State of Oregon - Polk County

Polk County. Bounded north by Yamhill east by Marion, south by Benton, and west by Tillamook. Area, 624 square miles. Assessed valuation of property for 1874, $2,000,000. Population, 5,000.

County seat, Dallas. Principal towns: Buena Vista, Eola, Independence, and Monmouth. This is a prominent agricultural County, nine-tenths of its surface being arable, while but one-eighth of its area has as yet felt the plough.

Grain grows most luxuriantly, wheat yielding from twenty to forty bushels per acre; and the soil is also well adapted to the production of fruit-apples, pears, plums, cherries, and grapes growing to perfection. Oregon apples, and Oregon cider, the product of the valley section of the State, have obtained a wide celebrity throughout the Pacific Coast. No country surpasses it in this species of fruit, and large revenues have been obtained from its cultivation.

The county comprises a portion of the valley of the Willamette, extending from that river, on the east, to the summit of the Coast Range on the west; and its surface is pleasantly diversified with hill and dale, forest groves and open plains. Flowing from the western hills are the Luckiamute, La Creole, (or Rickreal) and the head branches of the Yamhill. These pretty mountain streams, as in other portions of the State, give a cheap and lasting power for the movement of machinery, and for this use are appropriated in various places. Gold, silver, iron and copper are known to exist, but no mines are exploited in the county.

The climate is mild and very healthy, land is fertile and cheap, timber is abundant, saw and flour mills are numerous, schools and churches abound, and every advantage is offered to settlement, and the creation, at slight expense, of pleasant and comfortable homes. The Willamette, running along the eastern border, affords means of transportation, and the Oregon Central Railroad, when completed to its proposed intersection with the Oregon and California road at Junction City, in Lane County, will give every needed facility for trade and travel. Another railroad, from Salem to Astoria, is projected, which will cross the county from east to west.

Officers: Warren Truett, County Judge: William S. Frink, Clerk and Recorder; J. J. Whitney, District Attorney; J. J, Williams, Sheriff and Tax Collector; R. M. May, Treasurer: N. Garwood, Assessor; S. T. Burch, Surveyor: G. W. Goucher, Coroner; J. C. Grubbs, 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.