Missouri, decided to brave the danger of conflict with the redskins, and set out on the long westward trek. They were threatened on several occasions but eventually arrived in the Willamette Valley.
They obtained land, settled down to an experiment in communal living, and named their colony Aurora. Farms were established, fields cleared, and crops and stock raised. Dwellings, a church, a community house, shops and stores took shape; also a school and a park. A band was organized, the finest in the state at the time. Being industrious and frugal, the colony thrived.
The community developed on a communistic-religious basis, though the details are not fully known. The products of farm and shop were placed in a storehouse from which all members drew supplies as needed. No money changed hands. So diversified were the talents of the colonists that their town was practically self-sustaining.
It flourished, a place apart, both as to vocational and recreational life, for more than twenty years. Its religious leader was Dr. William Keil, the colony worshipping in accordance with the inspirations he drew from the Bible. When he died in 1877, a process of disintegration began. In time, hastened by pressure from the outside world, the communal property was divided and members of the Aurora colony embarked on individual enterprises.
Finnish immigrants—and in some measure Scandinavian—were drawn to Astoria because of the fishing and sailing, the shipbuilding and lumbering, pursuits to which they were accustomed in the old country. There had been a time, about 1870, when transient American fishermen from California had done the fishing for the Astoria canneries and caused a small "Barbary Coast" to grow up. The newcomers from the north of Europe were a different class of people. They were eager to settle down as law-abiding citizens, save money and send for families left behind. Besides being excellent workmen, they were steady and industrious. Gradually Astoria developed a Finnish-Scandinavian atmosphere. In 1930 more than half the city's population of 10,349 were Finnish-Scandinavian born, or of Finnish or Scandinavian parentage, with a sprinkling of Russian stock.
Chinese immigration to Oregon began in 1850. In that year the scarcity of common labor, caused by the rush of able-bodied men to the California goldfields, became so acute that Asiatics were imported. The influx increased with the years and the construction of the railroads, beginning in 1862, brought the Chinese pouring into the state.
At first everybody was satisfied. The Chinese were patient workers,
