An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 36

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 36
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 36
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 36

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

White Salmon, the town, is of recent origin, though the settlement is the oldest in the county, Erastus S. Joslyn and his wife having come to what is now known as the Byrkett ranch in 1852. However, the growth of the community was slow, largely due to the absence of transportation facilities. About 1868, as near as can be learned, the few settlers there obtained a postoffice, J. R. Warner becoming the first postmaster. He lived two and a half miles east of town, or at what is now Bingen Landing, then called Warner's Landing. The postoffice was maintained there, according to the statement of A. H. Jewett, a pioneer of the year 1874, until 1880, when Jacob H. Hunsaker established the community's pio- neer store and succeeded Douglass Suksdorf as postmaster. Hunsaker built his store upon the site now occupied by C. M. Wolfard's store in the town of. White Salmon, and with it the pres- ent town had its beginning.

In 1891 G. A. Thomas opened a store on the Camas Prairie road, a quarter of a mile above Hunsaker's place. Thomas conducted his store until 1903, when it was consolidated with Wol- fard's. A. S. Blowers succeeded Hunsaker in 1892, Rudolph Lauterbach succeeded Blowers two years later, then L. C. Morse became store- keeper and postmaster. Subsequently Wolfard & Bone bought out Morse, and finally the prop- erty and postmastership passed into the hands of C. M. Wolfard. Mr. Wolfard is still the town's postmaster. He also keeps a general store.

With the development of the district's straw- berry industry, during the latter part of the nineties, came a rapid settlement, creating a strong demand for a town upon the Washington shore. So in the fall of 1901 A. H. Jewett pur- chased the old Cameron farm of Ward Brothers and platted the present town of White Salmon. The land was originally a portion of a railroad section, but was acquired by R. Hanson in the seventies. He later transferred the claim to Ronald D. Cameron. After platting the town, Mr. Jewett at once began the installation of a fine water system which is now nearly completed. He uses a Rife hydraulic pump capable of rais- ing ten gallons a minute, two hundred and twenty feet high through a half mile of pipe. The water is pumped from a large spring, north

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of the church, and distributed by a system of wooden and iron mains.

In the fall of 1902 Frank Broshong opened a blacksmith shop on the townsite; Crow & Gear- hart built a drug store in September, 1903; A. J. Rath next established a variety store, and then the hotel and other business houses at present constituting the town were erected and opened for trade in rapid succession. The town's busi- ness houses are, therefore, all new and, be it said to the people's credit, substantial and well equipped. They may be listed as follows:

Two general stores, C. M. Wolfard and Bal- siger Brothers; hotel, Hyting Brothers; clothing, men's furnishings, J. A. Fanning; drugs, L. J. Wolfard: brickyard, A. H. Jewett, proprietor, capacity, eight thousand a day; meat market, C. S. Bancroft; dry goods, notions, Mrs. Jennie Green; jewelry store, E. H. Dreske; confection- ery, M. C. Fox; blacksmiths, Frank Broshong. James Hancock; real estate dealers, J. W. Eber- hart, Harlan & Crow; contractors, (F. L.) Rose- grant & (O. W.) Eberhart. Dr. J. W. Gearhart is the town's physician; Dr. M. A. Jones, its dentist.

The White Salmon Enterprise, a neatly printed weekly, was established by Thomas Harlan, May 8, 1903, and in its existence of a. little more than a year it has met with a gratify- ing success.

This summer J. W. Lauterbach is erecting in White Salmon a modern hotel, to be complete in all its appointments and to cost at least ten thou- sand dollars. The hotel cannot but lend a con- siderable impetus to the community's growth.

The attractive Jewett resort, situated on the heights half a mile east of town, is certainly wor- thy of mention. Here Mr. Jewett, pioneer and owner of the town site, has laid out grounds and gardens surrounding his home that surely rival any to be found on the Columbia, and when the natural forest on the farm is transformed into parks and his new building is erected, both of which improvements are contemplated, Jewett resort will be a much frequented place.

White Salmon landing was built eight years ago at a cost of two thousand dollars, subscribed in labor and money by the settlers on the Wash- ington shore. In March, 1903, they gave the improvements to The Dalles, Portland & Astoria Navigation Company, with the under- standing that the corporation was to maintain them. This company, better known as the Regular company, operates four passenger steam- ers, the Bailey Gatzert, Regulator, Dalles City and Sadie B., and three other freight and passen- ger boats, the Hercules, Tahoma and the Met- lako, all of which call regularly at White Salmon, giving the town a daily service. The Charles R. Spencer also calls daily at White Salmon, besides which there is a ferry plying between there and Hood River. To The Dalles, the distance by

river is twenty-one and a half miles; to Portland, ninety-three. J. R. Gladden took charge of the White Salmon office for the Regular line last December .. To him acknowledgments are due for much information and many courtesies.

As nearly as can be learned, the White Sal- mon school district was organized about 1876. Two schoolhouses were built, one near Salmon falls, the other on the present townsite. An old German named Levison was the pioneer school teacher, teaching first at the falls, then at the other building. The next school was held in a cabin on Jewett's place. The district was divided in 1880, and that year the White Salmon district proper built a new schoolhouse at a cost of five hundred dollars. This building is now being replaced by a four-room structure, having a stone basement and furnace. To erect it the district issued eighteen hundred dollars in bonds last spring. Professor C. L. Colburn and Miss Georgia Johnson constitute the staff of teachers; the school board is composed of S. C. Ziegler, S. W. Condon and J. P. Jensen.

White Salmon has one church, Bethel Con- gregational, the only Congregational church in the county. Bethel church was organized May 7, 1879, by Rev. George H. Atkinson, with Mrs. J. R. Warner, Mrs. Cynthia E. Warner, Mrs. Arabella Jewett, A. J. Thompson, John Purser, Mrs. Mary Purser, George Swan, Mrs. Mary Anne Swan and Mrs. Martha Purser, as its first members. The following September a site was chosen within the present town limits, and the commodious edifice still in use was erected. Dr. Atkinson dedicated the building October 26, 1879, in the presence of forty-six people. Rev. U. Lyman came to the church from Forest Grove in 1880, then Rev. E. P. Roberts supplied the pulpit for a short time, and the next fall Rev. U. S. Lyman, of Oberlin, Ohio, assumed the pas- torate. Rev. F. H. Balch, who later became widely known as the author of "The Bridge of the Gods," occupied the pulpit of Bethel church during the years 1884 and 1885, at the same time serving Congregational churches at Lyle and Hood River. Bethel church was reorganiezd in March, 1901, since which time Revs. U. S. Drake and L. Cone Garrison, the present pastor, have been resident ministers. During the past year, under Mr. Garrison's leadership, the church has erected a fine parsonage costing eight hun- dred dollars.

LYLE.

war There are few small towns more favorably located both from a natural and a business stand- point than the little village of Lyle at the termi- nus of the Columbia River & Northern railroad. Situated as it is, at the point where the Klickitat river adds its waters to the Columbia, it is the natural railroad outlet for the whole Klickitat valley. It is also the only port of any impor-

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tance in the county, with the one exception of White Salmon, that has unobstructed navigation to Portland. With these points of advantage in its favor, Lyle will naturally develop in a very few years into a city of considerable importance.

At an early date James O. Lyle perceived that this location had advantages which would some day lead to its development into an impor- tant trade center, and in May, 1878, he pur- chased the site of the present town from J. M. Williamson. Two years later he laid off the town and named it Lyle. In 1878 a postoffice had been established at that place, known as Klickitat Landing, but after the town was platted, the postoffice also took the name of Lyle. James O. Lyle built a store on the new townsite, and Joseph Clark also started a store there and ran it about two years. The next store was started upon the hill about two miles northwest of town by Mrs. Hensen. The third store in the town proper was that of Collins Elkins, who built in 1897. He sold out recently. In 1898 John Kure erected the Riverside hotel; two years later another store was built by McInnis McLeod, and shortly afterward another hotel by John Daffron.

As soon as work on the Columbia River & Northern railroad was commenced in 1902, the town received a new impetus, and it has been steadily growing ever since. The chief draw- back to its growth has been the fact that until recently it was impossible to buy a building site, as the town property was withheld from sale by the Balfours, who bought out Mr. Lyle in 1892. These gentlemen sold all the land lying between the river and the railroad to the Columbia River & Northern Railroad Company, a short time ago, however, for twenty-two thousand dollars, and this tract has been placed on the market at from two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars a lot, so that the greatest obstacle to progress has been removed. The Balfours still own all the land along the north side of the track.

Adjoining the town on the north is the large stock farm of Balfour & Magan, embracing about twelve hundred acres of land, much of which is valuable only as a cattle range. About ten acres are devoted to a prune and pear orchard, and the farm is provided with a drier where the prunes are prepared for shipment. On the place are also about sixty-five acres of alfalfa which yields well, notwithstanding the fact that the ground is not irrigated.

Owing to its location at the mouth of the Klickitat river, the town of Lyle has an abun- dance of water and unused power, the falls of the Klickitat being only three miles away. Here a large volume of water is forced through a nar- row chasm, furnishing an abundance of unhar- nessed power. It is probable that in past ages the water at this point fell sheer over the face of the rock for some distance, but as years went by

the rock was worn away until little more than a rapids remains. With a reasonable outlay this power, now allowed to go to waste, can be util- ized either in operating the Columbia River & Northern railroad or for turning the wheels of industry in the town of Lyle, or both.

The canyon of the Klickitat is one of the grandest and inost picturesque along the Colum- bia. On either side the grass-clad hills rise a thousand feet above the bed of the river, along which the railroad winds in graceful curves. At times the scene changes and a magnificent thicket of green scrub oaks crowns the hills with verdure, while below the rushing stream dashes madly down the canyon. This stream, notwith- standing the swift current, is the home of many fine fish, a fact which, combined with many

· other advantages of the region, may cause Lyle to become in the near future a popular summer resort.

The principal exports from the town of Lyle are grain, cattle, sheep, lumber, fruit, both green and dried, vegetables and dairy products. Since the building of the Columbia River & Northern railroad practically all goods brought into the Klickitat valley and all products taken out of it are shipped through Lyle.

An interesting fact about the town of Lyle is that F. H. Balch, the author of that famous story, based on Indian tradition, "The Bridge of the Gods," was born in the immediate vicinity of the town. Many of the people now living in that neighborhood knew him well during his youth and early manhood. They describe him as a man of slight frame and delicate constitution; alto- gether a very ordinary person, in whom they could detect very few indications of genius. They are inclined to believe that he is very much over-estimated and that the popularity he has received is for the most part due to the local color of the book. It is generally conceded, how- ever, that he was well informed on the traditions and legends of the Indian. Those were his favorite theme in conversation, and he spent much time in reading and studying Indian cus- toms and habits. As most of his life was spent along the Columbia river, he had an excellent opportunity to study the country of which he wrote. The island burial-place of the red men lies just beyond Lyle, and only a few miles fur- ther down the river is the site of the supposed natural bridge, which was the chief subject of Balch's romance. After his death, F. H. Balch was brought back to Lyle and his remains are buried in the old cemetery near the home of his youth.

Three years ago a school was organized in Lyle, but no building has as yet been erected. Plans are now under consideration, however, for the building of a schoolhouse, and there is also a movement on foot to organize and build a Meth- odist church, grounds for which the company

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that owns the townsite has already donated. The only fraternity represented in the town is the Modern Woodmen of America, of which Estes Lodge No. 9,502 was established in April, 1901.

The following is a list of the business houses in Lyle: General merchandise, Collins Elkins and the Lyle Trading Company, McInnis McLeod, proprietor; hotel, the Lyle, John Daffron, proprietor; livery stable, John Daffron; blacksmith shop, Albert B. French.

There are few towns on the upper Columbia that have brighter prospects for future growth than this interesting little settlement at the mouth of the Klickitat, and if ever a railroad is built down the north bank of the river, so that Lyle will have direct communication by rail with the outside world, the development of the little

town on the banks of the Columbia will surely be great indeed.

POSTOFFICES.

The Postal Guide of 1903 gives the postoffices in Klickitat as follows: Bickleton, Bingen, Blockhouse, Centerville, Cleveland, Columbus, Expansion, Firwood, Fulda, Furman, Glenwood, Goldendale, Grand Dalles, Guler, Hartland, Huit, Husum, Jersey, Lucus, Lyle, Patterson, Pleas- ant, Snowden, Teller and White Salmon. At most of them are a general store and a black- smith shop, around which has grown up a thickly settled community. Many of them have excel- lent sites and may some day develop into thriv- ing towns.

PART III.

YAKIMA COUNTY

PART III. HISTORY OF YAKIMA COUNTY

CHAPTER I.

CURRENT HISTORY-1860-1877.

No attempt shall here be made to determine who first of the trappers and fur traders whose operations have been briefly outlined in previous pages visited the Yakima country. Neither is it practicable to detail the wanderings and vicissi- tudes of these nomadic traffickers within the limits of the territory forming the subject-matter of this volume, for at the time of their opera- tions territorial, state or county lines had not been drawn, and there is a haziness about such meager accounts as have come down to us, which makes it difficult at times to determine with cer- tainty just where a given event took place. So far as known no sectional history of the fur trade has ever been attempted, and it is doubtful whether any such could be successfully compiled. The historian of the fur trade, to produce a read- able work, must do as did Washington Irving in describing the adventures of Bonneville, follow in his narrative the wanderings of his nomadic hero wheresoever they may lead him.

All sojournings by these nomadic merchants were of a temporary character, and though a small fort was built by the Hudson's Bay Com- pany on the banks of the upper Columbia, the purpose of it and of every other establishment made by them was to drain the country of its wealth of peltry, not to develop its latent resources.

More noble in the motives which impelled them hither, though not more potent to effect anything like an industrial development of the country or any part of it, were the zealous Jesuit priests who first made their appearance among the aborigines of central Washington. In recent

years a contest was had affecting the title to four hundred and forty-seven acres of land in Yakima county adjoining the present Yakima Indian reservation, which tract was claimed by Catholics by virtue of their having a mission established upon it prior to the organization of Washington territory and the passage of the Organic Act containing a proviso that title to lands not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, occupied at that date (March 2, 1853) for mission purposes, should be confirmed to the religious society to which said missionary station belonged. The testimony in this contest showed that a mission was established in the spring of 1852 by Fathers Chironse and Herlomez. The Ahtanum mis- sion, as it came to be called, was maintained until the outbreak of the war of 1855, the prog- ress of which forced its abandonment. The mis- sion house was burned in November of that year by the regulars under Major Rains and volun- teers under Colonel Nesmith, the reason for this destruction of property, it is said, being that the Catholic missionaries were supposed to have sympathized with and aided the Indians. Father Pandozy is mentioned as one of the priests who was in the country at the time of the war.

There is one man now living within the limits of Yakima county who looked upon its crystal streams, sage brush hills and beautiful moun- tains as early as 1853. It is believed that to him belongs the honor of having passed through it at an earlier date than any other white man now living in the county. The gentleman who has this splendid distinction is the veteran pioneer of the west, David Longmire. During those Octo-

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FLOWING WELLS NEAR NORTH YAKIMA.

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ber days of so long ago, and now of necessity so misty in his memory, he passed up the Yakima valley and over the Cascade mountains by the Naches gap. He was then but nine years old. He found on the site of his present home a sub- chief of the Klickitats by the name of Owhi, from whom the party to which he belonged pur- chased a quantity of potatoes that had been grown on the land. Some of the details of his transcontinental trip were thus narrated by him to a reporter of the Seattle Times and later to the writer:

"In the month of March, 1853, my father and mother, in company with thirty other families, left Franklin county, Indiana, for Portland, Ore- gon, traveling across the country by ox teams. November 16th of that same year we reached Olympia.

"We followed the old Oregon trail down the Snake river, crossed the Blue mountains into the Umatilla country, then journeyed to the north- ward, passing over the waters of the Columbia at Wallula. Walla Walla had not at that time been thought of. At Wallula the Hudson's Bay Company had its fort, an old adobe building.

"An old Indian chief at the mouth of the Yakima river killed one of his best and fattest steers for us and sold the meat at fifteen cents a pound. Father was made weigh-master. Peo- peo-mox-mox, for such was the Indian's name, was a kind chief. He did not want us to cross the Cascades, and with other Indians tried to persuade us to go to the Colville reservation.

"But we did not let them dissuade us from executing our original plans. We crossed the Yakima at its mouth and came up on the east side, Indians following us all the way by thou- sands. There were thousands of them at that time in the Yakima country. Our wagons were great curiosities, for they were the first they had ever seen and the first to be brought up the Yakima valley and over the Cascade range.

"Not a white man lived in the valley at the time, save two Catholic priests, one at Tampico and the other on the ground taken by George Taylor in 1865 as a homestead. It is opposite the present George Hall ranch.

"In October we wended our way up toward the head of the Wenas creek, and in due time we began the ascent of the Naches river, the Indian name for which was Noch-cheese, mean- ing swift water. There were no wagon roads in either the Yakima or the Naches country, so we were pioneers in the matter of road-making. We had to ford the Naches something like forty times before we entered the mountains. The Indian trail was all right for single horses, but hauling wagons over it, even after the trees had been cut down to make it wider, was simply out of the question. We could not follow the trail at all, only in a general way. General George B. McClellan, who was located at Steilacoom in

that year, was sent over the trail to examine it relative to the feasibility of inaking it passable for wagons, but we had made the road before the government got around to it.

"In 1854 the government made an appropria- tion for the improvement of the road, but after the outbreak of the Indian war it fell into disuse and became so overgrown with brush and clogged with fallen logs that it had to be abandoned entirely.

"We reached the top of the mountain all right, taking our outfit with us, and then the question was how to get down the other side. We found it necessary to use ropes to lower the wagons. 'After ten days of the hardest toil, we managed to overcome the obstacles presented by the almost impenetrable forest and sharp decliv- ities of the west side, and at length we reached Olympia in safety.

"The Indians of those days were not treated altogether right by the white men who came in to take their lands. I remember well the two Nisqually chiefs, Leschi and Quiemuth, coming from a treaty-making meeting with Governor Stevens. They stopped in front of our house on Yelm prairie. I remember when Leschi was hanged. After this affair, Quiemuth gave him- self up. He came to our house and asked father to deliver him over to Governor Stevens so the white men would not kill him. Father and the Indian went to Governor Stevens' office in Olympia. Both men stayed at the governor's home that night, sleeping in the same room. Some time during the hours of darkness, my father was suddenly awakened by the sound of a gunshot in the room. The Indian had been shot in the arm by some person from the outside, and moving toward the door, he was shortly after- ward stabbed through the heart by the same mid- night assassin. This made the governor very angry, and also made Indian affairs more difficult to handle."

Of course, the great Yakima war of 1855-6 made it impossible for white men, other than those banded together in military companies, to remain in or even pass through the valley of the Yakima river, but it is quite probable that those who came as soldiers or volunteers retained recol- lections of the pastoral wealth of the country, and that many of them, or persons interested by their representations, were induced to visit cen- tral Washington and perchance make homes in it in later years. Indeed, it is certainly known that a discovery made by one of the soldiers of this war had a very considerable effect upon the subse- quent history of Yakima county, namely, the discovery of placer gold by Captain Ingalls, the sequel to which will receive due notice presently.

In another way also the Indians, by their hos- tility, hastened the occupancy of the country by white men, the very thing they sought by force of arms to prevent. One of the results of the

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war was the establishment of Fort Simcoe, which, though a military post, occasioned the presence of white men and furnished encouragement for the entrance of stock raisers into the country by offering them at once protection from predatory Indians and a trading point.

There can be no doubt but that the establish- ment of Fort Simcoe had much to do with render- ing the home of the Yakimas, who were partially subdued in the war of 1855-6 and more completely overawed by the brilliant campaign of Colonel Wright in the .Spokane country, a safe place for white men. At any rate, in the late fifties it began to be visited by cattle raisers from the out- side country. George Nelson tells us that in 1859 William Murphy and Benjamin E. Snipes, partners, drove cattle from the Klickitat valley onto the Yakima range, as did also John B. Nel- son and Fred Allen, with the latter's two sons, Bart and Jacob. They remained with their herds on the Yakima river during the winter of 1859-60, but did not effect a permanent settlement. Mr. Nelson names also John E. Murphy, James Mur- phy, William Henderson, - Preston, Wil- liam Connell and John Jeffrey and his brother as among the Klickitat stockmen, who used the Yakima ranges at a very early date. During this period, the only whites, aside from these intrepid stockmen, who visited the country were the no less intrepid and even more mercurial packers engaged in transporting goods to the upper Col- umbia river.

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 36

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146