If the homestead settler does not wish to remain five years on his tract, the law permits him to pay for it with cash, at the prescribed rates for claims taken by pre-emption, and upon proof of settlement and cultivation from date of entry to time of payment.
Lands obtained under the Homestead Law are exempt from liability for debts contracted prior to the issuing of a complete title by the Government.
Another method of obtaining Government lands is by 'private entry,' and applies only to such lands as have been offered at public sale and remain unsold. In this case payment in cash or land warrants can be made at once and a complete title obtained without delay, other than the time necessary to transmit the papers to the General Land Office and receive the patent in return. The price of land at 'private entry' is $1.25 per acre, except in the case of reserved sections: that is $2.50 per acre. At cash entry any quantity can be taken that is desired. In Eastern Oregon there is no land subject to 'private entry,' but in Western Oregon there is still a considerable amount.
There are three Land Offices in Oregon for the transaction of business connected with the disposal of Government lands: one at Oregon City, in the Wallamet Valley; one at Roseburg, in the Umpqua Valley; and one at La Grande, in Grand Ronde Valley, Eastern Oregon. The Surveyor-General's office is at Eugene City, in Lane County.
The Land Offices for Washington Territory are at Olympia, at Vancouver, and at Walla Walla."It is only in the List four or five years that Oregon has thoroughly realized the importance of railroads to progress. But since fully awakened, great strides have been made toward connecting this remotest State of the Union with California and the East. The first railroads built on the soil of Oregon and Washington were five miles of portage around the Cascades of the Columbia, about 1853, and fifteen miles around the portage at the Dalles, in 1862, by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. The first was a rude tramway only, until the increasing business on the river made a locomotive railway justifiable and necessary.
