The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., July 1, 1954, page 2
PIONEER RESIDENT RECALLS OLD DAYS
By Mrs. W.A. Beeks
I was born and raised in the Goldendale area My grandfather,
Thomas Hendricks, settled on a homestead four miles north of town in 1873
where he lived for 31 years, farming and cutting and selling wood for a living.
The wood was hauled to town by team and wagon.
J.H. Sellers, my father, came to the county in 1888 and
settled on a homestead northeast of Goldendale where he farmed and worked
the roads. He was road supervisor for district three for 25 years, and travelled
from place to place with his crew of men and teams of horses. Fresnoes and
scrapers, dragged by horses, were used in those days in building roads. The
Maryhill loops road, was built by this method, and finished except for surfacing,
in the winter of 1913. The following summer, Mr. Sellers built the Rock Creek
grade, which was just an Indian trail prior to that time.
Sixty years ago white people travelled by wagon, hack
and saddle horse to Yakima, taking along camping outfits. Families would
often pick hops along the route to Yakima. It was normally a three-day trip,
with two nights camping on the way.
There used to be lots of fruit raised in the Rock Creek
area, and this was carted to Yakima by wagon teams. There was no fruit in
the Yakima section at that time. Fox and Cynthia Beeks, parents of W.A. Beeks,
hauled loads of fruit of all kinds there and sold them.
In 1832 farmers in the Pleasant Valley section lived
in log cabins. They hauled their wheat to The Dalles or Columbus (Maryhill)
for reloading on boats. They made their own hominy, kraut and soap. Each
family had a smokehouse where meat was cured. Coffee was bought green and
then roasted and ground by hand. Fences were made of rails cut from timber
on the ranch.
School was conducted for three months in the fall and
three months in the spring, and we walked from three to four miles to school.
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© Jeffrey L. Elmer