State of Oregon - Linn County

Linn County. Bounded north by Marion, east by Wasco, south by Lane, and west by Benton. Area, 2,850 square miles. Assessed valuation of property for 1874, $4,500,000. Population, 9,500.

County seat, Albany. Principal towns: Brownsville, Halsey, Harrisburg, Lebanon, Scio, Sodaville, Shedd, Tangent and Waterloo. The county occupies an important section of the great valley of the Willamette, extending from that river on the west to the summit of the Cascade Range on the east, having a frontage on the river of about 40 miles.

The valley portion has an average width of about 15 miles, and is a level plain or undulating prairie of uniform fertility. From the prairie the land gradually rises into hills, and finally to the lofty tops of the mountains which constitute its eastern border. The lower hills are well adapted to farming and grazing, and the greater elevations are clothed in a dense forest of fir, cedar and pine.

The principal streams are the Calapooia, the North and South Forks of the Santiam, and the Thomas and Crabtree branches of the latter. The country locally known as "The Forks of the Santiam," is peculiarly adapted to the purposes of the farmer, being of prairie and hill, interspersed with lovely groves of timber of many useful varieties, and watered by numerous streams, furnishing convenient power for domestic and manufacturing purposes. The valley of the Calapooia, a river rising in the Cascades and joining the Willamette at Albany, is claimed as the finest farming region of the Pacific Coast, is generally well cultivated and improved, and is occupied by an orderly, religious and cultivated people.

Flouring and saw mills are quite numerous throughout the county, and at Brownsville, on the north bank of the Calapooia, is an extensive woolen factory, known as the Eagle Mil's, which manufactures, from the product of the county, blankets, flannels, tweeds and cassimeres, having capacity to work up from 100,000 to 120,000 pounds of wool annually. The water power afforded by the South Santiam has been appropriated by a company and a canal of 13 miles in length and 2.5 feet in width, flowing 16,000 cubic feet per minute, has been constructed, leading the water to Albany, where it is applied to manufacturing purposes.

The Willamette flows along the western border, and being navigable affords cheap transportation, but superior to this is the iron way of the Oregon and California Railroad, which crosses the county, making business facilities perfect. General prosperity prevails. The wheat crop of 1874 was 1,500,000 bushels, and the wool clip 500,000 pounds.

The price of farming land is from $10 to $40 per acre, but in the foothills of the Cascades Government land can be had at the usual rates. Gold, silver and lead are found in the Cascade Range, and at one time a great excitement prevailed, and a rush to the silver mines of Santiam was made, but it has now subsided, and little is done towards developing the mineral resources.

Officers: E. N. Tandy, County Judge; G. A. Hill, Clerk, Recorder and Auditor; J. J. Whitney, District Attorney; L. C. Rice, Sheriff and Tax Collector, James Shields, Treasurer; John Curl, Assessor, H. Bryant, Surveyor; J. K. Polk Weatherford, Superintendent Public Schools.

Pacific Coast Business Directory | Oregon Territory Index

Oregon Directory and Gazetteer

Source: Pacific Coast Business Directory for 1876-78, Compiled by Henry G. Langley, San Francisco, 1875.