of travel and wealth is westward and the opportunities for manufacturing plants and capitalists to make good is unexcelled in St. Johns. Therefore, if there is any spot in the universe that will feel a quickening and an increase in business activity the coming summer this city should by long odds be that point. Continual and persistent harping on our great natural advantages and resources cannot help but bear good fruit, and this year will experience some of the benefits derived from “bread cast upon the waters” in the years that have gone.
One of the indications that points to St. John�s advancement this year is the surprising manner in which vacant dwellings are being filled up. Scarcely a day passes but that a new family moves into the city, and there is more demand for houses to let than has been the case for many moons. Activity in real estate circles is taking on new life, and sales are becoming quite frequent. From nearly every street car come people inquiring about St. Johns realty. Its fame has gone abroad and many there are who come to see for themselves, and the invariable rule is that seeing is believing.
Many new dwellings are projected for this spring. All the contractors have from one to a dozen to estimate upon, with more in view. The paying rent proposition does not appeal to most people, and as a result the great majority are making earnest efforts to secure homes for themselves.
Manufacturing plants are beginning to recognize the sterling advantages of locating in this city, and several have made plans to locate here, while a number more are considering the advisability of so doing. Prospects are certainly bright for securing many industrial plants this year.
Several brick blocks are contemplated for this year. A. D. McDonald is putting the finishing touches on his fine Jersey Street block, a new high school structure on Philadelphia and Hayes streets will be constructed this summer. A graded school building will be erected at South St. Johns and many buildings are proposed for Maegly junction. In the building line there will surely be something doing all the time.
In the street improvement line there promises to be a banner season. Many streets have already been petitioned for improvement, and many others will be brought before the council for action in the spring.
The new city dock will add its share to the activity of St. Johns. The concern which leases it will require the services of a number of men, and will be the means of bringing much business to the city which it otherwise would not acquire.
The free ferry will be a great aid in furthering the commercial interests . . . .
“The Peninsula”
. . . . Now “the great tongue of land” so “strikingly like Manhattan Island” is the Peninsula, of which we shall now tell you something that will aid in convincing impartial judges of our wonderful city that as certainly as the great city of New York was built on Manhattan Island,” so certainly will a great city be built on the Peninsula, “this second Manhattan.”
First- The above remarkably significant lines, if drawn as indicated, will locate Portland of the future on the Peninsula.
Second- While ocean vessels carry trade, in the absence of railroads, as far inland at first as possible, the city thus located grows down stream wherever possible ever after by natural law.
Third- With a topography suitable for a great city and with the same chorography and resources back of it that our city proper now has, the Peninsula has, counting the two great rivers, and their deep cut-offs, more than fifty miles of available water front along a “tongue of land” not more than ten miles long and averaging not more than three miles in width, including the islands and cut-off of the mighty Columbia.
Fourth- Already three great transcontinental railroad lines are actually being constructed and crossing and recrossing on the Columbia side of this Peninsula, with one as a belt line entirely around it, thus affording excellent sites for untold manufacture.
Fifth- Time, capital and far-seeing investors will construct mighty docks along her water front her deep-sea going vessels will discharge their cargoes for the interior of Washington and Oregon and even the far East, and take on the products of the Inland Empire for the Orient.
Sixth- There is so much good water front bordering on the Peninsula that prohibitive prices cannot soon obtain.
Seventh- From the very topography of the Peninsula the mills and factories can never encroach on her beautiful, healthful and most sightly residence district.
Eighth- The greater part of the Peninsula being already in the limits of the City of Portland, like a strong and healthy young child that has all the elements of future greatness in it, it is constantly, while yet young, drawing nourishment from the maternal breast of the queen-mother, the City of Roses; for it boasts the same schools of learning, the same excellent library, art museum, park system, the same pure, cool, sparkling water, from the heaven-kissed snows of the silent summit of “Old Hood”; the same car, telephone and electric light service, and the same municipal government, and many of the advantages and few of the disadvantages of the city proper.
Ninth- The present population of the Tenth ward of the City of Portland, which is on the Peninsula, and of St. Johns, which is also on the Peninsula, is, together, already greater than the entire population of Portland, after nearly forty years of her existence.
Tenth- The very thing that will make Portland “Supreme in the Northwest” will eventually make the Peninsula supreme in Portland. The great advantages of a water-grade to Portland will be more telling for our great metropolis when freight rates are cut by competition to a minimum, as they will be when the Panama Canal is open to the world, than when rates on “competing” liens are high. Then it will be that the slightest difference in favor of the water-grade and against the great and fatal hoist over the Cascades to our fair rivals on the north will send the mighty volume of traffic from Idaho, Eastern Washington and Oregon sweeping down to Portland, seeking an outlet to the markets of the world, just as the Columbia seeks the mighty ocean through this same gateway. Even now her growth is almost phenomenal, although commissions must sometimes be invoked to adjust oppressive rates. Chauncey Thomas is quoted by Dr. Stratton, in his prize story of Portland as saying: “There is an embargo of one thousand dollars on every train load crossing those mountains as against a water-grade haul down the Columbia.” Mr. H. W. Scott, editor of the Morning Oregonian for more than fifty years, says, in his “History of Portland” (1890), “Any road which can persistently carry merchandise at one cent per hundred or even per ton less than its rivals will beat them in the long run.” Well, Portland is in for “the long run,” and from the very day the transcontinental lines adjust their rates in anticipation of the opening of the Panama Canal she will begin to feel a new thrill of life. Low rates by water means lower rates for the interior, not only because of an open river, but also because the people will not long suffer disproportionate rates to obtain. Then will it be that the close margin on freight, the increased production is in the interior through increased population and irrigation reclamation and other causes begin to tell for Portland in a geometric ratio. Then will the willful blind be made to see that no mistake has been made in the location for a great city, a city that shall be known throughout the nations of the world for her commercial supremacy and her priceless attractions. Then will it be seen that the most sanguine of today have fallen far below the mark in their most extravagant predictions. And this will be no less true of the Peninsula, ever more so.
Eleventh- Not only close observers of today concede that a great city is destined to be built on the Peninsula, but, according to the eminent authority we have just quoted, Mr. Scott, the early English preferred south bank, and would have built Vancouver here had it not been, first, that the immediate south bank is not suitable for a city, and, second, “if they had not anticipated that England would not secure the south bank.” The generous concession of Mr. Scott is, in writing of Portland, “Although on the banks of the Willamette, she is also practically on the banks of the Columbia, her business portion constantly extending towards the imperial river.”
Twelfth- The altitude, the soil, the drainage, the salubrity, the level stretch of gently sloping area, and the charming scenery of an enchanting mountain range in the dreamy, delusive distance, make this an ideal spot for a great city. Truly “Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice.”
We are truly proud of Portland, prouder to know her simply as Portland, plain, familiar, dear, old Portland, the City of Roses, than if she were daily called by her admiring visitors “The New York of the Pacific,” proud to know her as the City Beautiful, a city of the living present, and the glories of whose future seem to make her very heart throbs audible in happy anticipation of still greater achievements; prouder of her imperial sway and destiny in the vast and ever-expanding realms of commerce, intelligence and civic pride, than if she had treasured up for imperishable fame the proud pathetic title, “Lone Mother of Dead Empires.” Truly, Destiny has depicted greatness in her every lineament. She will expand in all meritorious ways and she will expand in all directions, but her greatest expansion will hereafter be down the beautiful Willamette, and in the direction of “the imperial river” on her north as surely as the laws of Nature are more inexorable than the laws of man. It is the same law the brought her up as a child from the mouth of the Columbia from St. Helens and from Vancouver and set her ashore on Overton�s claim at the foot of “The Heights.” And could the obstructions to navigation and railways have been as easily overcome by the science of engineering in 1845 as in 1908, it is not assuming too much to say Overton�s claim of rich alluvial soil would today be a China garden, daily furnishing car loads of crisp, white vegetables for the hundreds of thousands who would now be residing in the beautiful homes down on the Peninsula. It is not the flipping of the penny by Lovejoy and Pettygrove that made Portland; it was the same inexorable laws in force then that will make the Peninsula great in the rapidly on-coming years when there will be “flipping” of millions by the “Captains of Industry” all along her more than fifty miles of waterfront. . . .
