to settlers. The State Reform School is located at Chehalis, and a block of land has been deeded to the Catholic Church to establish a Sisters’ School in the town. An effort is being made to secure the land-office which is to be opened in the district. Thus, with land, railroad, lumber, and water companies, there is enough to keep up the spirits of an aspiring new town.
But we have hardly glanced at this healthy and sturdy place, or had our queries answered, before we are at Centralia, at the junction of the Skookum-Chuck and Chehalis Rivers. This young city is situated at about an equal distance from Puget Sound and the Columbia River, and also midway between the mountains on the east and the ocean on the west—hence its name, which does not impress me as being equal in dignity to its prospects. On the 1st of January, 1889, Centralia had eight hundred inhabitants. One year from that date its population was three thousand two hundred. Railroad building had, no doubt, some effect to increase the census; but that there was a very rapid growth during the year is evident from the improvements which one may see on every hand. Its advantages are identical with those of Chehalis, while it enjoys the still further one of being only two miles from the coal-fields, which are being slowly developed, and which will soon have a railroad to them to bring out the mineral. Besides the railroads already named which come to Centralia, the Port Townsend and Southern is expected to reach here within a year, on its way to Portland.
Centralia is situated on a prairie, or rather on rich bottomland, which would make a very productive hop-farm or raise small fruits in abundance. There is good fruit-land all about it, and in the vicinity mighty forests of the most valuable timber. Lumber and shingles are shipped from here to the cities of the East. Iron and copper are numbered among the minerals within easy reach. It is, besides, a fit place to live in, with a good public-school system, an academy, an opera-house, several churches, a bank, a daily newspaper, and many substantial business blocks.
Speeding on, the next half-dozen miles brings us to Bucoda, or Seatco, which is its post-office name. Here is located a large lumber-mill and sash- and door-factory. The population is one thousand. Bucoda coal is beginning to have quite a good
