U.S. Highway 10 in Cle Elum paved in 1949

While this column doesn't usually wander too far from the Columbia Basin, there are times when it is interesting to do so. Imagine a time when smaller Washington State towns had only dirt streets. Now imagine as these towns, one by one, paved the downtown streets or at least one street, which was usually the street through the main part of town.

Those of us who travel to the Western part of the state on I-90 have seen the City of Cle Elum, at least from the freeway. Next time you are passing Cle Elum remember the following point of history, as all of the towns in the state once had dirt streets. By the way, what we know as I-90, was once U.S. 10, so the highway passed through Moses Lake as well as Cle Elum. Eventually I-90 bypassed both cities.

E-mail from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:

From the Columbia Basin Herald on Aug. 12, 1949:

Shodeo to mark Cle Elum Paving

Cle Elum celebrates the completion of the paving of U.S. 10 through the city with a free Shodeo, sponsored by the Cle Elum Riding Club, Saturday. The program starts with a parade at noon, followed by riding events at the ball park in the afternoon, formal cutting of the ribbon to open the paving at 8 in the evening and two free dances, one for old timers and one for modern.

Traffic was detoured around the Cle Elum business district for six weeks while U.S. 10 was closed for the paving operations. Though the business portion of the community, the paving is one of the widest in the state.

Northwest cycle head speaks here

Organization of a Central Washington Motorcycle Association was urged by Bill Bringhurst, president of the Northwest Motorcycle Association, last week when he was guest speaker before members of the Basineers Motorcycle Club of Moses Lake.

Binghurst, a native of Seattle who now makes his home in Milwaukee, said establishment of the new association would permit riders east of the Cascades to schedule their own events without conflicting with the coast groups.

Columbia Basin history

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column.

Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we continue the story of Ephrata, by Ed Harvill, recorded on Oct. 11, 1977:

This road that goes north of town, those of you who  have lived here recently know they have a drainage or flood ditch that goes through the area there, but at that time that ground was all considerably lower and there was a bridge approximately where that ditch is and then another one two or three blocks farther north.

In the spring when the water came down the creek it would really roll in there. Sometimes if it happened on school days we'd have to take the back road along the hill and come back over the concrete bridge here and go down, or go North and come in along the old highway in order to avoid the water, because the water very seldom ran over the highway, the old highway toward Soap Lake. There have been times, however, when it did.

Getting back to the orchard. It was the most peculiar orchard I have ever seen and I didn't see it when it was first planted. You didn't see trunks of the trees, the ground had silt in, I would guess up to 5 feet, and all you could see of the trees was a branch here and a branch there sticking out. There were no trunks as such. And obviously trees can't live and bear fruit very long under conditions such as that, so it wasn't very long until they were completely torn out.

Also along the road there was a fence on each side. You could see posts that high, that was the top of the post and then another post set alongside with wire strung on it, so that the fence would do some good. But when you are going that way now it is hard to visualize that that much silt came into the area from water.

Oftentimes, we'd get a silver thaw in January and water would come down and completely flood that whole area out there where Hunt's place is, in the flat. I have ice skated many times and the whole area would be covered with only a fence or two out in the middle. Now the fences in the middle of the field were not so badly affected because as the water went out that way the silt all settled out of it. It was the water that came down in the spring that actually kept the alfalfa field growing. If you didn't get water in the spring you didn't get much of a crop.

Another incident that I thought was humorous. One time my Dad saw some sage hens and he was able to get one. I don't know how he shot it, but anyway he brought it home, picked it, and Mom was going to cook it. But she started cooking it and that was that. By the time she started cooking it, all we could smell was sage. We had to air the house and so we just took the thing out and dumped it. That's the last time we killed a sage hen.

The first car we had was a model T Ford. It was a touring car, probably two or three years old when he bought it. I was only about 12 or 13 and I was going to drive it. Well, he brought in an old small building and set it up on blocks, so there was quite a steep ramp going up to the shed, probably 18 inches and rose up a foot. So I got in there and started that old buggy up and I got it in alright, but I got my foot on the wrong pedal and almost went through the other end. So that was the last of my driving experiences for a considerable time.

Another thing too that I thought was interesting, but I didn't at the time. The Washington Water Power Company came into this country about 1922 or 1923. The main line ran right alongside the house, but it was about two years before Dad could get money enough to get power down into the house. I think it cost about $250 to put a transformer up there and wire the house, so we went at least two years without it.

It didn't make any difference, as we didn't know any better anyway. When the house was wired, the way old houses were wired was with one little drop cord in each room with about a 10 watt globe, but you'd be surprised how much more light that gave than a little kerosene lamp.

Bill and Jeanette were born while we were living out at the Frey place and we all started to school from that place. We went to the old grade school in the northwest part of town. There were no busses, sometimes we rode horses, and sometimes we were carried in the buggy, but most of the time we walked.

Another incident, to show the type of horses we had. They were wild, hard to hold, but we delivered milk in the buggy. This one night we decided to take in the show at the Kam Theater. So we made the milk delivery and tied the horse to the hitching rack and went to the show. When we came out there was no horse. So there was nothing to do but walk home. When we got there, we found old Pete, the old white horse, just a single horse on the hack. Here was a bottle, empty bottle, standing up in the bed of the wagon, not in the crate, and had never fallen over on his trip home. So you see, we had to really be some skinners to drive horses like that!