There is a town, or rather city, of the same name as the mountain.  This is situated on Commencement Bay.  It is under the very shadow of the great mountain of which we have spoken, and which seems to guard it against foes from inland.  Fifteen years ago it was a mere village, of scarcely any importance.  It has rapidly grown into a town of great importance.  In 1873 the Northern Pacific Railroad Company decided to make it the western terminus of their important system.  This resulted in renewed life, or rather in a genuine birth to the place, which now has a population of 40,000 people, and is an exceedingly wealthy and prosperous city.  The Tacoma Land Company, ably seconded by the railroad, has fostered enterprise in this place in the most hearty manner, and now some of the large buildings of the town, of the very existence of which many Eastern people affected ignorance, are more than magnificent—­they are majestic.

Seattle is another and even more brilliant diamond in Washington’s crown.  It is a great city, with a magnificent harbor, its name being that of a powerful Indian chief who, when the town was founded forty years ago, had things practically his own way.  It grew in importance very rapidly, but in 1889 one of the largest fires of modern times destroyed $10,000,000 worth of property, including the best blocks and commercial structures of the city.  People who had never seen Seattle at once assumed that the city was dead, and speculation was rife as to what place would secure its magnificent trade.  Those who thus talked were entirely ignorant as to the nature of the men who had made Seattle what it was.  Within a very few days the work of reconstruction commenced.  The fire hampered the city somewhat, and checked its progress.  But Seattle is better for the disaster, and stands to-day a monument to the “nil desperandum” policy of its leaders.

Spokane Falls is another wonderful instance of Northwestern push and energy.  It is a very young city, the earliest records of its founding not going back farther than 1878.  When the census of 1880 was taken, the place was of no importance, and received very little attention at the hands of the enumerators.  In 1890 it had a population of some 20,000, and attracted the admiration of the entire country by the progress it had made in the matter of electricity.  Its water power is tremendous, and taking full advantage of this, electricity is produced at low cost and used for every available and possible purpose.

The State of Washington, in which these three cities are situated, borders upon the Pacific Ocean, and is one of the greatest of our new States.  The first modern explorer of the territory was a Spaniard, followed a few years later by English sailors.  Just at the end of the last century, some Boston capitalists, for there were capitalists even in those days, although they reckoned their wealth by thousands rather than millions, sent two ships to this section to trade with the Indians for furs.  One of these ships was the “Columbia,” which gave the name to the region, part of which still retains it, although the section we are now discussing now owns and boasts of the name of the “Father” of his and our country.