The Boomtown That Almost Wasn't

To the Editor: The little town of La Camas in Clarke county is one of the liveliest places in Washington Territory. It is just now on the qui vive of expectancy in regard to the future development of the Seattle and Southern Railroad Company. Here is most certainly the best place to build a bridge across the Columbia River. A railroad from Seattle to Portland would surely be worth twice as much with an all-rail route across a bridge, as with a number-one expensive and time-consuming ferriage as at Kalama. The town itself is of too much importance to any railroad building toward the north bank of the Columbia river to be overlooked. It is but six years old, yet has a thousand inhabitants, a paper mill employing 75 to 100 people continually, a lumber industry which gives employment to 200 men, a fine roller flouring mill, a bank, a good hotel, half a dozen stores and a $1,000 school house. It is beautifully situated upon the terraced banks of the Columbia, and commands the finest view of Mt. Hood and the lake gorge. It has the finest system of water works on the coast, and beautiful lakes near at hand, which would bring thousands and thousands of travelers and pleasure-seeking people to Camas, to sit upon its pebbly beaches and bathe in its pure warm water.