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The Klickitat County News, Goldendale, WA., August 9, 1934, page 6

INTERESTING PIONEER INTERVIEWS

Jess G. Allyn, Goldendale's mayor, holds his distinguished post as this city's a spokesman not only through his election at the hands of the voters but through his have pioneered this district long before Goldendale was near its present size.
Mayor Allyn can recite near hair raising tales of his early boyhood in the Goldendale vicinity and has a wealth of interesting anecdotes at his tongue tips to tell the stranger in this community.
But for interviews such as this, many of those valuable stories, many detailed facts and other data concerning Goldendale and Klickitat County might remained untold or unpublished.
Mayor Allyn was located this week by The News correspondent taking over the city's business with Miss May Root, city treasurer, H.B. Mort, city clerk, and Wm. Lear, city marshal, in the city offices on Columbus avenue.
One topic of conversation led to another until quite a few items of interest in Mayor Allyn's life had been brought to light. Included in the conversation was the following:
"I came here in 1879 in the fall of the year. I was four years old at the time. I was born in Clark County, Washington, a short distance from Vancouver. I remember that it was near the barracks and that there were soldiers quartered their then. As a matter of fact, the barracks at Vancouver made for the original town site. The fort or rather, the barracks, have remained there since that time.
"It was March 22, 1875 when I first saw the light of day. When you ask why we moved here, it reminds me that my father sold 80 acres of good land in what is now east Portland for a team of horses and a wagon in order to get transportation to make the trip. No, it wouldn't have been so valuable now, because if a person had tried to hold it until it became of such immense value, I am afraid that the taxes would have been too much of a burden.
"Anyway we moved here. My father took up a homestead just three miles east of Goldendale. We had to drive our stock clear over to the Columbia mountains (Klickitat) in order to get it far enough from the farm so that the crops could be raised without interference from stock pasturing. That was quite a job. Of course, you can appreciate that we did not have so many fences. In fact there were very few fences at that time so the stock was not limited to any particular grazing ground such as nowadays.
"My father died when I was 10 years old. There was quite a mortgage on our farm and some other bills so we boys stuck to the farm until the bills were all paid off and left our mother free of indebtedness. I was 12 years old when the mortgage was all paid.
"Another interesting fact about the country in the early days was the lack of underbrush in the forests and the grazing districts. One could get in a hack behind a horse or team and drive through most any heavily timbered area without any particular effort. The underbrush was fired in the fall each year by the stockmen and this plan kept the grazing lands in tip top shape.
"Nowadays, it is quite a different matter. The underbrush has become quite a problem in the forests and there seems to be but little bunch grass. In the early days, the bunch grass grew in abundance all over the prairies and in the forest. Its fame as a stock food is well known.
"After I became 12 years old, I worked for numerous stockmen and farmers and a little later I went to Clark County each winter and worked for an uncle who had a farm there. Then in the spring and summer months, I would come back to Goldendale and work on farms here.
"One time when I was just a kid, I suppose seven or eight years old, I was riding a cayuse up in the hills a short distance from this city and I ran across George Bomanac, an Indian. He saw his brand on my pony and he was going to make me give him the horse. Naturally, I was scared stiff. All of a sudden, however, I thought of an old, rusted revolver, minus a cylinder, that was in my pack or pocket. I drew the gun, brandished it toward the hostile red skin and managed to scare him away. After that I carried a real pistol and took no chances.
"I rode the range for a good many years. I remember when the McLavy Boys, the Morehead boys, the Lefever boys and myself used to round up two-year old steers, saddle them and try to ride them. Sometimes we did not stick but more often we bit the dust.
"When I was 24, I started out as a contractor in Goldendale. I built many houses here as well as business buildings. Sometimes I had as many as three crews working at the same time on different houses.
"One of the most interesting incidents I had occurred while in the contracting business was the time a crew of 20 man built a saloon building for Soddenburg and Masters in nine days. I had just finished a home in the city and was slated to start another on contract in nine days. On the day I completed the first home, the two saloon owners came to me and asked me if it would be possible to construct a saloon building between the time of the two contracts.
"I answered that it was possible if there was money enough in the job. They said they'd pay, all right. So I figured the cost, added $600 and they accepted the proposition. They told me they'd give me a cash bonus of $50 if the job was finished in the allotted time. On the afternoon of the ninth day, all of the crew of 20 men aside from Arthur Harris and M.F. Derting stood up to the bar and had a drink on the house.
"The next house I built was for Bill McEwen who was running for sheriff at that time. VanVactor beat him in the election, however.
"It was nine years ago that I first started to serve the city in the capacity of councilman. No, I did not seek the office, it was more or less thrust on me. I was just elected and I served for several terms before being elected mayor in the fall of 1932. My mayorality term started January 1, 1933.
"Yes, there are other things, perhaps, of interest but this will be enough for you this time."
Mayor Allyn has a hobby of manufacturing arrow heads out of flint he has collected in the county. He has a reputation for this art that is unsurpassed by many similar artists. His collection of material of this type is heralded as a great one, but all of that is another story, Mr. Allyn said, and he will give additional information on that at a future date.
Probably one outstanding incident of the Goldendale's mayor's life occurred just last weekend when he went to Bonneville to attend the gathering in honor of President Roosevelt. While he stated that it was a bit uncomfortable standing for such a length of time just to hear the few words that the President said, he admitted that everything taken as a whole, the trip was worth while.
Mr. Allyn is interested in several pieces of real estate here and devotes his time between the city's and his private business.
"Another thing." Mayor Allyn said, after he had apparently completed his interview. "I am certainly opposed to poisoning as a means of eradicating predatory animals. I used to take quite an interest in trapping and so one winter I decided to make a kill any hurry by placing 300 poison bates for coyotes in the hills. I was convinced that the coyotes got the poison all right, but I got few of the pelts. But the fact that I got few of the pelts is not so bad as the fact that the poison seems to form an endless chain and kill everything else. The coyotes eats the poison, the magpies and birds prey on the carcass and get poisoned. A number of insects are drawn to the carcass as it disintegrates and the grouse get what is called 'limber neck' from feeding on the bugs.
"I found all this out the following year when I went back into the district to hunt and trap some more. Consequently, I am thoroughly opposed to this method.
"Yes, I have done a lot of fishing. I have angled in every stream in Klickitat County and most all of them in Clark and Skamania.
"I read a news story once were a man was holding a dynamite cap in his mouth to place the fuse and it exploded. I thought this plan might assist me in my trapping for coyotes so I placed the caps in the bait. However, it did not seem to work out, for I never found a coyote with its head blown off.
"Now, I know this is the enough," Mr. Allyn and did.