Cousin Sam: LILLQUIST, Chapter V, pt. 2

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Chapter V, pt. 1 Table of Contents Chapter V, pt. 3

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Coulee City, A Trading and Marketing Center

Geology had determined the location of Coulee City. Its growth into a trade and marketing center was shaped by the railroad and agricultural possibilities of the region after the open range came to an end. the transition from a trading center for cattlemen and a construction camp for two railroads to a supply

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66-67

Fig. 12. -- Coulee City in 1900

This picture of the main street of town was used on postcards and as a heading for stationery. The scene is shortly after 1901, as telephone lines appear in the left center of the picture. The building at the far end of the street is the railroad depot, which remained structurally unchanged until four years ago when it was remodeled. Most of the other buildings have been removed or replaced.

The middle picture on page 16 was taken from about the same position in 1968, and presents an interesting comparison.

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center for the surrounding agricultural region also included a brief period of trading activity with the Okanogan mining region.

A stage line to the Okanogan had been established in 1888. By 1891, the Central Washington Railroad had trains arriving at Coulee City daily, except Sunday. The Ruby stage departed every day at 7 a.m. and returned the next day at 7 p.m. to make connections with the train at Coulee City. freight receipts averaged $60,000 monthly, and the town became one of three supply centers for the mining region, sharing the trade with Wilbur and Ellensburg. 19

The new-found prosperity was short-lived and the town presented a dismal picture to Owen Wister in October of 1892. Wister was on his way to visit a friend in the Okanogan and he was forced to lay over from Saturday noon to Monday morning in Coulee City. Wister, of course, later gained literary fame as the author of The Virginian. His facility may be observed in his description of Coulee City at this time.

      At noon I reached Coulee City and found to my dismay that there was no stage connection until Monday. This was Saturday, and the Saturday's stage leaves at the usual hour of seven for Port Columbia and Ruby -- my route. But all stages so manage that the passengers must spend the night at the hotel Grand, and I was in for two nights and a day with Saturday afternoon thrown into the bargain.
      They gave me a room -- No. 9 -- about the size of a spittoon, and I was glad to see as little of it as possible. I washed in the public trough and basin which stood in the office between the saloon and the dining room; and i spent my time either in the saloon, watching a game of poker that never ceased, or in wandering about the world outside.
      October 9. This morning the game was still going on. The bartender sweeping the office waked me, and I arose and made a toilet as usual in the public trough. I spent the

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19 Coulee City News, February 6, 1891, p. 2.

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morning in a walk to the little coulee. It was like walking out of all such towns as these. The houses end at once and do not seem to grow distant as you proceed through the sand and brush of the desert where they lie. Blowing over this waste came the sudden noisome smells from the undrained filth of the town huddled there in the midst of unlimited nothing. It is a shapeless litter of boxes, inhabited by men whose lives are an endless drifting. When the railroad continues, the freighters and stages will connect elsewhere, the commercial travelers to the mines with their sample cases of watches, jewelry, and cigars will no longer patronize the Hotel Grand and its cockroaches, and these innocent insects must die. . . .
For Coulee is too dead even for much crime. The ceaseless poker game is a cheap one, and nobody got either drunk or dangerous. People have been killed there, I believe, but not often, most likely not lately. There is but one professional woman in the whole town and from what I have heard the men say, she is a forlorn old wreck, so unsightly that even her monopoly brings no profit. In such a sordid community, this fact shows stronger than anything else how poor and torpid existence has come to be. It is the "Big Bend" country, and treeless, shadeless, leafless, featureless, with one gaunt exception -- the coulee that gives a name to the town. 20 *

One John McKinney, a homesteader on his way to the Methow Valley, stopped at Coulee City in 1892 and estimated the population to be 100 inhabitants. 21 The trade with the Okanogan mining district closed completely in 1893 as a result of the decline in the price of silver caused by the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act. The mines started closing in 1893 and by 1894, Ruby declined to a mere dozen people. 22

Conditions must have been depressing in Coulee City in 1893 because James Odgers sold the Coulee City News to J. S.
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20 Fanny Kemble Wister, Owen Wister Out West: His Journals and Letters, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 134-137.

* More about Owen Wister, including links to Wister's Washington by Robert B. Orafson, the Owen Wister papers at the Rocky Mountain Online Archive, and many of his works online, including The Virginian, are in Cousin Sam's Library .

21 P. Duffy, "McKinney's Diary," Okanogan County Heritage, II (March, 1964), p. 17.

22 Lewis, p. 15.

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69A (added by C. S.)

The following pictures are from the May 4, 1967 issue of the News-Standard.

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Sinclair and left the region. 23 During the period from 1893 to 1895 those people who remained had to seek employment in the Palouse and Walla Walla country, working in the harvest to make some cash in order to remain on their land claims. But hard times which began in 1893 in the east encouraged more people to come west by 1895.

      Even the changing from cattle raising to small patches of grain got off to a bad start with ground squirrel problems in 1893 and grasshoppers in 1895. 24 This discouraged more people and they left before their homesteads were proven up. These claims were later filed on by incoming immigrants, many of whom came from Missouri in 1895 to flee the depression of 1893.

      By this time it had been proved that wheat could be raised if it was not devoured by squirrels, burned by hot winds, or withered by drought. From 1897 to 1902 the moisture cycle was up and with a price of 50 cents or more for a bushel of wheat, wheat farming became profitable. Big crops were grown in 1897-98 and this began a prosperous period for the Big Bend grain farmers. Most everyone made money to pay off mortgages and improve their farms. Money was available for machinery to improve farming methods and, as a result, even better crops of spring wheat were raised in 1901.

      Prosperity is good advertisement to encourage people to come and take up the land. The rural area grew in population,
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23 Coulee City Dispatch, October 26, 1916, p. 8.

24 Coulee City News, May 20, 1949, p. 6.

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but the growth in the town was of a conservative nature--stable and lasting and not of the boom town variety experienced earlier. The business community of Coulee City in 1900 included the following establishments: seven saloons, two hotels, two general merchandise, two wagon hardware, one meat market, one livery and feed, one dray service, one farm implement, one grain warehouse, one newspaper, and the U.S. Land Commission Office. 25

By 1902 a new rush to the Big Bend was underway as a result of the opening of railroad land to homesteading in 1900. One can get an idea of the influx of settlers by noting the number of land claims filed in the Waterville Land Office. For the first 10 years of operation from 1890 to 1900, the office filed 2,170 claims. In 1902 alone there were 2,166 land claims filed. 26 James Howell, U.S. Land Commissioner, opened a branch office in Coulee City in 1900. A year later the town was linked in communication with Spokane and Waterville by telephone. 27

Elaborate literature and a strong advertisement program in the eastern part of the United States helped convince a large number of people to come west to the Big Bend in 1904-1905. By this time, the Northern Pacific Railroad was providing special immigrant trains to bring people and their goods west. Everett Rice related an account of his family's moving to Coulee City in 1901. The Rice family loaded all their belongings in boxcars along with livestock and feed. The men cared for the
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25 Coulee City News, August 31, 1900, pp. 2-4.

26 Steele, p. 556.

27 Interview with Alf and Tom Twining, June, 1968.

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72-73

Fig. 13.--Early Buildings in Coulee City

      This is a picture of the first U. S. Land Office, opened in Coulee City in 1900. This building presently stands on property owned by Chet Evans.

      This old brick railroad roundhouse was built prior to 1891 from bricks manufactured in Creston, Washington. It was partially destroyed by fire in 1895, rebuilt, and used until the 1920's.
      These are two of the oldest wooden grain elevators located in Coulee City.

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73A (added by C. S.)

According to Dan Bolyard, "The photo Les has in the book of the roundhouse is incorrect. What is shown is a storage building."

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The following text from a newspaper clipping dated July 9, 1898, was posted in BIG BEND RAILROAD HISTORY :

Fire destroyed the round house of the Central Washington railway at Coulee City last wee, together with engine No. 697. When discovered it had gained such headway that all efforts to extinguish the flames were unavailing. There having been no fire around the building, the opinion is that it was of incendiary origin.

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After the 1898 fire, the roundhouse was rebuilt, and stood until 1947. The following was posted Dan Bolyard in BIG BEND RAILROAD HISTORY :

Fate of the Coulee City Roundhouse

From the "Coulee City News," Coulee City, WA,
Friday 8-1-1947

Fire Destroys Bitco Plant Here Tuesday
A spectacular fire Tuesday night (July 29) virtually destroyed the plant and equipment of Bitco, Inc. No immediate estimate of the amount of damage was available. Cause of the fire was unknown.

The fire was discovered about 9:30 pm Tuesday by three men on the night shift at Bitco.

Clyde Welker, local manager for Bitco, said he attempted to turn in the alarm by telephone but got only a busy signal when dialing the fire department number. The alarm was finally turned in by a passerby who drove downtown to turn in the alarm.

The plant, housed in the old Northern Pacific roundhouse building, was blazing from end to end by the time the fire fighting equipment arrived.

There was an additional delay in getting water on the flames because of lack of sufficient hose to reach the fire hydrant on Main street, three blocks away.

The Welder residence, only a few feet from the plant, was not damaged. Electrical service throughout the town was interrupted for a few minutes during the fire.

Bitco, with head offices in Wallace, Ida., was engaged in tool sharpening operations, and handled tool sharpening for the Bureau of Reclamation and all major contractors on the Columbia Basin Project except Connelly and Winston-Utah companies. Thirteen people were employed by Bitco here.

Welker said Wednesday that the loss was at least partially covered by insurance. He said decision on reestablishment of the plant here would by made by Bitco officials later.

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stock on the trip west that took 10 days and 11 nights from Missouri. 28

In November, 1902, the work of grading for the Coulee City-Adrian cutoff was commenced. Business improved and again the little town bustled like a mining camp. New buildings were erected and the third railroad construction boom was in progress. E. C. Walker recalls a visit to Coulee City during this boom in 1902:

We stopped at a hotel at Coulee City, and that town was full of wild men, and a few fighting men. They were just starting the cut-off railroad over to the main line as the railroad ended at Coulee City. And that night in one of the seven gambling halls a man was killed. Coulee City did not have a policeman, so they had to wait until some one came from Waterville to take charge of things. 29

After the railroad passed on the growth of the town was slow even though it was becoming a major wheat shipping point for the Big Bend. Wheat was hauled from Withrow, Waterville, Mansfield, and Bridgeport. On the return trip home the farmers hauled food supplies, coal, and lumber. The population of Coulee City in June of 1903 was recorded as 122 people. By June of the next year it had grown to 300 people. 30

In 1906 a group of Danes numbering 25 families came to settle northwest of town near St. Andrews. Advertisements and articles written in Danish newspapers had brought these people here to start a Danish settlement. Most of them proved to be good farmers and they added to the agricultural achievements in
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28 Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Everett Rice, June, 1968.

29 Waterville Big Bend Empire, February 16, 1964, p. 2.

30 Steele, p. 556

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the region. 31 With the settlement of Danes, the occupation of most of the land was complete. The first people to settle had the privilege of taking up three quarter sections of land. But final proof had to be made on each one before the next quarter section could be filed on. The homestead was filed first, then a pre-emption claim, and last a timber culture claim. 32

These early settlers also had the opportunity of filing on and obtaining at least two quarter sections of land adjoining each other. After 1900 most had to be satisfied with just a homestead. If they took a pre-emption claim, it was usually away from home. The homestead consisted of 160 acres, or a quarter section of land, and was granted to a man or woman over 21 years of age. The person claiming the homestead had to file his intentions and location at the nearest land office, which was in Yakima. In 1890, an office was opened in Waterville. After living on the land for at least part of the time during five years and making certain improvements, a final proof was filed and the settler received title from the Government.

The pre-emption claim was obtained by living on the claim, putting $200 worth of improvements on the claim, and then paying $1.25 per acre before making final proof. The timber culture claim was obtained by plowing up five acres per year for three years and planting trees on this cultivated land. After cultivation for seven years, final proof could be made. 33
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31 Interview with Harold Jensen, April, 1968.

32 Coulee City News, May 20, 1949, pp. 1-2.

33 Ibid., p. 2

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Land promoters would settle a prospective homesteader on a claim for a $100 fee. 34 * Some people only stayed long enough to prove up their claim. They then took out a loan on the land, left the country, and never returned. The money obtained on loan became a stake for another enterprise.

Regardless of what motives these settlers had--a home, farm, or property to turn into cash--when they came to the region, they passed through Coulee City on their way to the land. While many settlers tried to farm, raise stock, and make their ranch self-sustaining, they also needed a center of supply and a point of communication with the outside world. Coulee City served in this capacity for a large area of northern Douglas County. One can get an understanding of the importance of Coulee City by reading some of their accounts. Some of these people lived more than two-days' journey from Coulee City. Still, this was where they hauled their wheat, livestock, fruit, and vegetables for market. This was where the mail route started and supplies were purchased, or a friend or relative was met as he got off the train. Some had to seek employment here to earn a few dollars of cash so they could remain on and improve their homestead. 35 *
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34 Dayma Evans and Elsa Sandler, "History of Grand Coulee Dam Area" (Unpublished Community Development Study, 1958), p. 96. * In the 1976 update, From Pioneers to Power, this is found on p. 99. It was posted in this Blog in September, 2011.

35 Ibid., pp. 59-83. * In Pioneers to Power, pp. 61-148. C. S.

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Chapter V, pt. 1 Table of Contents Chapter V, pt. 3

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