Next to the payment of the war debt was the demand for a more efficient mail service. The people of the Willamette Valley still complained that their mails were left at Astoria, and that at the best they had no more than two a month. In southern Oregon it was still worse; and again the citizens of Umpqua memorialized congress on this vexatious subject. It was represented that the valleys of southern Oregon and northern California contained some 30,000 inhabitants, who obtained their merchandise from Umpqua harbor, and that it was imperatively necessary that mail communication should be established between San Francisco and these valleys. Their petition was so brought before congress that an act was passed providing for the delivery of the mails at all the ports along the coast, from Humboldt Bay to Port Townsend and Olympia, and $125,000 appropriated for the service.[1] Houses were built, a newspaper[2] was established, and hope beat high. But again
- ↑ U. S. H. Jour., 237, 388, 411, 516, 536, 963, 33d cong. 1st sess.; U. S. H. Ex. Doc., i. pt ii. 615, 624, 701, 33d cong. 2d sess.
- ↑ By D. J. Lyon, at Scottsburg, called the Umpqua Gazette. It was first issued in April 1854, and its printer was William J. Beggs. In Nov. 1854, G. D. R. Boyd purchased a half-interest, and later removed the material to Jacksonville where the publication of the Table Rock Sentinel was begun in
foreign vessel entering Oregon during that time. The departures from the Columbia numbered 184, all for S. F. except one for Coos Bay, two for Callao, one for Australia, and one for the S. I. Most of these vessels carried lumber, the number of feet exported being 22,567,000. Or. Statesman, Aug. 1, 1854. The direct appropriations asked for and obtained at the 2d sess. of this cong. were for the creation of a new land district in southern Or. called the Umpqua district, to distinguish it from the Willamette district, with an office at such point as the president might direct, Zabriskie Land Laws, 636; Cong. Globe, vol. 31, app. 380, 33d cong. 2d sess., the appropriation of $40,000 to complete the penitentiary at Portland, $27,000 to complete the state house at Salem, and $30,000 to construct the military road from Salem to Astoria, marked out in 1850 by Samuel Culver and Lieut Wood of the mounted rifles. Or. Statesman, Oct. 3, 1850. The military road to Astoria was partly constructed in 1855, under the direction of Lieut Derby. Money failing, a further appropriation of $15,000 was applied, and still the road remained practically useless. The appropriation of $30,000 for a light-house at the Umpqua was also expended by government officers in 1857. The tower was 105 feet high, but being built on a sandy foundation, it fell over into the sea in 1870. It does not appear that the money bestowed upon Oregon by congress in territorial times accomplished the purposes for which it was designed. Not one of the military roads was better than a mule trail, every road that could be travelled by wagons being opened by the people at their own expense.
