Letter from Fr. Luke Sheehan

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HOTEL NEWLY REFITTED ELECTRIC LIGHTED AND HOT WATER THROUGHOUT SPECIAL ATTENTION GIVEN TRANSIENT TRAVELERS HEADQUARTERS FOR COMMERCIAL MEN FREE BUS TO AND FROM ALL TRAINS HOTEL BEND HUGH O'KANE, MANAGER BEND, OREGON, 10-10-1912 BEND is situated in the very heart of the Deschutes Valley, on the banks of the Deschutes River where the vast pine timber belt meets the irrigated lands. No other town in all Central Oregon is so well located for economic development, no other can approach it in the beauty and healthfulness of its surroundings, and none will be half so much benefitted by the coming of the railroads. A great irrigation segregation has its headquarters at Bend. At least twenty billion feet of timber is tributary to the town, whose milling in itself assures a great future. The Deschutes river in the immediate vicinity offers some 25,000 horsepower for the operation of the mills and plants of the future. Bend is the present terminus of the Oregon Trunk Railroad and of the Harriman Deschutes Railroad. The east-and-west line of the Hill road branches off from the Columbia-Klamath line at Bend. Bend, then, is situated at what will be the most important junction point in Oregon. Immediately adjacent to Bend are some three hundred thousand acres of irrigated land under the Carey Act segregation of the Central Oregon Irrigation Company. This land is FREE. Perpetual water rights cost $40 an acre. Forty acres means independence, eighty acres brings wealth. Every product adapted to the temperate zone thrives in the rich volcanic soil. The land is easily worked and watered. It offers the greatest irrigationist's opportunity to be found in the Northwest. Come and investigate for yourself before all the big cheap-land chances are gone. From Bend settlers are located on 320-acre homesteads on the vast area of sage brush lands to the southeast. Here is found the biggest and the last big chance for the land hungry to get free Government land that is worth the having. The railroads are here. Hurry and get in on the ground floor. Central Oregon is the greatest homeseckers' and investors' proposition in all the West today. Bend is the pivot point of Central Oregon. It is destined to make a magnificent city. Those who come to Bend now and to the country around Bend, will win wonderful rewards for their foresight. And when you come to Bend remember that the Hotel Bend IS THE PLACE TO STOP Dear Lather Your kind letter announcing the oricinal of £1,500. was enrounced expected and needles to say my tenderly received your mention & your letter about another apparently despatched previous to the present on. I did not receive it. Comelie has been warranting quite a lot about this money but I guess he mind will be at rest now. May lod bless you. The banks have been getting very engaged. They have been loosing this money at 10 per cent when probably they could have reloaned three & four times in the year and got 30++++ per cent I will want you immediately a receipt. I a…