Samuel Gross bought his first car, a Model A in 1918
The move from horses to automobile and combine is told in this
part of Gross Family History. Read on.
The move from horses to automobile and combine is told in this part of Gross Family History. Read on.
Wilson Creek history
The Rev. David H. Crawford compiled and published a history of families in and surrounding Wilson Creek titled, "Family Memories of Wilson Creek Area." The book was printed in 1978, which was the 75th anniversary of the town. David's son, John Crawford, has given permission for those memories to be a part of this column.
Today we backtrack a bit and then continue with the story of the Gross family history by Helen Vidano and Jeanne Flemming:
In 1900, they homesteaded eight miles north of Wilson Creek, Section 34, Township 2489. When they arrived, the homesteads were staked out, but there were no roads, no accommodations and only sagebrush for fields.
Water was hard to come by and had to be hauled from the Kane's farm, now Earl Kanes, and later from the Rosenburg farm. Samuel Gross had a difficult time getting water on his homestead, but built a two-story house at its present location.
The following year this area, north of Wilson Creek, began to develop as the settlers moved in. Included with the new homesteaders were friends of the Gross family from Ritzville, the Jack Schroeder family.
Martha was the first of the children born in Washington. She was born at the Pat Kane farm. There were nine children in the Gross family. Dewey, Martha and seven born on the Gross homestead, Emanuel, Christine, Samuel, Adolph, who died in infancy, Lois, Helen and Eleanor.
The first years were spent setting up the home stead and breaking out new ground for dry-land wheat and small grains. In 1911, Matilda and several of the children went by train to Oregon for a visit. In 1915, Samuel, Dewey and Emanuel visited Oregon relatives.
In 1906, Sam and Otto Timm bought one of the first threshing machines in this area. During this year, School District 20 was started and held in the Timm School House. Miss Smith was the first teacher. Also, the Lone Star Telephone Company was formed and twenty neighbors signed up.
In 1918, Samuel bought his first car, a Model A Ford, and in 1919 bought his first combine. Hard times came in the late teens and early twenties and again in the early thirties from drought and winds.
In 1921, the house was moved approximately one hundred yards to the grove of trees, at its present location. In 1922, Matilda died in childbirth and was buried in Wilson Creek. In 1932, Dewey and Emanuel took over the family farm. In 1931, Samuel died and was buried beside his wife.
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 Wednesday, March 21, 1962:
Dennis note: Last week in this bit of this column there was a short news piece where members of the Kennewick Chamber of Commerce came to Moses Lake for a visit and toured Moses Lake and Larson Air Force Base.
The last sentence in the article was, "Included in the Larson tour were inspections of the B-52 and KC-135 tanker planes."
Wow, how fascinating when 48 years later citizens of Moses Lake again were again offered the opportunity to tour a KC-135 tanker plane. Could the one on display be the one that was inspected in 1962? Could be, as the plane on display Tuesday was built in 1960. Would be interesting to find out.
Woman's Club to see films
The Moses lake Woman's Club will meet Thursday evening at their clubhouse at 1105 W. Columbia St. at 7:30 p.m.
Mrs. Ralph Breshears of Omak, the Federated Woman's Club State Chairman for religion will be guest speaker. She will also show slides of her trip to Africa. The meeting is open to the public, so that anyone interested in hearing the lecture may attend. Hostess for the evening will be Mrs. Jalmer Moe, Mrs. Grace Thomas and Mrs. Lovell Ritch.
Warden census
Lillian Halbritter, city clerk, has announced that a town census will be taken during the last week in March. Mrs. Ed Humphrey and Mrs. Floyd Draney will do the counting. The 1961 census showed a total of 1,080 population and a substantial increase is expected for this year.
Pro Wrestling set here tonight
Dick "Mr. Michigan" Garza, who holds wins in the Northwest over Wild Bill Savage and Fritz Von Goering, has picked a tough opponent in tonight's professional wrestling bout at the Moses lake Skating Rink.
The young professional will take on the judo master, Haru Sasaki, sometimes called "Hissing Haru."
The card opens at 8 p.m. Von Goering, who seems to stir up trouble wherever he goes, will have plenty of trouble in the semifinal when he goes against the highly regarded Rocky Columbo.
Opening the night's activity will be Frenchy Roberre and Bobby Nichols, announced promoter Harry Elliott.
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 Coulee City, by Alfred Twining recorded July 30, 1975:
Billy Smith from Hartline was raised up there and went to the first school in Hartline and was one of the first students. C. C. Ladd was the first teacher. Fanny Gilbert and some of her sisters were first students there, too.
Billy Smith was the head cowboy for Dan Paul. Paul had a contract to furnish beef to the Great Northern Railway when they built over the Cascades. He used to have the job of driving the cattle. They had no way to transport them only on foot, so they walked them over there to the camp. They swam them across the river down around Vantage somewhere and Billy Smith was the head cowboy and in charge of the crew. He told me he had to take the cattle over there, sell them and collect the money and carry it back to Dan Paul on horse back.
Another little story about Dan Paul; Cory Gilbert, another old timer here, son of Riley Gilbert, one of the first settlers on the hill here, was a boy in his teens, I guess about 14, 15 or 16. His dad had made arrangements with Dan Paul to borrow $200 to buy a team of horses.
He sent Cory down to Dan Paul to get the money one day and Cory found Dan Paul out in his meadow irrigating, about half a mile from his cabin, so he told Dan his dad had sent me down to get $200.
"Well," Dan said, "Go over to the cabin over there and you'll see a cigar box up on the shelf behind the stove. There is money in there, so take the $200 out of there."
Cory said his eyes bugged out when he saw the box because he said there must have been $1,000 in the box. So he counted out the money and took it to his dad There old Dan had the money in his cabin while he was out irrigating, door unlocked. Nobody locked their doors those days, never thought about it.
I guess Dan Paul was originally from Ireland and I don't know what happened to him, but he got into the stock business in Missoula, Montana and also operated a pretty good sized butcher shop in Missoula, before he came here in about 1890. I have been told he drove several hundred head of cattle from Missoula to Coulee City at one time, grazed them along the way, took biggest part of the summer to get them here.
Then came 1889 and 1890 and 1891 which were pretty hard winters on stockmen and they lost hundred of head of cattle and horses. Billy Smith said he was working for Dan Paul at that time. Dan asked him to get up at midnight nearly every night and get the cattle up, kick them up, so they wouldn't lie down and freeze. He said many a night he spent out there punching the cattle and waking them up, making them get up and move around.
Incident ally, Billy Smith was married to the oldest daughter in the Boone family, Clarai. She was the oldest daughter and my wife was the youngest. They are all gone now, but when we were married there were six children and the parents still alive. My wife was the last one born and the last one to go. But we had a good life together, I guess, shouldn't kick about it. We lived together for 54 years. She had arthritis and she suffered a lot the last 15 or 20 years. I guess there is not a cure for that rheumatoid arthritis. It has been quite lone some getting along without her after living together that long.
Well, I might as well start in on the Young brothers now. There was Adolph, Phillip, Jake, Louie and Billy. They were raised up around Hartline, too. Phillip was in business in Hartline, lumber, coal and wood. Louie and Jake homesteaded what in now Sun Lakes Park. Jake homesteaded the part next to the east end of Blue Lake and Louie took his claim farther east up by Deep Lake, around what they used to call Spring Creek. In about 1902 they sold out to Jimmy Smith, brother of Billy Smith. Jimmy Smith lived there for a number of years and he finally sold to R. M. Gilly. It seemed that Harry Hutton had a loan to Gilly on the place and finally took the land over and I think then the State took it from Harry Hutton. Then there was a fellow by the name of Bill Geer took a place up above Louie Young's place and he put out quite an orchard and later Roy Carpenter bought it and after Roy died there is not any orchard there any more.
When the railroad first came in here, July 1890, there were several buildings, The Grand Hotel was built, a 20-room hotel, and furnished in 30 days and he got it done in that time. Of course, at that time they could get lumber over the railroad I guess.
Then Harry Hutton came into town. He started a confectionery store and run that for a year or two and he sold that and started a saloon, lumber and paint business. He sold lumber, varnishes and paints and all kinds of building materials. Also run a saloon with barbershop on the west side of the saloon built on a lean-to and Fred Rider was the barber at that time.