Griggs Courier

Colfax, W. T., July 15, 1889.

EDITOR COURIER:

In my last I gave you a brief account of my trip from Bismarck to Helena. Daylight found us at Missoula, beautifully situated at the western gateway of the Rocky Mountains, on a broad plateau on the north side of the Missoula river, near its junction with the Bitter Root and Hell Gate, and commanding a lovely view of the valley and the surrounding mountain ranges, that stretch away as far as the eye can see. This isolated and remote frontier, is now a busy, thriving town, containing many substantial business blocks and residences, also many "licensed gambling" houses. Fourteen miles beyond Missoula the road enters Corican Defile, and crosses the Mount Mazama Gulch by means of an iron bridge 866 feet in length and 220 feet in height. For 13 miles here the grade is 116 feet to the mile ascending and descending. The track follows no valley, but proceeds along the faces of fir, pine and tamerack covered hills, until it descends into the valley of the Jocko river, where the agency of the Flathead Indians is established. This agency extends a distance of 60 miles along the Jocko and Pend d'Oreille river, and contains 1,500,000 acres, or 5,000 acres for each family of four persons. Surely the Great Father at Washington is liberal in his allowance of land to the Red Man. The road passes through fertile but narrow valleys. Evidences of drouth are seen on every hand. We pass on now into the valley of the Pend d'Oreille, or the Clark's Fork of the Columbia. The waters of this beautiful river are of a deep sea green. The scenery is simply magnificent. Cottonwood grows close to the river, and fir and pines clothes the benches and mountain sides except where the latter are so nearly vertical that forests cannot grow. Lake Pend d'Oreille northern Idaho is like a broad and winding valley among the mountains, filled to the brim with gathered waters. The shores are mountainous. The view of the lake from the car windows with its beautiful islands, is superb. Surprise greets one at every point as the circuit of the lake is made. (we intend to surprise some of their trout on the homeward trip.) Passing beyond Pend d'Oreille the road enters the Spokane valley-the best farming land this side of Dakota-and soon reaches the famous city, Spokane Falls-the great and, I confidently believe, to be great inland city of Washington. Its four years growth is simply marvellous. Here one finds grouped the enterprise of the west and the stability and comfort of the east. Many of the business blocks would do honor to St. Paul. Spokane Falls has an assured future. A traveling acquaintance of mine, who in '78 refused to purchase a certain piece of property for $200, was made weary last Friday when he discovered that that same property could not today be bought for two hundred times the sum originally asked. George Ellis, who has a position in one of Spokane's leading drygoods houses is both looking and doing well. Leaving Spokane and the main line of the N. P. we enter the famed Palouse valley, warranted to produce 50 bushels of wheat per acre, and never known to have a poor crop. But the far famed Palouse is, today, the most barren looking valley my eyes ever rested upon. What little wheat there is, is being cut for fodder; oats are a failure and barley-why R. C. Cooper's barley-this unfavorable season-is 25 bushels to the acre better than that of the Palouse country. This may be an unusually dry year here, though I think not, and the crop may never have failed before. But this much is certain, there is no more hardship among Dakota farmers today than there is among the farmers of the Palouse country--conceded to be the cream of Washington's farming lands. While there is a limited supply of fruit and poor crop brings upon the farmers here all the distress our Dakota farmers are this year fearing, after having experienced a long succession of unfavorable years. My candid impression is that the Dakota farmer is today in better condition than is the Washington farmer. He is better situated in Dakota than could he be here. Chattel mortgages are not altogether unknown in this-the farmers paradise-and a threshing outfit is here exchanged for an improved farm. Stick to Dakota. The seven lean years will surely be followed by years of fatness, and they that have sowed on Dakota's fertile prairies shall certainly reap. In an event Washington can offer them nor inducements superior to those of Dakota.

H. P. J.