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The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., July 3, 1913, page 1

UNDERWOOD DISTRICT GROWS
Many New Homes Are Built
Residents Prosper, Growing in Addition to Young Orchards, Many Varieties of Small Fruits. Berries, Vegetables
Written by Joe D. Thomison for The Glacier and the Portland Oregonian.

While it is one of the smallest of the Mid-Columbia fruit sections, Underwood, Wash., in the southeastern part of Skamania county, just across the Columbia from Hood River, has been making rapid strides during the last half decade. Five years ago not more than a half dozen families had made their homes in the community. Today the homes of almost a hundred rise there in Underwood Flats and on Nobility Hill, each newly made residence the center or at the edge of an orchard of apple trees, peach trees, plums, pears and currants. The men who have bought tracks in this district are for the most part retired businessman, erstwhile merchants from the Middle West and Portland, retired ministers and a former shoe manufacturer of Boston and an ex-head chef of the Potter Hotel, one of California's famous hostelries, located at Santa Barbara.
The Underwood district is as yet too young to have made any great reputation for its apples, although a number of carloads are now being shipped out each year by the White Salmon Valley Apple Growers' Union, comprised of the growers of this section bordering the Columbia gorge, and those of the Husum district about three miles up the White Salmon River. Two old pioneers of the district have planted large orchard tracts and the product of their orchards may be taken as an example of what the community may be expected to produce when the many tracts of ten, twenty, and thirty acres come into bearing.
While the future of the district is based on the apple orchards, the men tilling the soil there are diversifying with small fruits. Their places are already self-supporting; for not one of them does not grow some variety of small fruit, strawberries, currants, quinces, peaches and logan berries. With this product they are maintaining their families and laying away savings. There are no large places such as one may find in the larger and more developed fruit districts, for labor is scarce; and while the resident of Underwood may look daily down across the broad Columbia at the expanse of Hood River orchards, the places there are in a way isolated. The Underwood fruit grower must do his own work. And accordingly he has cleared his land gradually by his own efforts and has set out small tracts. But there are many of these small orchards adjoining each other and the aggregate acreage is reaching into the hundreds of acres.
The stranger visiting the district is impressed by the beauty of the homes, small bungalows and cottages, all of them with a setting of vines and surrounding patches of small fruits. With its south exposure, the Underwood district is especially adapted to the growth of these small fruits and vegetables, and many growers of them find it remunerative to grow this truck for the early market. Underwood strawberries are always a little earlier than those across the river at Hood River, and the growers, of course, realize the top of the market. Melons thrive in the warm sunshine of the protected fields, and one grower has set a large orchard of young trees to egg plant, his tender transplants set in symmetrical rows, and each protected from winds that might wither them by large cylindrical sheets of tin.
One of the unique sights of the Underwood district is the "squab factory," the pigeon farm up of H.A. Hussey, who formerly manufactured shoes and boots in New England. On account of failing health, Mr. Hussey had the call back to the soil and chose his home in the scenic environment. His sheds house several thousand pigeons. The squabs, which are gathered from their nests twice a week, sell readily in Portland, Seattle and Spokane. "If I had no orchard," says Mr. Hussey, "I would be gratified at my returns, but I am bringing into bearing one of the best orchards in the district; for when I find a tree that is not thriving as those around it, I feed it with the pigeon fertilizer." As a result he is developing trees of extraordinary vigor and strength, stocky and sturdy and with luxuriant foliage.
A neighbor of Mr. Hussey's, C.S. Clark, was from the time of its completion until four years ago the chief cook at the Hotel Potter. Mr. Clark bought with his savings a ten acre tract, which he immediately began clearing and setting to strawberries. This fruit has maintained him since it was planted, and among the berries are thriving young apple trees. When one sees him working in his berry patch with scythe, topping the plants, he would never suspect that he had once been at the head of the cuisine of one of California's most fashionable hotels.
The largest orchard of the district are owned by A.J. Haynes and W.A. Wendorff. These growers have paid especial attention to peach culture, and their large orchards are planted with peach and apple trees, the former having been used as fillers. The peach trees have been bearing now for several years, and these two orchards alone send out each season carload lots of luscious Crawfords, the variety that gives best returns in the district. The apples are coming into bearing now and soon the peach trees will be cut out.
The chicken industry has made its appeal to these Skamania county fruit growers and one may now behold well kept poultry yards among the small fruit orchards, the young chicks growing healthily among the berry bushes and keeping them at the same time free from insects that might prove injurious.
The Underwood district is nonirrigated. The growers there pride themselves on their nonirrigated product, which they declare has an excellent flavor because of their ability to grow it without the use of irrigating water. However, the entire district never suffers from lack of moisture. There is a slope from the Mount Adams foothills that has an abundant subirrigation. The growers all get their water for domestic purposes by digging shallow wells and from the many springs of the district, and most of the homes are equipped with waterworks and sewage systems. Underground streams may be found almost anywhere by digging into the earth's surface for three or four feet.
The Underwood people are not worried by religious cares. In the district one will find members of all denominations from Dunkards to Presbyterians. They have solved their problems of worship by forming a Union Chapel Association. No church has as yet been constructed, but Sunday meetings are held at the handsome little school house, where the local orchardists-ministers or visiting preachers alternately conduct the service. They have found cooperation beneficial in their religious worship as in the selling of their products.
As many gooseberries are perhaps marketed in the Underwood district on a large commercial basis as in any other northwestern district. The growers there all have large tracts of gooseberries and the fruit is shipped out in large quantities every year to all the northwestern cities. The plants seem freer from the destructive mildew here than in most districts.
The growth of the fruit districts has justified many improvements by the North Bank railroad. The big power development of the Northwestern Electric Co., where a huge dam, more than a hundred feet in height and a power house developing 20,000 horsepower was constructed on the White Salmon river, the work being completed this spring, has hastened this progress. New tracks have been constructed. The two local stores at the station of Underwood and that at Hood, about a mile to the west, have increased the size of their buildings, and the growers have been furnished better accommodations. A kind of cooperative rural free delivery has been established, the carrier making the rounds of the district three times a week, distributing mail, groceries and meat.
Trackage for the railroad is limited, as is locations for business houses on the railway, because of the very narrow strip of land at the foot of the gorge along the Columbia. Indeed, the railway company in places has been forced to blast out the right of way for its tracks. A townsite has been laid out at the top of the gorge, and there many new homes have already been built. While the town will never assume large proportions, because of the limited territory, it is gradually assuming more importance, as road improvements are being made and as the stock and ranchers of the interior are increasing the size of their places and are looking toward more convenient locations on the Columbia as shipping point.
A few years ago the region was practically impossible to motor cars, but now as roads are being constructed to all parts of the scenic district, visiting motorists from Hood River are fond of ferrying across the Columbia on Sundays and on holidays. Indeed, it is said that one has not had a good view of the Hood River valley until he has looked down upon the larger district from the Underwood heights. And a sublime view meets the eye of the traveler when he stands on the brink of the gorge at an altitude of almost a thousand feet. He can look up the Columbia for a distance of more than ten miles, and the orchards of the Hood River district appear below him like those of a miniature park. It is a delightful birdseye view. While off to the south on a clear day Mt. Hood looms up with its gigantic white peak. No Underwood resident can murmur because of lack of scenic beauty on which to feast his eyes.
While it is pleasant in the neighboring fruit district at any season of the year, no time is better than at present for a visit here; for hundreds of wild flower bushes are blossoming. The wild lilac, mock orange, purple lupine, bachelor button, corn flower, wild carrot and wild sunflowers gives a vivid color to the landscape and distill delicate perfumes to greet the strangers strolling through the woods and roads and paths.
The orchardists have been clearing land and making improvements this spring. Those who have added to their land under cultivation, their tracts ranging from an acre to ten acres, are: H. Knapp, Packard & Murrow, Louis Thun, Beebe & Love, F.W. DeHart, S.C. Clarke, Charles Walther, H.A. Hedrick, and W.M. Greiner.