Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist by E. L. Lomax
page 39 of 76 (51%)
page 39 of 76 (51%)
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the favorite resorts on the Great West Coast? These facts led to the
building of the magnificent Hotel Tacoma, at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. Other such caravansaries will follow, and in time Puget Sound will be famous the world over for its incomparable attractions for the health and pleasure seeker. The average traveler has but a faint idea of the wonderful resources of this grand empire. Puget Sound has about 1,800 miles of shore line, and all along this long stretch is one vast and almost unbroken forest of enormous trees. The forests are so vast that, although the saw-mills have been ripping 500,000,000 feet of lumber out of them every year for the past ten years, the spaces made by these inroads seem no more than garden patches. An official estimate places the amount of standing timber in that area at 500,000,000,000 feet, or a thousand years' supply, even at the enormous rate the timber is now being felled and sawed. In the vicinity of Olympia, the capital of Washington, are a number of popular resorts for sportsmen and campers--beautiful lakes filled with voracious trout, and streams alive with the speckled mountain beauties. The forests abound in bear and deer, while grouse, pheasants, quail, and water-fowl afford fine sport to the hunter of small game. THE NEW EMPIRE OF EASTERN WASHINGTON. The recent extensions of the Union Pacific System have aided in the most important way the development of the richest and most fertile lands of Eastern Washington. The great plains of the Upper Columbia, stretching from the river away to the far north, are incomparably rich, the soil of great depth and wondrous fertility, rainless harvests, and a luxuriance of farm and garden produce which is almost tropical in its wealth. This |
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