100 YEARS AGO
June 12, 1924
Farmers Driven Out by Lack of Water
This is Armenia minus the Turk. It is a battlefield held by the barest handful of survivors. Here are several of Goldsmith’s deserted villages. Here is a vast valley, made like a great garden of Allah, snow-covered mountains, with crystal streams rushing a thousand feet below the general level, answering the sun’s steady smile with a grin of despair.
Eighty thousand acres of wheat land are here, and the wheat is burning up for want of water. Since January 1 the rainfall has only been 1.27 inches. In April the rainfall was one-fiftieth of an inch and in May three one-hundredths. All hope of a crop is gone. Livestock couldn’t pick sustenance from many of the fields. From the very best the yield will not exceed five bushels to the acre. This is not said on the basis of rumor or report, but from the writer’s observation.
Crop Years Few
For nearly a quarter of a century the battle has waged here to reclaim this area of 150,000 acres by dry land farming. The farmers acknowledge defeat. The rainfall isn’t enough. Since 1908 there have been six crop years. One hundred and six thousand acres of that part of the valley which lies like a gently sloping floor, was designated for irrigation and is included in the Jefferson Water Conservancy District, otherwise known as the North Unit project. One disappointment has followed another. The project has suffered from mistakes at home and from exploiters whose influence refused to let the plan proceed until they got their cut. The last appeal is now pending before the state securities commission at Salem and before the Portland Chamber of Commerce.
Most of the people have given up. They are gone. Some have left the country to work, for enough to eat, in Portland industries or elsewhere. They are holding the title to their lands until a final decision has been made as to reclamation.
Population Falls Off
In 1915 there were 600 families on the land here. There are now 100 families. These figures were given by Dave V. McBain and John McTaggart, the men who made the last assessment.
In the project proper are four towns – Madras, Metolius, Culver, and Gateway. Madras at its height had 500 people; it now has 200. Business has shrunk; according to various local estimates, from 30 to 50 percent. In 1909 and 1910 the Madras school, according to W. Cook, the teacher, had 165 children enrolled in the grades. There are less than 100 today, and some of them come from country districts where schools have been discontinued.
Metolius in 12 years has shrunk 90 percent. The lumber company is gone, the warehouse is closed, the Metolius Central Oregonian newspaper is gone except for a name painted on the side of an empty building. The store, one pool hall, one garage and one bank are open. The town had a population of 250. It now has 60.
Culver had a population of 150, which has shrunk to 42. It has two hotels closed and two stores open. It has a pool hall closed, a printing press stopped, a livery barn, confectionary and meat market suspended.
Gateway started out with two stores, a lumber yard, post office and water tank and it still has them.
Only Two Left
On the way from Prineville, one reaches Lamonta on the edge of the district. It looks like quite a town. But it is populated by memories of days gone. J.C. Rush and his mother are the only residents left, unless one counts a man named Blanchard just outside. Two years ago, you would have found open in Lamonta a hotel, three stores, telephone station, garage and post office besides the homes.
Down in the canyon of the Deschutes was Mecca. There isn’t any Mecca now.
There have been families here whose men and women, too, have worked from 4 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night, trying to establish a secure home on the soil. They are of the sturdy stock that anthropologists like Lathrop Stoddard say must hold America up to its ideal and its principles.
Apart from sympathy aroused by the plight of these survivors, one must see that one of two things will happen.
Their plea for credit with which to bring water from the Deschutes at Benham Falls will be granted within the next few weeks.
Or this handful of people still sticking it out must go with the rest and the wide valley, once with a family on every 160 acres will revert into sage brush and range.
The district has voted $5,000,000 in bonds in which $90,000 have been sold at a price of $90.00, leaving $4,910,000 yet to be sold. The completion of the project, it is said, would take from $1,500,000 to $3,000,000 more than has already been voted.
The state securities commission must decide.
A favorable decision will require the certification of the bonds of the Jefferson Water Conservancy district and such decision, since it involves lending the state’s credit, must be determined from a business viewpoint divorced from all sentiment created by the plight of these pioneers of the desert.
To Be Continued June 19
70 YEARS AGO
June 10, 1954
James E. Thompson and his father, James O. Thompson, Portland, have purchased the Culver Appliance from Mrs. A.E. Greenwell, it was announced late last week. The transaction was effective June 1. Under new ownership the store will be known as Culver Hardware.
Rupert Walker, Redmond, who purchased the Culver yard of the J.W. Copeland Lumber Company, effective June 1, announced plans for the reorganization of the business late last week.
The new owner of the business will eliminate the merchandizing of lumber and will specialize in hardware and supplies. Walker said that under new ownership the firm would handle Sherwin and Williams paints.
Lumber stock in Culver at the time of the sale is being transferred to the Madras Copeland yard.
Most Popular
Comments / 0