Exploring Goldendale’s roots

Rise in the price of silver and renewed interest in mining ventures have resulted in resumption of work at the silver mine being sunk on the country club property by the Columbia Gorge Mining Company. Work at the mine was discontinued some months ago when a fissure opened, and several feet of water fi lled the lower end of the shaft. It is understood that new interests have taken hold of the venture at the present time. They are now diamond drilling to locate the vein which was stuck when the well was drilled at the golf course.

May 30, 1940 – 83 Years Ago

Temporary repairs were started on the Klickitat County Courthouse Tuesday following a disastrous fi re that early Saturday morning seriously damaged the interior of the building. The fi re started in an upstairs washroom. Damage from smoke and water was serious in parts of the building. Much of the plaster in the courtroom and some in the treasurer’s office was damaged. The 52-year-old courthouse structure, which was built in 1888, was condemned by the state safety inspector several years ago. Since that time only minor repairs have been made to the building. It is feared the fi re Saturday may have further weakened the building. [Construction was started on the current courthouse one year later.]

May 27, 1943 – 80 Years Ago

Sally Albert, a bright, alert Rock Creek Indian woman, mother of the late Mack Albert, has probably seen the Northwest develop more than anyone else in Klickitat County. She was born in May 1843. One hundred years on this earth is a long time, but not enough to make Sally Albert anything but cheerful and greatly interested in her 11 grandchildren.

May 16, 1963 – 60 Years Ago

The newly opened museum of the Klickitat County Historical Society and the Presby House in Goldendale, was struck by fi re Tuesday noon, causing extensive damage to the roof of the structure. Contents of the historic structure, including donated and loaned antiques, period furniture and a display of paintings, and the furnishing of the caretakers’ apartment, were carried to safety by a swarm of volunteer helpers as fi remen battled the flames in the attic. As impressive as the labors of the fi remen were the efforts of the estimated 100-person rescue crew. In approximately 20 minutes the 14-room house was literally stripped, a feat requiring carrying huge pieces of heavy and breakable furniture down the twisting stairway from the clouds of smoke, removal of antique lighting fi xtures and lampshades from fi xtures already dripping water from above, and the careful piece-by-piece transportation of hundreds of pieces of fragile China and glassware. Damage to the museum items was almost nil.

May 1973 – 50 Years Ago

Gold Dust by Pete: Words of advice for cattle business success – origin uncertain: Cattle are animals that are bred and raised in the Western states to keep the producer broke and buyer crazy. Cattle are born in the spring, mortgaged in the summer, pastured in the fall, and given away in the winter. They vary in size, color and weight, and the man who can guess the nearest to the weight and market grade is called a buyer by the public, a robber by the rancher, and a poor businessman by his banker. The price of cattle is determined in Chicago, and goes up after you have sold, and down after you have bought. A buyer from a Montana packer was sent to Chicago to watch the cattle market, after a few days’ deliberation he wired his company to the effect: “some say the market will go up and some say it will go down. I say the same. What ever you do will be wrong. Act at once.” When you have light cattle, the buyers want heavier ones; when you feed heifers you fi nd they want steers, and vice versa, when they’re thin, they should be fat, when your steers are fat the buyer tells you the market on tallow is all shot to heck. You’ve got them too doggone fat. Now if you study all the above carefully, you should be able to figure out how to make money in the cattle business!

May 27, 1993 – 30 Years Ago

Not one, but two Washington State Patrol Troopers were recently honored for serving more than 20 years with the law enforcement agency. Trooper Jim Williams has worked with the WSP for 25 years, while Trooper Steve Cunningham has worked for 20 years. Williams moved to Goldendale 1974 and has remained here since that time. Cunningham was born and raised in Goldendale, but it wasn’t until 1983 that he returned to Goldendale after serving eight years in Connell.

—Richard Lefever Klickitat County Historical Society

This week’s story comes to us from The Sentinel’s Diamond Anniversary Edition, July 1, 1954, and is titled “Author Tells Of Childhood In High Prairie In The Eighties.” It will be continued next week as well.

In her book, “Sketches of Early High Prairie”, published by Binford and Mort of Portland, Nelia Binford Fleming tells of her childhood in that area. She came there with her parents in 1884 and the family resided on the prairie until 1909. Nelia and her brothers and sisters went to school at Hartland. Here are some of her recollections, taken from the book.

Father Gets Lost

During our fi rst winter in Klickitat, a family left the neighborhood. Father bought their groceries and other supplies. He had no horse yet, so made a large sled, and went to the vacated house to get his store of supplies, hauling the sled by hand. Before he reached home a dense fog came up, and as there were no fences or lanes to guide him, he became confused, and wandered over the prairie. All day he trudged on, seeing no fence or house, nothing to tell him where he was. He still clung to the sled with its precious supplies. Finally he saw a light and turned his weary steps toward it. At last he stumbled up on the door and knocked. Mr. Pitman came to meet him, and he was taken in and warmed and fed.

There was a trail broken from the Pitman home on to our place, so the next morning the weary Father reached home with his welcome groceries.

Rattlesnakes

There were rattlesnakes everywhere! We were trained to never put our hands or feet where we couldn’t see, in the rattler season. (This habit sill stays with me). We found them in the paths, in the barn, in the old stone cellar, under the house. One day Mrs. Lee had put her baby to sleep, and she went to lay the child on the bed in the rude log cabin where she was living at the time and heard a snake under the bed.

One thing about a rattlesnake—he will usually give warning when he is disturbed. During the summertime, one diversion of the boys in our neighborhood was to see who could kill the great- est number of rattlesnakes. It was an unwritten law to never let a rattler escape.

Pitch

Pine trees were rich in pitch. We children chewed pitch gum constantly. Mother was always ironing over a piece of pitch gum in my apron pockets. The sticky mess would stick to the iron and make Mother very unhappy. She would threaten me with dire punishments, but I went right on chewing pitch. It was good, and we were seldom at a town to buy gum.

On the Fourth of July we children decided to celebrate, so we made our fi reworks by splitting small kindlings of pitch wood, setting it on fi re, and watching the melting drops of pitch burn as they dropped to the ground.

Old Gabe

On my thirteenth birthday, Father gave me a pony. To be sure she was old, but she was gentle to ride, and she was mine. I rode her when I brought the cows from their prairie grazing grounds, and I rode her to school and anywhere else that I went. I called her Gabe, or “Old Gabe” because she was old.

Now, Old Gabe had not had a colt in all the years we’d owned her. But one spring, some years after Father had given her to me, we found that Gabe was to have her wish gratified. She was to become a mother, too. Now the other mares on the place could no longer look down on her. But like so many others who have dreamed of, and wished for, a certain thing, Gabe was doomed to disappointment. One day I rode out into the Big Pasture (a stretch of land consisting of about a thousand acres belonging to several families) and found poor old Gabe, standing over the lifeless form of her tiny baby colt. Other horses would come near, and Gabe ran after them striking and biting. She would then run back to stand over the dead animal. Such a sad, dejected mother she was!

Grief showed in every line of her body, and tears came to my eyes. But the mother was instinctively strong in Gabe. There was a young fi lly in the pasture, who was having her fi rst colt that spring. The colt came, but like many other young mothers, the fi lly could not be tied down with caring for a baby. It was more fun to race over the prairies with the other young horses, manes, and tails flying in the spring wind. She couldn’t be slowed down to a baby’s pace. So, she neglected her child. Old Gabe watched her chance. She ran between the fi lly and the baby colt. She nuzzled the little thing close to her side, while the fi lly ran in the sunshine and kicked up her heels. You could almost imagine Old Gabe, rocking that baby to sleep! To be continued next week.