Dividing Douglas County to create Grant County recounted

Lunch with the TroopsThe next Lunch with the Troops event will take place at the Porterhouse Steakhouse in Moses Lake on June 21 from noon to 1 p.m. Stanley Rauch representing Desert Falls Delivery will be sponsoring the Buck Knife this month and Mike O'Halloran representing Russell Construction Company is sponsoring the Wenger Swiss Army Knife.

Raffle tickets will be sold during the luncheon with the knives as a prize. The winners will be drawn toward the end of the lunch hour. The money raised will go to Operation Warm Heart, a fund operated by unit First Sergeants to assist airmen and airwomen in need.

People wanting to attend the June 21 luncheon are asked to call me at: Home: 762-5158 or Cell: 750-0541. Or the Porterhouse Steakhouse at: 766-0308. We won't turn anyone away, but we need to have an approximate head count.

Alfred Twining recounts the creating of Grant County by splitting Douglas County. Read on.

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:

Along about 1907 and 1908 there was quite a political battle in Douglas and Grant Counties. A lot of people on the east side of the county wanted it divided and those on the west didn't want it, so E.C. Davis was the main instigator to help in getting the county divided. He was a brother of Nat Davis who ran the post office at Baird, and also a brother of Dave Davis who was the husband of Tressa Gilbert, who were old timers in this county. But they finally got it separated.

My brother, Tom, was a commissioner after they got the county divided about 1912 or 1913. I think he had quite a bit to do with the building of the courthouse in Ephrata.

There was a lot of opposition to the building of Vantage Bridge, but they, with the help of my brother, finally went ahead and built it. Then Uncle Sam wanted my brother to come work for him, so he went and helped whip the Kaiser.

In 1906, Ed Olwell purchased the two trestles that were built west of the Coulee City depot that contained a lot of heavy timber. A lot of logs in there were 12 by 12 and 30 or 40 feet long, without a knot in them. He sold some of them for timber and sawed the rest of them up and brought them in and sold them for firewood. F.J. Wick was one of the men, who helped dismantle the trestles about 1906.

I remember walking across those bridges a lot of times when I was a kid. They were originally built with the intention of going on over the hill, but somehow they never made it. Seems as though when the crossing of the Grand Coulee was laid out there was only a space of a couple of miles that could be a crossing place. That's what they called McIntee's Crossing, because that was the easiest place they could get across from the Columbia River to Soap Lake.

Ed Olwell made a lot of money in 1916. There was a heavy crop and bluestem wheat was worth 15 to 20 cents more than hybrid wheat, both white wheat.

He had the first elevator in Coulee City, so he would buy this hybrid wheat at the low price and he was allowed, I think, a 20 percent mix as long as it was white wheat. So he mixed this hybrid in with the bluestem and sold it at bluestem price for hybrid wheat and that way he made considerable amount of money.

He bought a ranch from Jim Cunningham about two miles north of Coulee City and built a lot of large barns and milking sheds and made a regular dairy farm out of it and peddled milk in Coulee City for a long time. He had some well-bred cattle, but when the government took it over a fellow by the name of, oh, I can't think of his name, Kalm or something like that, bought the house and moved it to town and insured it and then burned it. At least they thought he burned it, maybe he didn't, I don't know. He had the credit for it.

Along about 1895 or 1896 we had a celebration at Fourth of July at Coulee City. My dad had put up a lot of ice and milked a few cows and had some cream. My mother made up a few gallons of ice cream. We had no commercial ice cream in those days. She put up a little ice cream stand and sold ice cream and lemonade.

Old Chief Moses happened to be in town that day and I remember him. He was all dressed up in his furs and feathers and had his big headpiece on with feathers clear down to the ground behind him. He was quite dressed up in his chief outfit and of course the Chief is never supposed to pay for anything, so he ate about all of mother's ice cream up and never paid a nickel for it.

She didn't have anything but porcelain dishes and after people ate she washed them and served some more, so the old Chief brought his dish back and said, "More, More, More." So he came back a dozen times or more and ate all of mother's ice cream and didn't pay her anything. I remember him, he was a well built man, must have weighed over 200 pounds, tall and broad shouldered, a nice looking man.

Then I heard a story about a greenhorn stage driver that was scared to death. I guess Moses had a camp up there somewhere and quite a bunch of Indians there. So this fellow started across the Coulee with the stage and about 50 Indians came up toward him on horseback and he started whipping his horses and he got out of there right quick. He thought sure as heck he was going to get scalped. He told me about it when I saw him about 20 years ago in Ellensburg.

"Oh, them Indians was mean," he said.

He said he went back the next day and told Jim Cunningham about it, but Jim said, "They are alright. They are good friendly Indians."

Jim and his wife got along good with the Indians. So Jim said, "You just take a pint of whiskey with you tomorrow and when the Indians come just hold that bottle up, you'll be alright."

He took a pint of whiskey and the Indians came up, grabbed the whiskey and away they went, tickled to death. He was sure scared the first day.

Then I'd better tell you a story about Soap Lake. I don't know if everybody has heard this story or not, put I got it straight from the lion's mouth.

Wendell Pate and his dad brought a bunch of sheep in about 1881 or 1882 from Oregon and they developed a disease, I think they called it the scab.

They were losing their wool, and that was one of the main profits to the sheep man; so they got to Soap Lake. Wendell Pate was the oldest son, and I talked to him about 25 years ago in Wenatchee. He must he dead by now, but he told me when he came to Soap Lake there was no lake there, just a spring, and they tasted the water and knew it was mineral water, so they built some vats, I don't know where they got the lumber, and chutes and heated the water, he said and put the sheep through and eventually got rid of the scab.

Wendell told me that. He went to school here when I first started school, but he was probably 20 to 21 years old when I was about 6, so he was about 15 years older than I was.

He had a mouth harp and used to play it at noon out on the porch. That was the first music I ever heard and I thought that was pretty good.

He had a brother, Mike and another brother, Minor. Minor settled up in the Okanogan Valley someplace between Brewster and Omak or Winthrop. I went past his place way back in the 20s. Someone said that was Minor's place. Frank Pate, the younger brother, used to pal around with me quite a bit, because we were the same age. Annie Pate, the daughter, I don't know what became of her. They lived here in town for a number of years while the kids went to school.

In the early days (1891 or 1892 or 1893), Harry Hutton had sold his confectionery business and started a saloon, and it seems they had a poker game there every night. An old Chinaman had come to town and built himself a laundry out back of Hutton's saloon, so when he had his day's work done, I guess, he'd go to the saloon and sit down and watch the poker game until 1 or 2 in the morning. So one night (Tom Parry told me this himself), a bunch of the boys got together and went back to the Chinaman's house, and he had a coal oil lamp. They poured the coal oil out of it and filled it up with water. When the Chinaman came in he couldn't light his lamp.

Then they put a tick tack or something on the window to make a lot of noise and scared the Chinaman. He grabbed a six shooter and ran out and shot four or five times up in the air.

After that they ran and sent the Marshal in, I think Jim Hansen was the Marshall, to arrest the Chinaman.

And he said, "Did you kill Hutton?"

"No, no Huttton my friend," said the chinaman.

"Well, Hutton is dead," they said. "We'll show you."

They had Hutton stretched out on some sawhorses and some boards in the saloon with ketchup and flour and stuff all over his face to make him look like a corpse and scared hell out of the Chinaman. So they took him down and put him in jail and scared him some more. After a while they came down and turned him out and told him what the joke was.

E-mail from CherylFacts 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 June 30, 1964:We have covered CBH articles about Friendship Day in 1963, but today we jump forward to information about Friendship Day 1964. Read on.

Larson's turn, but mayor isn't conceding horseshoe match

Moses Lake Mayor Harold Stadshaug pointed out it was time for the base to win again, but that he wasn't conceding defeat in the upcoming July 4 Friendship Day horseshoe pitching contest at Moses Lake State Park.

When the mayor and Col. Clyde Owen, commander of Larson's Combat Support Group, got together yesterday for picture taking both emphasized neither had had any horseshoe pitching practice this season.

In fact, Stadshaug went so far as to say he hadn't tossed horseshoes since he was a kid.

Col. Owen couldn't match that, as he was on the losing end of a 21-13 score to last year's mayor, John Dietzen.

After winning two years in a row, Dietzen retired as mayor. That brought this quip from Col. Owen.

"Deitzen didn't run for mayor again because he wanted to quit while he was ahead."

More about the upcoming horseshoe match next week.

Wilson Creek historyThe 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 present a remembrance of Ethel Beck Hill and begin the story of Adam and Emma Helmke Hirschel by Rosa Hirschel Knopp and Clara Hirschel Mordhorst:

From Ethel Beck Hill:Ethel Beck Hill was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Beck, residents of Krupp from July 1902 to April 1917.

The most vivid recollections I have of Wilson Creek are the times we people of Krupp followed our ball teams, community baseball and high school basketball teams, there to play the Wilson Creek teams. They were great games.

We so enjoyed the entertainment after the games, such as dances and after which we had oyster suppers and other fine foods.

Adam and Emma Helmke Hirschel by Rosa Hirschel Knopp and Clara Hirschel Mordhorst

Adam Hirschel, whose father, Henry Hirschel, was a Civil War veteran, was born in Illinois in 1860. Note from Dennis: The Civil War started in 1861 the last shot fired was in 1865, so while Henry may have been living in an area where there may have been Civil War battles, he could not have been a veteran of the war, unless his birth year is incorrect.

With his wife Emma Helmke and family of six children, Rosa, Harry, Ben, Elmer, Clara, and Ida, came to Washington from Jackson, Minnesota on an emigrant train arriving in the, town of Wilson Creek. October 18, 1901.

M.E. Hay, Commissioner of lands known as Big Bend Land Company, later to become Governor of Washington State, persuaded a group of thirteen families to sell their holdings in Minnesota and come by train to the Big Bend area. The name Big Bend came from the curve of the Columbia River.

The doctor had advised a change of climate for mother, so father searching for a home with a warmer climate looked to this area. With an adven turous and pioneering nature he came out to in vestigate the possibilities with a group of interested men the previous June.

He bought the north one half section 35. There were no buildings on this bunch grass and sagebrush land, so a tent was pitched by the side of the Big Bend Land Company Office in town for shelter for the family until father could provide better housing.

Father and his brother, Erhardt, built a barn for the stock, three cows, two horses, and a colt, on the land, which was eight miles north of town. The barn was partitioned, with canvas, blankets and robes, from the animal section, which provided the living quarters for the family until the house could be built. Household facilities were set up, beds, stove, etc.

One frosty morning, I remember Grandma, Mar garetha Hirschel, placing a cushion on the oven door of the Home Comfort Range and sitting on it to get her back warm. We kids crowded around as near as possible to absorb some of the heat.

The fuel consisted of sagebrush gathered from the land and lumber scraps from the buildings. Mother fried homemade bread for breakfast, which we thought was delicious.

We moved into the house the middle of Novem ber. It felt so good to be secure from the elements and wild animals. At night the coyotes crept close, barking with yelps as if protesting the invasion of their territory. The frightened dogs would creep under the beds and needed stern persuasion to bring them out. We kids shared their fright.

Father cleared the land and planted grain which grew well on the new ground. Mother had wonderful gardens the first few years, while her health permitted.

The rural area became settled and school was a necessity. In 1903 father walked from house to house soliciting signers to organize a school district. A neighbor, Jim Harris, furnished one horse and father the other, and with this team drove to Waterville, the county seat at that time.

They obtained per mission to establish the school district. They hired Miss Young to teach that winter for three months in my Uncle Henry Hirschel's shack. He furnished housing for the school each season until he moved his family to Latah, Washington.