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s e v e n t h g r a d e p r e s s
| June 22, 2016
First road built in 1915 By Ivan Poisel
At Owen’s Grocery, Deli & Soda Fountain there are many pictures of old automobiles. I wondered about the old cars in Pend Oreille County. Water travel was the beginning of this county, but then in 1915 a road was built that ran from Spokane to Newport. The road was eventually expanded to the Canadian border and cars became useful everywhere in the county. The Ford Motor Company produced the Model T from 1908 to 1927. It is often thought of as the first affordable automobile. The Model T made it possible for most people to begin traveling around the county or across America in an automobile. Although automobiles had already existed for many years they were unusual and expensive. Automobiles were con-
sidered extreme luxury for the common man. The follow-up vehicle was the Ford Model A from 1927 to 1931, just before World War II. The company said this was because the new car was such a departure from the former vehicles. Henry wanted to start all over again with the letter A. The Model A was a much tougher vehicle than the Model T, and probably more useful in the rural areas like ours. The U.S. manufacture of automobiles stopped during World War II. No cars, commercial trucks, or auto parts were made from February 1942 to October 1945. All manufacturers ended their production of automobiles on Feb. 22, 1942. Representatives from the auto industry formed the Automotive Council for War Production in April 1942, to coordinate
the sharing of resources, expertise, and manpower in defense production contracting. In the fall of 1944, looking toward the end of the war, Ford, Chrysler, Nash, and Fisher Body of General Motors received the ok from the War Production Board to do work on experimental models of cars as long as it did not interfere with war work and that employees used be limited to
planning engineers and technicians. Limits were also set on the amount of labor and materials the companies could put toward this. The Model A was one of the changing points in vehicle history. The Model A made a change of new models and new types of vehicle made by Ford and those are the ones you see mostly in the old pictures at Owen’s.
World War II influenced Pend Oreille County By Allysen Biss
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Pend Oreille County was still under the Depression. The people that produced milk, cheese, beef, potatoes, and grains did not just feed the people at home, they also had to feed the military too. Men that could serve did, they went into the Navy or Army. For example, Pat Geaudreau was a junior in Newport High School in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. After she graduated, she started working at Spokane Air Depot, commonly known as Galena, refitting carburetors for B17 engines. My great-grandma Norma Rednour was 20 years old when the news
about the attack on Pearl Harbor came over the radio in December 1941. She was at her family’s Spring Valley home with her cousins having a good time, singing and visiting. She worked at the telephone office. Norma mostly worked, the night shift and he she slept on a cot in the telephone office. Her hours were 10 p.m. through 8 a.m. Her sisters and one of her brothers also worked for the telephone company to help support the family. Norma was a war bride, as she married her first husband, Dick Schirmer, in 1943, on his 15-day furlough. Norma and Dick Schirmer are my greatgrandparents. Dick was stationed in Alaska where he worked on engines
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The Devil’s Well a local mystery By Tiegen Prange
A Model T
of trucks that went over seas. After the war, Dick and Norma moved to California where Dick started an engine repair business with the skills he learned while serving our country. My grandma Peggy Cornelis said that Dick passed away when she was five years old. Norma moved back to Newport where she married Bob Rednour. He grew up on a cattle farm in Usk. Bob and his father raise Shorthorn beef cattle. These beef cattle went to the military for food for the men who were fighting. Bob also started work in the lumber industry since most of the men in that area had gone to war and there was a shortage of people to work. After the war, Bob worked on the family farm and in the woods as a logger. According to Professor Kris Cornelis, of Spokane Falls Community College, the Pend Oreille Valley had both German and Italian prisoners for the duration of the war, housing them at old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps located in Usk, one-half mile from the railroad stop. Many of the prisoners that were brought before 1945 were considered detainees, crews of merchant vessels or UBoat crews captured in South America or off the East Coast at the beginning of the war.
These prisoners were all held in regards to the Geneva Conventions. This meant that they had to be given living conditions and food that was similar to what soldiers in United States military were getting, and if they were to be put to work it could not be war related. German and Italian prisoners worked doing brush disposal, building and cleaning trials, white pine blister rust control, and on the fire crews during the summer. Some were even offered to help in some of the agricultural work. They were commonly paid wages in the form of canteen coupons so that they could purchase what they needed from their camp, and also from the local communities. Many of the prisoners were brought into Newport to buy cigarettes and other things that they needed. They would talk with the people in town as they were allowed some freedom. Many of the prisoners stayed in the area when the war was over since they enjoyed that area and the people. Everyone put an effort to help the war that lasted for five years. Most people from Pend Oreille County that helped the war effort either fought in the war, worked in jobs that were needed, or provided food to the Military and to the people that were in the county.
ThE mineR
Hiding in the southwestern corner of Pend Oreille County is where an interesting feature called the Devil’s Well sits. Faith McClenny, author, and historical archivist for the Pend Oreille County Historical Museum, notes that this strange well is overlooking the beautiful scenery of Horseshoe Lake. Earthly experts aren’t sure how it got there and nobody has ever found the bottom of this geological curiosity. The Devil’s Well is a rounded, hole with sheer, smooth granite walls, maybe forty feet high on one side and about fifteen feet tall on another. The pit is filled with dark green ominous looking water making the appearance look villainous. Yet, the real mystery is in its location. The Devil’s Well is 50 feet away from the back of the shore of Horseshoe Lake, but 300 feet above it. Charles Sheely, a reporter for the newspaper, recorded his impression: “Less than a mile away from the cabin of Jeff Kyser, over an easy terrain, the traveler stumbles on to the ‘Devil’s Well’ so abruptly that he catches his breath. The first look into the depths usually makes one shudder, for this freak of nature is so seemingly out of place that one hardly believes his eyes. So far as known, the bottom has never been reached.” There are similar places that are also called Devil’s Well. The National Ozark Scenic Riverways website shows in a place in Missouri called Devil’s Well. It looks remarkably similar to the Devil’s Well by Horseshoe Lake. According to The National Ozark Park Service, their Devil’s Well was explored in 1954 by two brothers using a bosun’s chair, attached by a steel cable, to a hand winch. One brother lowered the other 100 vertical feet from the entrance of the Devil’s Well, to the surface of an underground lake. They figured out that 400 away the underground lake opened to Cave Spring on the Current River. The brothers measured the chamber containing the lake and found it to be 400 feet long and about 100 feet wide. The cave also features several waterfalls of various heights, and two species of blind cave fish. The Cave Spring trail is a popular hiking and kayaking trail. There is no specific information on the science of The Devil’s Well in Pend Oreille County to say what’s underneath. However, the features in general are formed in a very impressing way say some scientists. A roof of a huge cavern, containing an underground lake, collapsed or dissolved. The outcome was a large sinkhole with an opening in the bottom allowing you to have a view of a lake. So when you’re free, and have nothing to do, come down to Horseshoe Lake and enjoy the view of the fascinating Devil’s Well, but please don’t jump in.
FLANDERS:
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From Page 9A
to go. He enjoyed his job very much, but sadly he couldn’t be a pilot any more because the railroad came in and people would want to ride on a safe train instead of a dangerous boat. I understand though because you could risk your life on a steamboat, so it makes sense that people would want to ride on a dependable train that was faster, and would be able to take passengers in the winter time. Things were changing rapidly. After that big mess with the railroad Arthur got a new job at the Granby Copper Company in Anyox , British Columbia. An incident cost Arthur his leg while working and he never worked again. He died on Jan. 26, 1936, in Metaline Falls of a paralytic stroke. Captain Arthur Charles Flanders was remembered by how he brave he was when he went through those rapids every day with people’s lives at risk and made through it all those years. He was buried at Riverside Cemetery, Ione.
of huge decline in railroad travel. The Milwaukee Company abandoned the railroad completely and in 1977 announced that it would cease operating from the route between Newport and Metaline Falls. That marked the end of the Milwaukee Railroad Company’s ownership. Later on, on Sept. 19, 1979, the line between Newport and McGuires was purchased by the Port of Pend Oreille. They specifically did this to preserve the track for historic purposes. They renamed it POVA, which stands for Pend Oreille Valley Railroad. Sadly, the man who founded this brilliant railroad passed away on Dec. 8, 1922, at age 70 in his home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He lived from 1852 to 1922 and lived a presumably happy life. He had a bolstering railroad company, lumber company, and a wonderful family as well. The railroad that he first founded in 1907 is still complete, but only a small stretch of it. It is now located at the Pend Oreille County Historical Museum and can be visited any time.