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post 45 Table of Contents post 47
The following are actual experiences of the author, who has spent her whole lifetime here. Some of the older incidents are from scrapbooks of her family.
The earliest explorers found the Grand Coulee a natural barrier as they journeyed northward toward mining country. Rocky inaccessible bluffs were called Coulee Walls by local people. Carved by glacial water, few openings were left for horsemen to pass through. Wheeled vehicles must cross at the mouth of Grand Coulee.
Dr. Eugene Wyborney of Spokane has made a study of original trails used a century ago. He was raised on a ranch north of Delrio. With Harold Weber's brother, they are publishing historical sketches of that area. From east to west the bottom of the Coulee was transversible. Migration of Indians can be traced by artifacts found in campsites near water holes or springs.
From Northrup Canyon across to Barker Canyon was a logical crossing. Okanogan Trail breaks westward from the lower Barker Canyon. The PUD improved it and uses it at present. It was named by travelers taking the shortest route to Okanogan River country. Cache Butte stands alone to your left as you go down the canyon road. It is easy to climb. From the top you have an excellent view of Steamboat Rock and its surrounding area, now covered by Banks Lake. Indians may have used this as a citadel. A pioneer once discovered an Indian cache dug in there, containing bits of woven material of tules and some trinkets. Although later adventurers have hunted there, no other cache has been found.
From the top of Okanogan Trail, a traveler would be guided by a lone pine tree which stood many years. Off to the north on the Edwin Rice place was a high point of rocks used as a marker as they worked their way to east Foster Creek. That was the route to the Columbia River and Bridgeport Bar, a natural river crossing before bridges. Distant Haystack Rock, miles to the south, can be seen from Highway 174 before you reach Leahy. Also called Pilot Rock, it takes sharp eyes to locate it.
Frank Sanford, Sr., recalls crossing the Coulee from his home north of Almira to work through harvest on the "west side". He rode down Northrup Canyon, then westerly to the Bell Trail. It was later called Ferguson Trail for Courtney and Tom Ferguson, who had ranch land there. A vivid description of a climb down Bell Trail is given in the Big Bend History. Anyone attempting it after reading that would be courageous. It was abandoned years ago
because of rock slides. Looking across Banks Lake at it today, we marvel that anyone would attempt it. It is several miles west of the point of Steamboat Rock.
Barker Canyon, about fifteen miles, as the seagulls fly, west of Grand Coulee has an interesting past. There was tragedy staged there; two accidental deaths involving horses, a suicide and the final part of a grisly murder. The rough rocky road winds down a narrow canyon to the bottom of the Coulee.
We'd like to forget the grim happenings and recall cheerful stories. If you insist on the murder story, chat with Ed Klobucher. He has a remarkable memory and a gift of vivid description; or Wes Rinker's mother, Mrs. Cora Rinker, who kept a scrap book of news items from those dangerous days. She remembers those tragic incidents for she is now 97 years old. (Cora was my grand aunt. -- C. S.)
One pioneer we like to recall was the kind old man who lived in the canyon in the 1880's. It was named for him. He was always known as Old Man Barker. Some say he was "Al". His simple home was near the cold springs which rise at the base of a rocky cliff. Another spring nourished a sloping meadow which made good pasture. For a while someone contrived an immense pipe, draining water from a lake 'way above the ranch. These waters kept green grass for cattle and horses. Wood from groves of aspen, willows and birch threes provided shade and fuel for early homesteaders. Old Man Barker was the first. His personality is preserved through memories of Mrs. Matilda Lange, who came in 1885 as a bride to a log cabin home five miles east of the canyon.
Barker was a pleasant, gray-whiskered man with smiling eyes. he often came on horseback to neighbor with the Langes. Probably he missed a woman's cooking and the joy of family life. he loved children and played with the three girls: Christina, Edna and Alma.
In the popular TV play, "Little House on the Prairie", there were other families and a settlement. In the Coulee only bachelors could bear the isolation. It was many miles to another homestead. Travel by buckboard was slow. Coulee City, 30 miles away, was the nearest town.
Christina was seven years old before she ever saw a boy. From picture books she recognized a boy on a bicycle on her first trip to town, and pointing proudly, exclaimed; "Mama, there's a boy and he's riding on a wheel." Before the term "bike" came in, a bicycle was called a "wheel". It was a new sight to a country girl.
In this lonely country visitors were welcomed. Old Man Barker was educated and a gentleman - rather the exception to other cowboys. He sang songs to the children and one day brought a sheaf of verses he had written. Penned with delicate shaded lettering, there was a couplet for each little girl. One read: "Alma's eyes are hazel brown, They'll catch the boys all around the town. I do declare I'm sixty nine, and they do charm me every time."
Alma's name has a little story. She was born in the log house with the help of a neighboring midwife. Assisting was a fifteen year old girl named Sadie Thomson. She was the great aunt of Trooper L. P. Thomson, our State Patrol Officer. The William P. Thomson family were neighbors to the Langes.
Since the grandparents names were used up before this baby, the young mother wrote to an old friend for suggestions. The answered list was unappealing, so she named her "Alma" for the friend, Mrs. Minor Shaffer, in Upper Spring Canyon -- as Miss Alma Hull in Colfax, the two women had been friends. Alma had married Minor Shaffer in the 1880's and came to live on the Almira road. The place is now occupied by Russell Rosenberg.
The Shaffers had mostly boys: Emmett, Dean, Loren, Joe and Hiram -- with only one little girl, Genevieve. As years went by, they moved into Almira and she became Jennie Shaffer Wetzel, well known today. The name "Minor" continues in Almira in memory of an intrepid pioneer -- no less remembered is his gentle wife, Alma.
Old Man Barker left the canyon -- now one seems to know where he went. Had he stayed, he would have seen many changes: progress, prosperity, and people.
While Women's Lib is making headlines, let us recall a day when the Grand Coulee was entirely bachelor- occupied. Raw land was broken by sturdy males who craved adventure and risk rather than comfort and home.
In the 1880's a man could file on land for homestead rights, put up a quickly built shelter of rough boards, often with dirt floors, and be off among his horses. Horses were essential for transportation. Breaking them to saddle and harness was a regular vocation. The process was also a lot of fun to cowboys.
Homestead shacks were small, 12 x 14 foot shelters. In one corner stood a rickety iron stove -- nearby a table on which there was a white cloth bag of flour, fifty pound size. It was soon very soiled -- no bachelor worried about that! On a shelf above, a can of baking powder, a package of saleratus.
(soda to you) and a glass jar of "starter", foaming and bubbling. Sourdough pancakes were delicious. These provided all methods of bread making. The top of the flour sack was rolled back to allow a hole to be dug out in the center of the flour. Water and leavening was mixed there and patted into dough. it could be baked in a pan or skillet. A few wild berries and a hand full of sugar and it was desert. The original upside-down cake!
Another necessity was a gun rack above the straw-filled tick where the bachelor slept. A gun was always in readiness for unwelcome man or beast. Every man was his own security agent.
The few wives who came with their men were brave housewives. Woman's place was in the home, cooking and making clothing from flour sacks. worn clothing was converted into bed quilts. There were no idle days, even for children. Girls helped mother in the house -- boys too a man's job early in life. Livestock raising kept the whole family busy.
Bureau engineers all know Buckley Springs at the north base of North Dam. About as near a true cowboy of the wild west as one could find was Si Buckley. He lived on a homestead here from about 1905 to 1920. Before that he ran horses down river on Buckley Flats. unkempt, unshaven, and rough, he could hold liquor without abusing the privilege. The men he kept around were the same caliber. There was a story of them ganging up on him to toss him into the pond. After all, there was no other bath.
A well-founded rumor told us he did not always plan to remain a bachelor. Letters to a Heart and hand magazine introduced him to a floozy who claimed she wanted a husband and a home. Could she have seen the place and the man, she wouldn't have wasted the stamps. Incidentally, it paid off.
Rocky buttes around the Springs were bare except for a few bushes. Rattlesnakes crawled everywhere. Groundhogs dug burrows under the shack and around the flat stones serving as front steps. Pole corrals sprawled over into Pleasant Valley where Buckley horses were held for breaking. It took time to gentle a maverick to domestic use.
Sandy fields were farmed carelessly, raising sparse grain rye, winter feed for horses. These fields extended past the present hospital grounds and to the stage road where the Purtee family lived. Rangy horses wandered along the stream from the springs and through the present Rose Bowl. On a hot summer day a few willow trees provided the ponies with shade. Trees were rubbed bare where limbs were scratching posts to loosen sage ticks. They were contented horses, switching tails for mosquitoes. They never knew of the easy life in a Kentucky blue-grass pasture.
Those letters of Si Buckley written to the matrimonial magazine ended after he sent a money order, the value of a couple of good horses. It was the old con game. Maybe the travel money was used to entice some other ignorant bachelor. It wasn't much disappointment to the waiting lover. He still had bootleg liquor and horses. The Scott and Canady boys remember Si Buckley as harmless and improvident. As it often happened to lonely bachelors, he drifted away. Might be the area was becoming too civilized!!
After the small, one room school near the present new library became too ramshackle, a new one was built. It was only a few hundred yards from Buckley Springs. School boys carried spring water from there for drinking. Old Judge Thomson, and early 1880 settler, was on of the carpenters who built it. He was the great great grandfather of Trooper L. P. Thomson, State Patrol Officer who served this area in 1975.
This Columbia View School was a central location for the Scott, Canady, Purtee, Wallace and Osborne families. It served from 1908 to 1920, as long as needed.
Buckley Springs flowed into a pond where cattails and tules made a swamp full of croaking frogs. School boys enjoyed dipping up tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs. Blackbirds by thousands nested around. Among them was the yellowhead, a rarity now. The beautiful red-wing was plentiful. Does anyone remember the song of the Indian maiden called "My Pretty Red Wing"? The screeching call like tearing a rag, was noisome, but still musical on a summer evening. Muskrats and marauding coyotes caught their food around the pond. Ecology served its purpose -- the strong eliminated the weak.
About 1916 Columbia View School was a social gathering place. Young lady teachers led bachelors to dancing. Life was playing a merry tune to those lonely bachelors. Ray Davis from his canyon home squired a young beauty around. Facetiously, she married Park Purtee and became a beautician in Omak. Edith Short, roaming at the Osborne home, had the Osborne boys transporting her to school almost five miles away.
Lucy Bridge, the Kitty Carlisle - willowy-type, drew Dean Shaffer out of his shyness. Long after she left this area she got into society in Spokane and became Mrs. Frederick T. Wilson of the Tru-Blue Biscuit firm. Jolly Marie Pendell danced her way into Dean Shaffer's life and married him. They live in the old Minor Shaffer place, his childhood home. Russell Rosenberg is now raising his famous cattle there.
Shifting sand and wind storms took the foundations out from under the old school house near Buckley Springs. Pupils grew up and moved away. There was no school needed until work began on Grand Coulee Dam. In 1933 a new school
opened in Osborne, another in the Center. They both started with a struggle for funds in depression times. They continued to grow into the fine large consolidated system we have now.
The bachelor, Si Buckley, is remembered only by the Springs where his early homestead was, where he used to break and trade horses for early settlers in the Grand Coulee Country.
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MEMORIES OF COULEE COUNTRY
By: Dayma Lange Evans
The following are actual experiences of the author, who has spent her whole lifetime here. Some of the older incidents are from scrapbooks of her family.
BACHELOR IN BARKER CANYON
The earliest explorers found the Grand Coulee a natural barrier as they journeyed northward toward mining country. Rocky inaccessible bluffs were called Coulee Walls by local people. Carved by glacial water, few openings were left for horsemen to pass through. Wheeled vehicles must cross at the mouth of Grand Coulee.
Dr. Eugene Wyborney of Spokane has made a study of original trails used a century ago. He was raised on a ranch north of Delrio. With Harold Weber's brother, they are publishing historical sketches of that area. From east to west the bottom of the Coulee was transversible. Migration of Indians can be traced by artifacts found in campsites near water holes or springs.
From Northrup Canyon across to Barker Canyon was a logical crossing. Okanogan Trail breaks westward from the lower Barker Canyon. The PUD improved it and uses it at present. It was named by travelers taking the shortest route to Okanogan River country. Cache Butte stands alone to your left as you go down the canyon road. It is easy to climb. From the top you have an excellent view of Steamboat Rock and its surrounding area, now covered by Banks Lake. Indians may have used this as a citadel. A pioneer once discovered an Indian cache dug in there, containing bits of woven material of tules and some trinkets. Although later adventurers have hunted there, no other cache has been found.
From the top of Okanogan Trail, a traveler would be guided by a lone pine tree which stood many years. Off to the north on the Edwin Rice place was a high point of rocks used as a marker as they worked their way to east Foster Creek. That was the route to the Columbia River and Bridgeport Bar, a natural river crossing before bridges. Distant Haystack Rock, miles to the south, can be seen from Highway 174 before you reach Leahy. Also called Pilot Rock, it takes sharp eyes to locate it.
Frank Sanford, Sr., recalls crossing the Coulee from his home north of Almira to work through harvest on the "west side". He rode down Northrup Canyon, then westerly to the Bell Trail. It was later called Ferguson Trail for Courtney and Tom Ferguson, who had ranch land there. A vivid description of a climb down Bell Trail is given in the Big Bend History. Anyone attempting it after reading that would be courageous. It was abandoned years ago
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257
because of rock slides. Looking across Banks Lake at it today, we marvel that anyone would attempt it. It is several miles west of the point of Steamboat Rock.
Barker Canyon, about fifteen miles, as the seagulls fly, west of Grand Coulee has an interesting past. There was tragedy staged there; two accidental deaths involving horses, a suicide and the final part of a grisly murder. The rough rocky road winds down a narrow canyon to the bottom of the Coulee.
We'd like to forget the grim happenings and recall cheerful stories. If you insist on the murder story, chat with Ed Klobucher. He has a remarkable memory and a gift of vivid description; or Wes Rinker's mother, Mrs. Cora Rinker, who kept a scrap book of news items from those dangerous days. She remembers those tragic incidents for she is now 97 years old. (Cora was my grand aunt. -- C. S.)
One pioneer we like to recall was the kind old man who lived in the canyon in the 1880's. It was named for him. He was always known as Old Man Barker. Some say he was "Al". His simple home was near the cold springs which rise at the base of a rocky cliff. Another spring nourished a sloping meadow which made good pasture. For a while someone contrived an immense pipe, draining water from a lake 'way above the ranch. These waters kept green grass for cattle and horses. Wood from groves of aspen, willows and birch threes provided shade and fuel for early homesteaders. Old Man Barker was the first. His personality is preserved through memories of Mrs. Matilda Lange, who came in 1885 as a bride to a log cabin home five miles east of the canyon.
Barker was a pleasant, gray-whiskered man with smiling eyes. he often came on horseback to neighbor with the Langes. Probably he missed a woman's cooking and the joy of family life. he loved children and played with the three girls: Christina, Edna and Alma.
In the popular TV play, "Little House on the Prairie", there were other families and a settlement. In the Coulee only bachelors could bear the isolation. It was many miles to another homestead. Travel by buckboard was slow. Coulee City, 30 miles away, was the nearest town.
Christina was seven years old before she ever saw a boy. From picture books she recognized a boy on a bicycle on her first trip to town, and pointing proudly, exclaimed; "Mama, there's a boy and he's riding on a wheel." Before the term "bike" came in, a bicycle was called a "wheel". It was a new sight to a country girl.
In this lonely country visitors were welcomed. Old Man Barker was educated and a gentleman - rather the exception to other cowboys. He sang songs to the children and one day brought a sheaf of verses he had written. Penned with delicate shaded lettering, there was a couplet for each little girl. One read: "Alma's eyes are hazel brown, They'll catch the boys all around the town. I do declare I'm sixty nine, and they do charm me every time."
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258
Alma's name has a little story. She was born in the log house with the help of a neighboring midwife. Assisting was a fifteen year old girl named Sadie Thomson. She was the great aunt of Trooper L. P. Thomson, our State Patrol Officer. The William P. Thomson family were neighbors to the Langes.
Since the grandparents names were used up before this baby, the young mother wrote to an old friend for suggestions. The answered list was unappealing, so she named her "Alma" for the friend, Mrs. Minor Shaffer, in Upper Spring Canyon -- as Miss Alma Hull in Colfax, the two women had been friends. Alma had married Minor Shaffer in the 1880's and came to live on the Almira road. The place is now occupied by Russell Rosenberg.
The Shaffers had mostly boys: Emmett, Dean, Loren, Joe and Hiram -- with only one little girl, Genevieve. As years went by, they moved into Almira and she became Jennie Shaffer Wetzel, well known today. The name "Minor" continues in Almira in memory of an intrepid pioneer -- no less remembered is his gentle wife, Alma.
Old Man Barker left the canyon -- now one seems to know where he went. Had he stayed, he would have seen many changes: progress, prosperity, and people.
Taken from The Star, May 1, 1975 and May 8, 1975
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BUCKLEY SPRINGS
Named for Si Buckley, Bachelor-Homesteader
While Women's Lib is making headlines, let us recall a day when the Grand Coulee was entirely bachelor- occupied. Raw land was broken by sturdy males who craved adventure and risk rather than comfort and home.
In the 1880's a man could file on land for homestead rights, put up a quickly built shelter of rough boards, often with dirt floors, and be off among his horses. Horses were essential for transportation. Breaking them to saddle and harness was a regular vocation. The process was also a lot of fun to cowboys.
Homestead shacks were small, 12 x 14 foot shelters. In one corner stood a rickety iron stove -- nearby a table on which there was a white cloth bag of flour, fifty pound size. It was soon very soiled -- no bachelor worried about that! On a shelf above, a can of baking powder, a package of saleratus.
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259
(soda to you) and a glass jar of "starter", foaming and bubbling. Sourdough pancakes were delicious. These provided all methods of bread making. The top of the flour sack was rolled back to allow a hole to be dug out in the center of the flour. Water and leavening was mixed there and patted into dough. it could be baked in a pan or skillet. A few wild berries and a hand full of sugar and it was desert. The original upside-down cake!
Another necessity was a gun rack above the straw-filled tick where the bachelor slept. A gun was always in readiness for unwelcome man or beast. Every man was his own security agent.
The few wives who came with their men were brave housewives. Woman's place was in the home, cooking and making clothing from flour sacks. worn clothing was converted into bed quilts. There were no idle days, even for children. Girls helped mother in the house -- boys too a man's job early in life. Livestock raising kept the whole family busy.
Bureau engineers all know Buckley Springs at the north base of North Dam. About as near a true cowboy of the wild west as one could find was Si Buckley. He lived on a homestead here from about 1905 to 1920. Before that he ran horses down river on Buckley Flats. unkempt, unshaven, and rough, he could hold liquor without abusing the privilege. The men he kept around were the same caliber. There was a story of them ganging up on him to toss him into the pond. After all, there was no other bath.
A well-founded rumor told us he did not always plan to remain a bachelor. Letters to a Heart and hand magazine introduced him to a floozy who claimed she wanted a husband and a home. Could she have seen the place and the man, she wouldn't have wasted the stamps. Incidentally, it paid off.
Rocky buttes around the Springs were bare except for a few bushes. Rattlesnakes crawled everywhere. Groundhogs dug burrows under the shack and around the flat stones serving as front steps. Pole corrals sprawled over into Pleasant Valley where Buckley horses were held for breaking. It took time to gentle a maverick to domestic use.
Sandy fields were farmed carelessly, raising sparse grain rye, winter feed for horses. These fields extended past the present hospital grounds and to the stage road where the Purtee family lived. Rangy horses wandered along the stream from the springs and through the present Rose Bowl. On a hot summer day a few willow trees provided the ponies with shade. Trees were rubbed bare where limbs were scratching posts to loosen sage ticks. They were contented horses, switching tails for mosquitoes. They never knew of the easy life in a Kentucky blue-grass pasture.
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260
Those letters of Si Buckley written to the matrimonial magazine ended after he sent a money order, the value of a couple of good horses. It was the old con game. Maybe the travel money was used to entice some other ignorant bachelor. It wasn't much disappointment to the waiting lover. He still had bootleg liquor and horses. The Scott and Canady boys remember Si Buckley as harmless and improvident. As it often happened to lonely bachelors, he drifted away. Might be the area was becoming too civilized!!
After the small, one room school near the present new library became too ramshackle, a new one was built. It was only a few hundred yards from Buckley Springs. School boys carried spring water from there for drinking. Old Judge Thomson, and early 1880 settler, was on of the carpenters who built it. He was the great great grandfather of Trooper L. P. Thomson, State Patrol Officer who served this area in 1975.
This Columbia View School was a central location for the Scott, Canady, Purtee, Wallace and Osborne families. It served from 1908 to 1920, as long as needed.
Buckley Springs flowed into a pond where cattails and tules made a swamp full of croaking frogs. School boys enjoyed dipping up tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs. Blackbirds by thousands nested around. Among them was the yellowhead, a rarity now. The beautiful red-wing was plentiful. Does anyone remember the song of the Indian maiden called "My Pretty Red Wing"? The screeching call like tearing a rag, was noisome, but still musical on a summer evening. Muskrats and marauding coyotes caught their food around the pond. Ecology served its purpose -- the strong eliminated the weak.
About 1916 Columbia View School was a social gathering place. Young lady teachers led bachelors to dancing. Life was playing a merry tune to those lonely bachelors. Ray Davis from his canyon home squired a young beauty around. Facetiously, she married Park Purtee and became a beautician in Omak. Edith Short, roaming at the Osborne home, had the Osborne boys transporting her to school almost five miles away.
Lucy Bridge, the Kitty Carlisle - willowy-type, drew Dean Shaffer out of his shyness. Long after she left this area she got into society in Spokane and became Mrs. Frederick T. Wilson of the Tru-Blue Biscuit firm. Jolly Marie Pendell danced her way into Dean Shaffer's life and married him. They live in the old Minor Shaffer place, his childhood home. Russell Rosenberg is now raising his famous cattle there.
Shifting sand and wind storms took the foundations out from under the old school house near Buckley Springs. Pupils grew up and moved away. There was no school needed until work began on Grand Coulee Dam. In 1933 a new school
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261
opened in Osborne, another in the Center. They both started with a struggle for funds in depression times. They continued to grow into the fine large consolidated system we have now.
The bachelor, Si Buckley, is remembered only by the Springs where his early homestead was, where he used to break and trade horses for early settlers in the Grand Coulee Country.
Dayma Lange Evans
Taken from The Star, March 20, 1975
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