Vol 2 No. 3 - April 2008

Meeting Reports

The regular meetings continue to be the third Monday of the month. The highlight of most meetings is the entertainment afterwards. For a change of pace, the January 28 th meeting was opened by Dave Bliss with a reading of “Through the Sport's Hut Window,” his observations of the changes in Packwood during the past thirty years as seen from his store window. Turns out there's been plenty of changes. We have his presentation on videotape and DVD, and look forward to his booklet when he gets it put together.

After the meeting Bud Panco did an encore presentation of a trip to High Rock lookout. Again it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The only trouble was the videotape did not turn out; the cameraman focused on the entire screen instead of the slide itself, so the picture was small and the contrast too great to register properly – many pictures pretty much washed out. Good audio though!

After the meeting of February 25 th , Joe Kulig treated the attendees to Part II of his traipse through the Goat Rocks last year. Some nifty slides of scenery, flowers and goats. We had such an attendance for his presentation that we all had to move into the 5 th grade room. Due to technical difficulties, we also failed to get a videotape of that presentation.

The entertainment for the March 17 th meeting was scheduled to be the video of “The Greatest Good”, the story of the Forest Service, but by popular demand we showed “The Flood of 2007” video instead. Even better than the video was a reading by Bud Panco of his poem, “This Old Hat”, complete with the World War I campaign hat Elmer Hornquist gave to Bud. Brought tears to the eyes.

Back to the January meeting, the highlight of the meeting was the fact that we received our 501(c)3 designation. We are officially a non-profit organization. Now all we have to do is make use of it and actively pursue funding for continued operation of the Museum.

Another exciting occurrence was a visit to the Museum by representatives of Trans Alta January 21st, when they presented us with a check to purchase audio and video equipment. Buddy Rose captured the event for the East County Journal.

We have thus far dipped into that fund to purchase an Olympus digital voice recorder to capture interviews, a Canon 4x digital camera to capture still photos, and a JVC 30 gig digital camcorder to record interviews. When we learn how to properly utilize the equipment we can do non-stop interviews for hours.

We have been having Board meetings every Saturday morning as the need arises. Since visitors don't usually come until noon or so, it is an excellent time to take care of business. Anyone who'd like to attend need only appear at the Museum Saturday mornings 10 a.m.

One half-day long Board meeting was held at a house out in High Valley . The Board gathered around Martha's laptop and crafted the required report to Lewis County , justifying the grant we were given last summer. This grant has provided funds for the operation of the Museum to date.

Acknowledgements

  The museum has been open Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the winter thanks to the hard work of our volunteers. Oftentimes there are no visitors until after noon, so we are changing hours to Noon – 5 p.m. Saturdays and 1 – 3 p.m. Sundays for our summer hours. We urge all members who might be available to mind the museum for some of those hours to sign up at the regular meetings. Bud Panco has been and likely will continue to be there to serve as a tour guide and visit with anyone with a thirst for knowledge of the Packwood area. Anyone comes along who wants to know about Rainey Valley , we can trot out Jan Grose or Fred Little, but we could use someone more knowledgeable about the Randle area.

We wish to thank Trans Alta and their two representatives – Keith Elbert and Sandy Yanish for the nice donation for audiovisual supplies. We'll put them to good use during the upcoming interviews.

Speaking of which, during February two interviews were conducted: with Helen Coleman of Glenoma, and Ed and Jane McNee of Randle. Sometime in March we interviewed Al Orr in Morton. Then on March 18 th we interviewed the Haralson sisters – Audrey Lawson and Elsie Hanger at the Museum. We and our ancestors appreciate those who take the time to share their memories of times gone by. And we appreciate the interviewers – Jan Grose and Fred Little and Bud Panco and others – for taking the time to capture the memories.

Thanks to Karla Johnson of Americorps for arranging for the Historical Society to present a taste of local history to Martha Almquist's 7 th Grade class at White Pass High School, February 28th. President Janice Grose introduced three past and present board members who gave historical glimpses of Kosmos/Glenoma, Randle and Packwood. And thanks to the class for their rapt attention.

The presenters of entertainment after the regular monthly meetings deserve special accolades too. Dave Bliss and Bud Panco in January, Joe Kulig in February, and Jan Grose in March (she donated the DVD of “The Flood of 2007” to the Museum) for the highlights of the meetings. I expect attendance would fall off but for the presentations.

We had a light out in the conference room until Gary Hird graciously changed the ballast for us. Thanks Gary .

The problem with the light in the Accession Room (1 st Grade) was different, but John Kelly climbed the lofty wooden ladder and changed the bulbs for us. And then there was light! John even took away the mercury-tainted old bulbs for proper disposal. We owe John a load of thanks for that and helping Bill Thacker install the new lock on the conference room door.

Bill Thacker, now there's one busy carpenter. In addition to the lock on the conference meeting room door, he installed a lock on the President's door, and built a custom made shelf for the Accession Room, the first of many to come. Now we have a place to store the boxes of Accessioned articles. Maybe instead of that fancy word ‘accession,' we should say ‘receiving?' What would we do without Bill Thacker and Twyla Bates' shop?

Verna Morehouse invented a neat way to catch the ‘dust bunnies' that overrun the various rooms, so we may have to christen her our ‘dust bunny catcher'?

Americorps will be volunteering around the Museum March 28 th . Thanks to Marissa Hopkins and April ? for arranging this for us, and for their work. Let is be known that it is well appreciated.

Martha Garoutte and Bonnie Hanson had earlier painted one side of a Bill Thacker constructed sandwich sign which read “Museum Open.” Thanks to Laurie Seiber for painting the other side so we can place it a little more advantageously in front of the Museum.

Almost all of the earlier videos have been transferred to DVD thanks to the many hours of work by Martha Garoutte, using Laurie Seiber's equipment. When we get experienced in the use of the new digital equipment there will be little need to worry about transferring material.

Planning for the 10 th Annual Mountain Festival & Quilt Show May 2-4, 2008 continues with Jan Grose, Martha Garoutte, Vicki Lawrence and a small cadre of helpers. They could use more helpers come the days of reckoning.

Thanks to the Board and Martha Garoutte for preparing a grant request to Hamburger Helper for some copy and printing equipment. If we are successful, we'll need only some computers to be in business.

Laurie Seiber continues to maintain the website. There's some new material there, so them who can ought to visit to see if it's all correct. And notify us if you find something wrong.

A few of us have been entering the Xerox Sweepstake on-line, trying to win a Xerox Phaser 8860 dry ink printer (a $2500 value) for the Museum. No luck thus far, but we keep trying. If you'd like to increase our chances of winning, visit http://www.office.xerox.com/solid-ink/solid-ink-8860-sweeps/miss-enus.html and take the challenge. An entry puts us in the running for the $4000 grand prize too!

Likely I've missed thanking someone for something, like Virginia Squires for her work in the library and all around, plus the fine pot of chili she provided that Saturday, Don Squires for lending us the George Braman booklet to copy, Marilyn Smith, Penny Degener and Betty Panco for the teapots featured in the February display, and especially Marge Koher Lloyd for the gift of an incredible amount of information about our area (there were loads of binders full of material). What a treasure!

Then there's the Rebekah books Sharon Embum gave to the Museum; that's pretty special too.

We've had some neat items lent to us too. Of particular interest to me was an old map of the State of Washington lent by Bryan DeLong. We've had a laminated copy made and hung in the Display Room (3 rd Grade). Gary Matchett lent us a 1948 Metsker's Atlas of Lewis County. Hopefully we'll make copies of our area one of these days. We've made and hung a laminated copy of Gary 's c1945 map of the Village of Packwood . And that's just the maps.

We want to thank Twila Bowen, or whoever it was from her shop who called the other day to tell us Mary Kiona's great grand daughter was in town. We met Nina Placid at the Museum and had a two-hour visit. Between Nina and Janet Healy, Grant writer for the Cowlitz Tribe, we may be able to find copies of Mary Kiona tapes.

One of our famous members, Kosmopolitan Don Thayer, was featured in a recent issue of the Seattle Times. Hopefully we can get permission to reprint it one of these times.

Edna Fund has been instrumental in getting attention for the White Pass Country Historical Society. She's our go-to gal to get information in the Chronicle and its visitor guide issue. We certainly cherish those high intensity promoters like Edna and Marge Lloyd, among others.

In Passing

Raymond Kenneth Stephens , 83, Randle, died February 28, 2008. Nothing is known of Mr. Stephens at this time, but the surname dates back to 1890 when George H. Stephens homesteaded in the Falls Road area.

Announcements

We hope to have a better showing even than last year when the Quilt Show was in the schoolhouse and the crafters and displays were in the gym. Locations will be reversed this year. Highlights will be the ‘Sundowners' playing in the 5 th grade room Saturday, and Roy Wilson offering a blessing on Sunday. Plenty of other doin's too.

Clean-up after the Mountain Festival will be May 7 th at 10:00 a.m. Remember, more hands make less work.

Summer hours will begin after Memorial Day. If we have enough people to staff the Museum we may be open Saturday of Memorial Day weekend; if not we'll be open Saturdays Noon until 5:00 p.m. and Sundays 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. through the summer. Come Labor Day we'll go back to winter hours.

Last years members who don't receive this newsletter will know they are in arrears, and we would dearly like to have you re-enlist for another year.

Keep us in mind if you have any ideas for activities. One thing we're thinking of is a ‘mountain mosey' from the pipeline road to Packwood Lake , down the old Packwood Lake trail to the 1960's trailhead. The abandoned trail is surprisingly good except for some brushy spots, and one or two areas of blowdown. Check with us if interested.

Feature Article

The following article, written by Bart Ripp, former food editor for the Tacoma News Tribune, appeared in the February 20, 2001 issue of the newspaper.

GLENOMA, Lewis County – Mists unveil Dog Mountain . The mountain was home to camps where trains and trucks hauled logs cut by men. Dog Mountain is gone to sports utility vehicles with manly names, and hang gliders sailing down sunny days to the town that drowned. Kosmos lived and died in Dog Mountain 's shadow. The town lived maybe 70 years. In the early 1960s, Kosmos submitted to Tacoma Power's wish to build a dam at Mossyrock and submerge the town in a manmade basin called Riffe Lake . The $133 million Cowlitz River Project inundated Kosmos. Its lumber mill closed, its logging town vanished in a payoff of $2.4 million. And yet, come winter chill, Kosmos reappears. Like Alder, the Pierce County town that was submerged when Tacoma Power needed to build a reservoir, Kosmos resurfaces in muck, summoned by receding water and visible with foundations of houses and places. These forms whisper that something happened here. Unlike Alder, Kosmos was not moved up the hill. The mill closed, people moved away, Kosmos died. The last buildings were razed in 1965, the Cowlitz River filled the manmade lake and Mossyrock Dam first generated power for Tacoma in 1969."A lot of the older people, they died within a short period of time after the move," John Carnahan said. "They were uprooted from their homes. They couldn't adjust." Carnahan is 91. He came to Kosmos in 1937, broke. He had gone bust farming in King Hill , Idaho . From 1945 to 1960, Carnahan owned the Kosmos Korner Store. "We sold everything from .22 shells on up," Carnahan said. "Caulk shoes, work boots, logging clothes, axes, White Owl cigars, plugs of chewing tobacco sliced with an old cutter. Big, 20-pound wheels of cheese I got from Darigold and then aged and cut myself. I told folks I've got whatever they want – if I can just find it. "One sunny afternoon in about 1952, State Police cars and motorcycles roared up to Kosmos Korner Store. Troopers and men in suits came in for bottles of pop. One man bought five cigars and handed John Carnahan a silver dollar. "That'll be 75 cents, including tax for the governor," Carnahan said. "That would be me," said Gov. Arthur B. Langlie, who had come from dedicating the new White Pass Highway up past Packwood. Like the governor, everyone who came to Kosmos asked about the name. There is a Cosmopolis near Aberdeen in Grays Harbor County , and a Cosmos in southwestern Minnesota , but Kosmos was a unique moniker. Kosmos was coined by a Coiner. Ida Hare Coiner was Iowan by birth and literary by nature. She came up with Kosmos – taken from the Greek word for universe – when her husband Col. B.W. Coiner became one of the Cowlitz Valley 's first settlers. He was a real colonel. No hokey handles for Col. Beverly Waugh Coiner. He was from Mount Pleasant , Iowa , the son of a Methodist minister killed in the Civil War. Col. Coiner taught English in Brazil, returned to his hometown of Mount Pleasant to be the mayor at age 26, came west to Tacoma to practice law in 1884, served as an Army officer in the Spanish-American War of 1898, was Pierce County prosecuting attorney, United States attorney appointed by President William H. Taft, and died in Tacoma in 1932, age 74.Coiner had a 95-acre farm on the Cowlitz between Kosmos and Nesika, also named by his wife. Ida preferred the house they built at 717 N. I St. in Tacoma . "I know she hated living way out there. That's why they lived in Tacoma ," LaVonne M. Sparkman said. She is a Morton resident who has written four books on East Lewis County history. "Nobody knows where she got the name," Sparkman said. Kosmos's corner of the world had 500 men working in Kosmos Timber Company's mill, a lumber camp recreation hall called The Blue Room, from 100 to 150 people living in town, the Kosmos Korner Store, a dance hall, a tavern named the Circle H Tavern that became called Big Dick's after owner Dick Wierdt, and a post office that doubled as home to the Palorose Cafe. Carnahan's sister Elizabeth Barrett and husband Kenneth Barrett ran the restaurant. Kenneth Barrett raised palomino horses. Elizabeth Barrett, postmaster for 40 years, nurtured a garden with 350 rose bushes, some 35 varieties of rhododendrons, 2,500 gladiolus and more than 100 varieties of dahlias. The name Palorose was a hybrid of palomino and rose. "Her mother (Lissa Barrett) had been a professional cook and she baked pies for the Palorose," said Harold Cooper, 73, a former Lewis County commissioner, and partners with brother George in the family logging business. "People came all the way from Chehalis for her blackberry pies," Carnahan said. In the dried mud bed that was Kosmos, red and green tiles survive on a concrete foundation – relics of the Palorose floor. A few cement pads mark where the Kosmos Korner Store stood. The foundations emerge in February, but this is an exceptional winter. Riffe Lake , 778 feet elevation when full, and normally 680 to 700 feet, has sunk to a record low of 648 feet. Tacoma Power and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife have placed additional signs and vehicle barriers on the lake bed. Citations run $71 to $500."I was out here a couple of Sundays back," Harold Cooper said, "and couldn't find a place to park." Being a Kosmos native – a Kosmopolitan? – Cooper knew the way to trails at the base of Dog Mountain . The Cooper brothers know logging roads where they can see foundations of the lumber mill, a sketchy outline of the town, and an eddy in the Cowlitz where kids caught trout and steelhead salmon. Everyone called it Kosmos Pool. A big puddle remains where the Kosmos Timber Co. powder house left this world one night in 1962 – a concussive harbinger of the town's demise. The powder house exploded with a boom that uprooted alders, broke windows and lifted houses from their foundations. Nobody was hurt beyond scratches from flying glass. It was a kids' prank. "Damn near took me out of bed," George Cooper said. "If they hadn't taken two tons of dynamite out of the powder house that very day, the whole town would have blown." The explosion left a murky pool where the powder house sat. Come February, the powder house pool marks where the mill stood and Kosmos lived. "You know how the South treats a Yankee? That's how we feel about Tacoma ," George Cooper said. "It's a hell of a feeling when somebody walks up to your door to buy you out and you know you have to sell." He received $33,000 for 12 acres with 13 buildings, including his house. Behind George Cooper's house in Glenoma, on a ridge above Riffe Lake , is a tall shed full of tools and memories. It's the only building left from Kosmos, salvaged by Cooper when he moved up the hill. On cold days when mists swirl Dog Mountain 's woods and Riffe Lake 's waters trickle to Mossyrock Dam, George Cooper goes out back to get a hammer or an axe. Every time he walks in that hulk of a shed, he thinks of a place just down the hill and never forgotten.

Bart Ripp

Rainey, Victory or Chim Chin Vally Dates

Walker Tompkins wrote the first chronological history of the Big Bottom back in 1933. Unfortunately, no such chronological history of the Fulton to Verndale area is available. To find out who the first settlers in the area were we have to research many sources, including land survey records, homestead records, newspapers and family histories.

It is generally believed that the first white man to visit the area was Simon Plamondon, a Hudson 's Bay Company trapper who might have visited the Indians around Cowlitz Falls in 1820.

Other trappers may have frequented the area during the fur trading era, but they left no trace or record of such activity.

Early settlers of the Randle area firmly believed that the Hudson 's Bay Company established a post at the mouth of Surrey Creek and helped the local Indians establish agriculture at Chapman Prairie. Again, no records have been found to verify this belief.

The first documented visit by white men was during the summer of 1864, when a party including L.A. Davis passed up the Cowlitz River to the summit country.

In 1880, Virgil R. Bogue led a Northern Pacific railroad reconnaissance party up the Cowlitz and Cispus Rivers to view the Cispus and Tieton Passes as possible routes for a railroad. Interest in the proposed railroad spurred the first settlers to enter the Big Bottom. The early settlers in the Big Bottom country were squatters because they claimed land which was not yet surveyed and open to settlement.

James T. Berry, with helpers Augustus Rainey, Charles Dessieux and John D. Berry surveyed most of Rainey Valley (Township 12 North, Range 5 East, Willamette Meridian, from the mouth of Sand Creek to Lunch Creek) in July and August 1881. The only name on the land office map produced from that survey was Henry Williams, Indian, shown in the Frost-Steffen Creek area south of Uden Road . This would indicate that there were no settlers in this area at that time.

The best source for when the settlers first came would be the Homestead Proof papers, available for a fee from the National Archives. Since they are not available at this writing, the next best indication of the date of entry would be newspapers and obituaries. From these sources, it would appear that among the first settlers were Emil Steffin in 1884, John Sann in 1886, Rempt (and probably Johannes) Uden in 1887, J. A. Ulsh, E. E. Edlund, and John Bloomstrom in 1888, and Andrew, Nels, and Knute Anderson in 1889 or 90. A party of Kentuckians, including the Brown, Peters, Stephens and Stump families arrived in 1890, but most of the settled in the Big Bottom. Fred Frost was a settler of 1891.

The first settler in the Rainey Valley area to receive a homestead patent was Emil B. Steffin (near Kosmos) January 28, 1891, followed by Alfred Hughes April 3, 1891. (Lauman Eddy area). Hans Louis Hendrickson ( Fulton area) received his patent February 8, 1892, Nathaniel Starks (west half Kosmos Flats area) June 20, 1893 and John Sann (Sand Creek area) February 10, 1894.

The Northern Pacific Railroad owned the odd number sections in this area; these lands were selected ‘in lieu' of property the railroad would have received had the railroad been completed before settlement. The first railroad property sold in this area was purchased by Sam Carlisle (Kosmos Flats area) April 4, 1891.

The first post office in the area was the Verndale post office, established July 26, 1890 with William Johnston as postmaster.. Downriver, the Fulton post office was established by Homer Fulton November 11, 1891. When that post office was washed away by the Cowlitz River , the post office was moved to Shinglemill Eddy, and Charles Hopkinson became postmaster December 12, 1896. The post office was renamed Kosmos June 15, 1903. Meanwhile, the name of the Verndale post office was shortened to Vern September 9, 1903, then discontinued August 31, 1911, with the mail going to Kosmos. The Glenoma post office was established October 21, 1912 at the S.C. Fisher residence. When the Kosmos post office was closed from January 15, 1913 until August 4, 1921, and after it was discontinued June 2, 1967, mail went to Glenoma.

There must have been a few families in the area before 1890 because Vern School District #59 was organized July 12, 1889, two months before the first school in the Big Bottom, Vance, was organized. Kosmos School District #87 was organized July 18, 1893, Glenoma District #110 November 11, 1902, and Crawford School District #129 June 14, 1910. These schools were combined into Glenoma Consolidated School District #209 February 2, 1912.

A large two-story school house was built at the location of the Glenoma Elementary School about 1912. It burned January 24, 1932, cause unknown. The present school was opened in October 1932 and served Rainey Valley until it was closed at the end of the 2003-4 school year.

The Cowlitz Indian trail is shown on the earliest land surveys (1881), crossing the Cowlitz River at Fulton and running up Rainey Valley toward Randle. The Indians would help settlers cross the river at that point. Homer Fulton settled on the north side of the Cowlitz at that point and set up a ferry, probably in 1891 about the time he opened the post office of Fulton . Likely it was the flood of 1896 that washed away Fulton 's ferry and post office and ferry. For a few years thereafter, the Indians must have resumed ferrying people across the river in that vicinity. The Washington State legislature passed a bill providing for the Cowlitz Pass Highway in 1903, but Governor McBride vetoed it. Although the legislature overrode his veto in 1905, it was not until 1913 that a contract for the Nesika Bridge was let. The bridge was dedicated September 5, 1914; Mrs. Joe Chilcoat had the honor of christening it ‘Nesika.' Rempt Uden in his new Ford car must have been one of the first people across the new bridge. In the very same issue of the Chehalis Bee-Nugget, Uden and friends made the trip to Chehalis in the amazing time of three and a quarter hours. The bridge was washed out (probably just the south approach) during the winter of 1918-1919, and reopened in August 1920.

All during the 1920 and 1930's State Road 5 through Rainey Valley was being improved. That road served the area well at least until the 1950's.