Columbia county, lying east of Clatsop in the great bend of the lower Columbia, was cut off from Washington county January 23, 1854. It contains 575 square miles, and has a water line of over fifty miles in extent. It has between fourteen and fifteen thousand acres of land under improvement, valued, with the buildings, at $406,000, with live-stock worth over $77,000, and farm products worth $73,000, consisting of the cereals, hay, potatoes, butter, and cheese. It has several lumbering establishments and a few smaller manufactories. The natural resources of the county are timber, coal, building-stone, iron, fish, and grass. The assessed valuation upon real and personal property in 1879 was $305,283. The population was little over 2,000, but rapidly increasing. St Helen, situated at the junction of the lower Willamette with the Columbia, is the county seat. It was founded in 1848 by H. M. Knighton, the place being first known as Plymouth Rock, but having its name changed on being surveyed for a town site. It is finely situated for a ship ping business, and has a good trade with the surrounding country, although the population is not above four hundred. There are coal and iron mines in the immediate vicinity. Columbia City, founded in 1867 by Jacob and Joseph Caples, two miles below St Helen, is a rival town of about half the population of the latter. It has a good site, and its interests are identical with those of St Helen. The Pacific branch of the Northern Pacific railway passes across both town-plats, coming near the river at Columbia City. Rainier, twenty miles below Columbia City, was laid off in a town by Charles E. Fox about 1852. Previous to 1865, by which time a steamboat line to Mouticello on the Cowlitz was established, Rainier was the way-station between Olympia and Portland, and enjoyed considerable trade. Later it became a lumbering and fishing establishment. The other settlements in Columbia county are Clatskanie, Marshland, Pittsburg, Quinn, Riverside, Scappoose, Vernonia, Neer City, Bryantville, and Vesper.
Coos county was organized December 22, 1853, out of portions of Umpqua and Jackson counties. The name is that of the natives of the bay county. It contained about the same area as Clatsop, and had over 25,000 acres of improved land, valued, with the improvements, at $1,188,349. The legislature enlarged Coos county by taking off from Douglas on the north and east enough to straighten the north boundary and to add two rows of townships on the east. Or. Jour. House, 1882, 290. It is now considerably larger than Clatsop. The live-stock of the county is valued at over $161,000, and of farm products for 1879 over $209,000. Total of real and personal assessed valuation was between $800,000 and $900,000. The gross valuation in 1881–2 was over $1,191,000, the population being a little over 4,800, the wealth of the county per capita being $329. This county is the only one in Oregon where coal-mining has been carried on to any extent. A line of steamers has for many years been carrying Coos Bay coal to S. F. market. The second industry of the county is lumbering, and the third ship-building, the largest ship-yard in the state being here. Farming has not been much followed, most of the provisions consumed at Coos Bay being brought from California. Fruit is increasing in production, and is of excellent quality. Beach-mining for gold has been carried on for thirty years. Iron and lead ores are known to exist, but have not been worked. There are also extensive quarries of a fine quality of slate. The valleys of Coos and Coquille rivers are exceedingly fertile, and the latter produces the best white cedar timber in the state, while several of the choice woods used in furniture factories abound in this county. Empire City, situated four miles from the entrance to Coos Bay, on the south shore, is the county seat, with a population of less than two hundred. It was founded in the spring of 1853 by a company of adventurers, of which an account has been given in a previous chapter, and for some years was the leading town. Marshfield, founded only a little later by J. C. Tolman and A. J. Davis, soon outstripped all the towns in the county, having about 900 inhabitants and a thriving trade. It is situated four miles farther from the ocean than Empire City, on the same shore. Between the two is the lumbering establishment of North Bend.
