Kallenberger completes early history of Krupp
Grant County 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 complete the early history of Krupp, by Henry Kallenberger.
After having to discard the name Crab Creek, as there was already a post office named Crab Creek, the name Marlin was decided on after the early settler Henry Marlin.
The school closed in 1966 when the district split, part to Odessa and part to Wilson Creek. The last graduating class was in 1964. The school was torn down in 1970.
The population of the town in 1984 was 75. We still have a grocery store, wheat elevator (Krupp Union Grain Co-Op) and post office. The school gym was purchased by the town and is being used as a community center.
The town was written up in the Seattle Times as “The smallest incorporated town in the state of Washington.”
I have served on the Marlin Town Council for 40 years.
Dennis note: There is no longer a grocery store in Krupp.
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 Feb. 14, 1952:
To keep books for cemetery
George Dorr was welcomed as bookkeeper for the Moses Lake Cemetery Association last Thursday night. Directors met in the safety building to turn over their records and talk over plans. He will be paid $10 a month, they decided.
No date was set for the next meeting, when both the plot map and landscaping map will be presented for final approval.
Only one bid on lateral job
Minnis & Shilling and the United Concrete Pipe Co., both of Moses Lake, offered the only bid recently for construction of laterals in the Wheeler area. The contract was asked to supply water to lands newly placed under irrigation contracts.
The bid was $34,045.60, just under the Reclamation Bureau’s estimate of $34,368.
Cemetery may share water with neighbors
The possibility of sharing water at Pioneer Memorial Park with nearby farmers was discussed last Thursday evening by directors of the Moses Lake Cemetery Association, which operates the park.
President O.M. Wilmot said he had talked to officials of the Farm Home Association about establishing a domestic water well users’ cooperative around the well and providing nearby settlers with water for domestic use.
Such a transfer, he explained, would reduce cost of the 496-foot well to the association and simplify its maintenance and operation. He was asked to explore the legality of such a transfer by other directors. George Dorr was hired as bookkeeper for the association, at $10 per month. Secretary C.R. Bennett was asked to consider proper methods of handling permanent-care funds of the association and report back. Some cemeteries turn over this money to bank trust departments, Bennett said.