A Stagecoach Ride Into the Last Paradise of Bunch Grass

The Big Bend fever proves to be contagious under proper conditions, as the writer knows from actual experience. How could the adventurous spirit of man resist the persuasive allurements of a ride on the first through stage from Spokane Falls to Okanogan, the now famous Mecca of the weary pilgrims who plow and populate States?

When F. J. Cummings & Co., with commendable pluck, drove up to the California House with a light spring wagon at one o'clock P.M. on Thursday, March 27th, with four for the Big Bend watched in anxiety on "Mumps'" steps, Adams (one of the dauntless proprietors of Okanogan) sprang to his side in the seat, while the writer, with the determination not to be left far behind, mounted the luggage that occupied the hind seat of the coach. Mr. Cummings, like a true knight of the boot, piloted us over the route with pleasant speed on the smooth part of the road, but with a degree of perplexing speed on the rough parts that caused us to instinctively secure ourselves to the coach seats. The writer's continuity was not well enough developed for continuous watchfulness, and the penalty imposed was a sudden dive down into a narrow, deep draw with some two or more feet of water and liquid mud, and just as suddenly the coach wheels brought up against the re-sending bank, with the attending phenomena of the writer making a back somersault, squarely alighting on his head instead of his pedal extremities, the cushion of the seat, a satchel and Mr. Adams' bale of blankets rolling over him and independently floating off down the stream. As soon as the laws of gravitation could be overcome the writer changed extremities as regards the perpendicular, and jumped into the icy snow water to rescue the drifting property. A ride of eight miles after dark gave him abundant opportunity to reflect on such baptismal initiation to frontier life; but as such incidents are but ordinary affairs they are only alluded to for the benefit of our tenderfoot Broadway swells who become infatuated with the romance of the subject.

Messrs. Adams and Cummings had with them what they called a singular bottle to cheer their drooping spirits. The bottle came through but they lost the contents somehow on the road. This fact may account for the strange adventure that happened subsequently. When Mr. Cummings greased the axles he neglected to put on one of the nuts; yet we rode safe and sound some three miles, except that misfortunes never come singly, for a box of cigars was lost, to Adams and Cummings' chagrin, although the writer heard of this loss with inner but unexpressed satisfaction, because he was obliged to ride on top of a powder keg without knowing the degree of friction from road bumping that it would bear before exploding—but both came through without explosion.

The probable stations where wood and water can be obtained on the new route are at Deep Creek Falls, Leononwood, Booth Springs, Antelope Springs, Portuguese Joe, Wilson Creek, Grand Coulee, Moses Coulee and Okanogan. The new route generally passes through a fine prairie country. It follows Lieut. Symonds' military road through the middle crossing of the Grand Coulee, and leaves it just after its exit from the Moses Coulee. We followed a nearly direct course from this point over the trackless prairie for sixteen miles, until we brought up at Okanogan. The landmark for the outfit to head for is Pine Mountain, which is but an extension of Bald Timber Mountain into a belt of evergreens, pines and fir.

Okanogan is the county seat of Douglas county, and is situated on a slightly undulating prairie, nine miles from the foot of Timber Mountain. Three buildings are in course of erection at present. Mr. J. H. Middleton, from Portland, Oregon, has bought lots for the erection of a hardware store 23x75 feet. He has already contracted for the lumber to be delivered on the ground. He is to stock it up with general hardware, agricultural implements, etc. Mr. Coll, from Ainsworth, is on the road here with his stock of hotel furniture, which he proposes to place in a new hotel to be erected here at once on his arrival. Mr. B. L. Hartin, from the East, has also purchased lots for the erection of a general grocery store in which he proposes to put a stock of goods within thirty days. Parties are on the ground (Messrs. Reed and Bean) for the erection of a blacksmith shop. Lots have been set apart for the erection of a public school, and for churches, and I understand arrangements have been made by which a Congregational church building will be erected at an early date.

At Timber Mountain there are twenty-five square miles of pine and fir which is estimated by different lumbermen to be capable of turning out from five to fourteen million feet of lumber. There is still beyond the Okanogan an inexhaustible supply of both wood and coal.

It is estimated that 2,000 emigrants have already found homes this spring within the expansive prairie fields of the Big Bend, and still they come daily, as the tide has scarcely commenced. No railroad grants interfere with the density of population, and as the lands in this part of Douglas county can only be held by the actual squatter, it is quite possible that this is the great agricultural country of the Territory. The great Columbia river washes the west shore of Douglas county in a semicircular direction for over one hundred miles, and this astounding fact alone insures the future for the Big Bend country, as it gives us a natural outlet to the ocean with the exception of a few short portages. It is to be hoped that our next legislature will rise to the occasion of prompt action in the shape of a memorial to Congress for an appropriation for the improvement and deepening of the channel at Priest Rapids. Lieut. Symonds endorsed the proposed navigation of the Columbia in his reports to the general government. Let us have an outlet by way of the Columbia river to the ocean, aye, and give us a direct railroad from the Sound to Spokane Falls and the Big Bend shall prove itself second to no part of Washington in all that makes up brawny men and solid agricultural prosperity. A railroad is imperative, before the interior of the Big Bend can be fully developed, because the scarcity of feed and lumber will retard settlement materially.

Messrs. Cummings & Co. hope at an early day to extend their tri-weekly stage line beyond Okanogan so as to make a direct stage line from Yakima connecting with steamers on the Columbia and the railroad at Spokane Falls. At Wilson creek we found an opportunity to see twenty-two horses of the new stage line which Messrs. Cummings & Co. propose to use for conveying passengers from Okanogan to Spokane Falls in three days' time. We came in in four days on that trip, though we lay over eight hours on account of the incipient condition of the arrangements on the new stage line, but a couple of weeks will set everything in smooth order for the transit of all who desire to view the beauty and fertility of this last paradise of bunch grass, set in the picturesque framework that nature has wrought, the Canada mountains in the rear.

J. B. Slater. Okanogan, April 8, 1884.