State of Oregon - Wasco County

Wasco County. Bounded north by Washington Territory, east by Umatilla and Grant, south by Lake, and west by Douglas, Lane, Linn, Marion, Clackamas, and Multnomah. Area, 16,000 square miles. Assessed valuation of property for 1874, $1,500,000. Population, 3,500.

County seat, The Dalles. Principal town, Celilo. The name, Wasco, is of the Indian language, signifying grass, and this is emphatically a grazing County, being unsurpassed in this respect. But its agricultural capacity is not confined to the production of grass, as large areas comprised in the valleys of such streams as the Des Chutes, John Days, Crooked River, and their branches, are well adapted to the production of vegetables, grain, and fruit.

The great Columbia runs along the northern border, its continuous navigability being broken at The Dalles, where a portage is made- by railroad. The Des Chutes is a large stream rising in the southern part of the County, and runs north, emptying into the Columbia at Windham Falls. John Days River enters from Grant, and after a course of about 100 miles in Wasco, falls into the Columbia.

Officers: N. H. Gates, County Judge; R. P. Gibons, Clerk; W. B. Laswell, District Attorney; E. Schutz, Sheriff and Tax Collector; F. Dehm, Treasurer; A. H. Breyman, Assessor; W. E. Campbell, Surveyor; E. Fisher, Superintendent of 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.