People Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Mount Hood History

Adolf Aschoff’s Letters To Home

It’s funny how certain situations can go in a full circle. Even old postcards sent on the other side of the world over 100 years ago can find their way back to their origin. I collect old photos and old photo postcards, especially those with historical significance to the towns and the area that surrounds Mount Hood.

In my searches I found a card on the Internet located in Germany that was from Marmot Oregon, written by Adolf Aschoff and sent to a nephew in Germany. I bought the card and in our conversation I asked if there were any more. The seller told me that he had bought one card in a shop in town but would go back to see if there were more. I ended up buying six cards in all. Every one written in old German language in Adolf Aschoff’s meticulous longhand penmanship. The writing is so small one almost needs a magnifying glass to read it.

Because I do not speak or read German I asked friends if anyone could help. My friend Bill White said that his German friend, who lives in Germany, might be able to help. I scanned the messages and then emailed them to Bill who forwarded them to his friend.

Some time passed and Bill forwarded six MS Word Documents to me with the messages typed in German as well as their translation in English. I was so excited and grateful.

Adolf was from Celle Germany. He settled in Marmot in 1883 and built Mount Hood’s first resort, Aschoff’s Mountain Home. He was known for his cheerful and enthusiastic demeanor. He was the prefect host who catered to and entertained his guests and everyone who talked about him described him as cheerful and energetic, but these correspondence paint a more intimate picture of Adolf. Life for him was not easy and had a lot of worry, stress and heartbreak. For more information about Adolf and the town of Marmot you can read about it at this link. CLICK HERE

Below are the photos and their messages.

Adolf Aschoff’s Letters To Home

Marmot, Oregon, July 16, 1908

My dear Otto!

It always goes on in business, from early in the morning to late in the evening. A lot of annoyance and little joy is my experience. Again I just lost a beautiful horse, my wife thought a lot about the (poor) animal. She called it hers. We have a lot of rain and it is quite cold and then we have very deep paths again – everything seems to go wrong, even in nature.

On the other side (of the postcard) you can see our house. No. 1 is my wife, No. 2 is a maid. I keep my two year old German stallion.

Best regards. Your old (friend)
Adolf Aschoff

Marmot, Ore. March 22, 1910 6 am

Dear Otto!

We are desperately awaiting a sign of life of you from the old homeland with every incoming mail – and from day to day – week to week etc. I am trying to find the time and opportunity to write to you. I have not been well for quite some time now – I suffer headaches – melancholy etc. I wish I could sell us – had a great offer but my wife wasn´t please. If I don´t try to visit Germany soon – I will probably never see it again. Both of our sons, Ernst and Henry, are now fathers of two strong boys. – We had an awful time with our three daughters in the last year – all three of them had major operations in the hospital, and now our Emma is back at the hospital and is being operated again.

On the other side (front side) you see Gustav, our youngest son on a foal, as he was riding it for the first time, he is 15 years old.

Please, write to me very soon.
Have a happy Easter wishes you your uncle
Adolf Aschoff

Marmot, Ore. July 19, 1910

Dear Otto,

Your endearing letter has been received. Your letter has doubled the desire to see you and the beloved old homeland – I know I would be welcome at your home and if you knew me better, you would know that a westerner does not cause any inconvenience – We have loads of trouble, loads of work – with the hay harvest and everything adds together – The salary for the workers is very high – chef (lady) $70.00 per M, house maid $20-25.00, day laborers $2.50 – $4-5 per day. I don´t know how this is going to end. All workers only want to work 8 hours – but we are usually working 18 hours a day – will write as soon as I have a few minutes to myself

Best wishes from all of us,
Your uncle Adolf Aschoff

Marmot, Ore. February 25, 1911

My dearest Otto,

I hope you have received the newspaper “The Oregonian”, I am sending you the same one, so you can get an idea of the growth of the American cities. As we arrived in Oregon, Portland was about the size of Celle – now Portland has more than 230,000 citizens. We are well, except for Otto, who has been in the hospital for months. Best wishes to you and your dear family.

Your uncle Adolf Aschoff.

PS: I will try to write you a letter soon.

Marmot, Ore. 6/13/1912

My dear Otto,

I haven´t heard anything from you for quite some time now, I try to receive a sign of life, “an answer” to this postcard. I am sending you a newspaper with this letter and I send more if you are interested.

Various accidents have again happened to our family. Our daughter Marie is very sick – our son Ernst has fallen of a …?…. post and our son Otto has chopped himself in the leg. Due to the incautiousness of a stranger I have been thrown of my carriage and I suffer pain in my right arm and shoulder. More work than ever, I wish we could sell us, it is getting to much for my wife and me – from 5 am to 11 pm day to day we slave away (like ox) without a break. Dear Otto, I hope you and your loved ones are well and at good health.

The most sincere wishes from all of us to you and your dear family.

Your uncle Adolf Aschoff

Marmot, Ore. January 30, 1913 – To: Mrs. Adele Aschoff

My dear friends,

Marmot shows a different picture these days than on the other side of this card. The snow has started to melt, but it will take a long time until the last traces will be gone.

Our dear daughter Marie is still very sick, it is better on some days and then she suffers bad seizures.

Best wishes,

Your Adolf Aschoff

Marmot, Ore. Nov. 19. 1916

My dear Adele, (Mrs. Adele Aschoff)

Thank you very much for your wishes – I am very happy that our dear Otto is still healthy and I hope that he soon will be back with his loved ones well and brisk. Please send him my best regards. I haven´t received anything from Eugen in the last months – newspapers etc. No news have arrived since February from you as well as Eugen. My son Karl has broken his arm when he started (? “up-winded”) an automobile – my wife is very sick again. Please write back to me even if it´s only a few lines.

With the best regards

Your uncle Adolf Aschoff

#adolph #adolf Aschoff #marmot Oregon

Adolf Aschoff and Marmot Oregon

Adolf Aschoff and Marmot Oregon’s History Marmot Oregon is a place more than it is a town. It is located

Adolph Aschoff – Wikipedia

Adolph Aschoff (May 21, 1849–1930) was a homesteader in the U.S. state of Oregon in the late 19th century. He established the community of Marmot, Oregon …

Snow Saga of Lige Coalman

Intro: This is a story that was transcribed from the retelling by Victor H. White in 1972 of a story from the life of Mount Hood legend, Elijah “Lige” Coalman. In 1972 Victor H. White took transcripts of Lige Coalman’s life as they were recorded by Lige himself. He also had the opportunity to interview Lige to help fill in some blanks. In his own words; “I re-wrote Lige Coalman’s own manuscript, condensed it, re-phrased it, and edited it. I shortened it and omitted repetitious and non-essential material. I did not add, change or exaggerate anything.”

The following story is one of the stories that Victor White left from the book, but felt that it was worthy of retelling in a subsequent publication. The story really does exemplify just how wild and primitive the area from Sandy to Mount Hood really was.

Snow Saga of Lige Coalman

Adventure, danger and unusual happenings along the old Oregon Trail west of The Dalles to Portland were limited neither to the early days before 1860 nor to the fork of the trail that used the Columbia River as a highway.

Westward from The Dalles, the overland route of the wagon-driving immigrants turned first south, then westward south of Mount Hood over Barlow Pass. This route across the Cascades became a toll road with specific charges for each wagon, horseman, cow or sheep which used it and, because of existing government land use laws at the time, there was one man who did something in that locality no one else ever attempted before or since. His name was Dr. Herbert C. Miller, then Dean of the Northwest, Dental College located in East Portland. Doctor Miller established a large farm at Clackamas Meadows directly at the summit of the Cascade Range, some fifteen miles south of the toll road, where snow might fall ten, twelve or fifteen feet deep and there was no access save a mountain trail impassable for several months except on snowshoes.

There was then a roadhouse at Government Camp which was also, then as now, the jumping-off place for the start up Mount Hood by the way of the timberline where the ski lodge is today. This accommodation was a mile or so north of where the original Oregon Trail had passed.

On one particular December night in 1914, four men, one woman and two children, the entire winter population of Government Camp, were all sleeping peacefully in the hostelry building when Lige Coalman was awakened by a noise that sounded like something scratching and clawing at the door and moaning or shouting feebly. There was nine feet of snow on the ground and the temperature was near zero.

Lige Coalman was thirty-three at the time and perhaps the most capable and experienced mountain man in all Oregon. Those with him in the building, besides his wife and his two children, were a foster brother, Roy Mitchell, and an old timer from Oklahoma named Lundy.

Lige got out of bed and went to the door. His movement and the continued unfamiliar pounding at the door roused the others. Lige opened the door and a man’s body that had balanced against it, fell into the room. This man’s head was completely bound and covered with a wool muffler, although he had evidently arranged a slit for his eyes as he had beaten his way through the storm and finally fallen against the roadhouse door at almost the exact moment of complete exhaustion.

Coalman dragged him forward, closed the door and called to his wife and the others, “Get a fire going; this man’s nearly frozen.”

But warmth already had the fellow able to half sit up and he was desperately trying to explain, “Man, woman and baby… two miles… in snow… will freeze…” He pointed shakily down the mountain in the direction of Rhododendron and Portland.

As soon as the muffler was off the man’s head, Lige Coalman recognized Doctor Miller, Dean of the dental college, who owned the farm at Clackamas Lake. Lige also personally knew the man, woman and one-year-old child who were down the road in danger of freezing. They were the Andrews Family, who had been helping to run the butcher shop in Sandy, Oregon, about 30 miles to the west and below heavy snows.

The three men got Miller into a bed with warm blankets over him. Mrs. Coalman had hot chocolate in brief moments and got busy massaging circulation into Miller’s frosted limbs. Mitchell and Lundy immediately bundled up and started for a frozen location known in the summer as Big Mud Hole on the Laurel Creek Road. Lige spent a few moments helping his wife feed and partially restore Doctor Miller’s circulation, then followed the other men down the mountain.

In the early 1900’s tuberculosis was perhaps the most common cause of death in the Northwest among both Indians and whites. It was commonly believed that a high, dry, clean atmosphere was imperative to recovery. Thousands of persons went to Arizona for possible cure but limited finances made this pilgrimage merely a mirage of hope for the wealthy. Nearer to home, high and, if possible, dry hills were often specifically chosen for tuberculosis hospitals and sanitariums. It had come to Doctor Miller’s attention that a particular spot in the Cascade Range at Clackamas Lake seemed to have definite benefits of nature that could serve both as a means of profit and as a boon to mankind as a site for a tuberculosis sanitarium because it was true then as it is now that Clackamas Meadows, situated at the very top of the Cascades, enjoyed a prevailing easterly wind almost as uniformly as the summit of Mount Hood has a never-changing southwesterly wind.

This dry wind swirls air from Eastern Oregon into the high Cascades as happens in no other spot of those mountains. But unlike the southwest wind on Hood, the Clackamas wind does shift in winter to bring in heavy snows from the west.

Doctor Miller’s problem arose from the fact that Clackamas Meadows was within the boundaries of the Mt Hood National Forest which was withdrawn from homestead entry unless proven to be adapted to agriculture. It was this agricultural adaptability that Doctor Miller proceeded to prove in order to claim ownership and build a sanitarium.

He built a log dwelling, barn and other outbuildings, all strongly constructed with roofs that could uphold the possible fifteen feet of winter snow. He plowed several acres of meadow, dug drainage ditches, planted a family orchard and arranged a garden plot. Then he brought in a team of horses, milk cows, pigs and chickens. He truly established what amounted to a Siberian or Canadian home-site. He even went to the extent of panting the meadow to wheat, oats and barley and a variety of timothy which he actually did import from Siberia. A young German named Meyers, with two of his cousins, was employed to run this farm as caretaker during the winter season, when they also picked up several hundred dollars additional income by trapping fur bearing fox, lynx, pine marten and wolverine. Their traps also yielded beaver, otter and mink along the Clackamas River.

Several winters of this, however, had proven enough for the three young Germans. When Meyers was offered a job by the city street car company in Portland, all three farm workers asked Doctor Martin to relieve them and this was why the arrangement had been made to hire the butcher’s helper and his family from Sandy.

That night about midnight, Mitchell and Lundy found the butcher, with his wife and baby, crouched around a fir twig fire they had managed to start on the snow. Partially sheltered by a toboggan loaded with household goods and personal effect, they were nevertheless in critical condition. The baby, having been best protected by the mother, was the only one not suffering frostbite by the time Lige Coalman arrived and they were then able to complete their trip back to Government Camp where they arrived at daybreak. It took four days of warmth, rest and food before they party dared venture on. Then, with Lige Coalman and Mitchell accompanying Miller and his new employees, the party of five adults and the baby undertook the remaining fifteen or sixteen miles of snowshoe and toboggan travel toward Clackamas Meadows.

The strenuous first day of struggle through glaresnow, sometimes ice-encrusted, brought them up about fourteen hundred feet of elevation by noon. They had pulled the toboggan to Frog Lake by two o’clock and Mrs. Andrews and the baby were able to ride the remaining two miles of slight downgrade to an old cabin on Clear Lake by early evening.

Part of the cabin roof had caved in. All but the baby fell to work, using boards as shovels. Thus they cleared the snow from the part of the frozen bare ground, which was still roofed. They felled a dry cedar snag with an axe from the sleigh, got a fire going and then cut fir boughs, which were partially dried to make a mattress, upon which their complete exhaustion enabled them to sleep intermittently for a few hours before dawn.

By 6 a.m. a new wind started snow sifting down on the weary sleepers. By 7:30 they had finished the breakfast they had planned and, after running into a new snow storm at nine, they pressed in and won the relaxing comfort of the snug Miller log house by noon.

Lige Coalman and Mitchell planned to bring the three farmer caretakers back to Government Camp in a fast one day sprint. Before noon, however, one of the Germans, who thought that he had fully recovered from a recent bout with the flu, began suffering a relapse. Before nightfall, he was running a high fever and had to be placed on a toboggan with additional blankets and medicine. By the end of the second day, the sick man was brought to Government Camp suffering high fever and delirium. His life was nip and tuck for almost a week and it was the middle of February before he had recovered sufficiently to go on in to Portland.

Indeed, the hazards and hardships of winter travel in all of the Oregon Trail Country through the Cascade Mountains in 1914 had changed little in sixty or seventy years. Although a doctor was available in Sandy, the means of hisd getting to a sick man at Government Camp through ten feet of snow was hardly a practical undertaking. Even today a sudden snow storm can close the modern highway for indefinite periods while the most modern equipment struggles around the clock to keep things moving between Barlow Pass and Sandy. This can happen most any time from November 1st until the middle of March or even later.

For some twenty miles eastward from Barlow Pass modern man seems to find no use for any kind of highway at all and only a toilsome dirt roadway marks a course for a few intrepid tourists and fisherman who venture for pleasure down Barlow Creek up which the early immigrants struggles to reach the rich agricultural promise of the Willamette Valley and the new world trade center of Portland.

Lige Coalman | WyEast Blog

Jul 30, 2020 … Known informally as the Little Sandy Glacier, this small body of ice is perched on the rocky shoulder of Cathedral Ridge, near the Glisan Glacier.

Government Camp Oregon

Government Camp Oregon The History of Government Camp Oregon, on the south side of Mount Hood.

Adolf Aschoff and Marmot Oregon

Adolf Aschoff and Marmot Oregon’s History

Marmot Oregon is a place more than it is a town. It is located along the last stretch of the Oregon Trail, the old plank covered Barlow Road. Between 1883 and 1930 it was a destination for many people that came to experience the great outdoors and to launch their adventures on Mount Hood. Located in the forested foothills in the west side of Mount Hood about six miles east of the town of Sandy, Marmot is situated on a ridge with the Sandy River to the south and the Little Sandy River and Bull Run to the north. It was a wilderness when Marmot was established.

The story of Marmot is less about a town or a place than it is about a man. Marmot’s pioneer and developer of the town’s commercial ventures, such as its store, hotel, stables and museum were owned and operated by Johann Adolf (Adolph) Aschoff. There were no other businesses there. Aschoff was even Marmot’s postmaster when the post office was established in 1890, where he kept meticulous records in perfect penmanship. Adolf Aschoff was a German immigrant who has cemented his name into the fabric and history of Mount Hood and the south side towns between Sandy and Government Camp and indeed, the whole Mount Hood National Forest.

Adolf Aschoff was born in Celle, Hanover, Germany, May 21, 1849. He was the son of a shoe manufacturer who was said to have descended from Russian royalty. He was educated for the clergy but his love for the outdoors led his path in other directions. Adolf’s father wanted his children to be educated and cultured and not have to work in the factories like he had. Adolf’s education covered language, history, theology, art, music and physical sciences. He worked with the Royal Forester when he was 16, an experience that will serve him well in his life. Adolf became a very talented musician, artist and storyteller and one of Mount Hood’s earliest photographers.

In 1866 at the age of 17, while still in Germany, he organized a club of enthusiastic young men called “Maybugs”. Their activities varied from studying to fun making, and perhaps a little political activism. It seems that this group became involved in trouble with a group of Prussian officers. This was during the Austro-Prussian War and, although Hanover tried to maintain a neutral position, in June of 1866 Germany mobilized troops against Prussia which ended up dissolving Hanover and its subsequent annexation by Prussia. That Summer saw 17,000 Prussian soldiers cross over the Hanover boundary line. Adolf was involved in taunting the invading soldiers as well as plastering violent posters all over which made him very unpopular with the Prussians. One night the “Maybugs”, said to have been a bit tipsy, bumped into several Prussian officers. There was a tussle and three of the officers were knocked down. As a result of this he was forced to flee. He claimed to have escaped and ran to a lake where he stayed submerged, except for his face, for a day and into the night. He made his way to the home of a female benefactor, said to be Princess Fredericka, who provided help to facilitate his escape to Austria, then to France and eventually to England where a forged passport allowed him passage to America, entering as a political exile.

Adolf arrived in New York in November of 1869 on the steamer Nebraska. He made a living for some time as a wood carver and engraver but New York was too crowded for him. He went to New Jersey, then to Illinois and finally to Kansas in 1871 where he and his brother Ernest took up a homestead. In 1872 Adolf Aschoff married Dorotea “Dora” Gein in Rush County Kansas. Dora was born in Germany November 21st, 1853 and had immigrated to America with her parents when she was 14 years old. Adolf and Dora had a farm while in Kansas where their first four children were born. His time in Kansas provided much material for stories that he’d tell the rest of his life. He told tales of his adventuresome days as a pioneer and cowboy and how he had met the likes of “Calamity Jane” and was hired by “Buffalo Bill” Cody hunting buffalo to supply meat to the railroads.

While in Kansas Aschoff watched as wagons of people heading to Oregon passed by his farm and in 1882 he and Dora decided to do the same. They left their homestead and moved to Portland, Oregon where they lived near Mt Tabor. They raised and sold vegetables around town for a living. Adolf was described as looking like a nobleman with a trim little goatee, elegant manners, a strong German accent and, with his gift for storytelling as well as his artistic and musical talents, found it easy to gather influential friends while living in the city. These friends and connections proved to be invaluable in the following years as he developed his resort in Marmot.

Adolf and Dora moved from Portland to Marmot in the Spring of 1883 where they paid $900 for 240 acres of land located along the last section of the Oregon Trail known as The Barlow Road. It was located between the little town of Sandy and Mount Hood and was situated on a ridge the settlers used to call “The Devil’s Backbone”. The land was beautiful forestland with the Sandy River to the south side and the Little Sandy River and what would become the Bull Run watershed to the north. At that time it was the only road to Mount Hood from Portland and the travelers to and from the mountain passed by his land, and in 1883 it was the furthest east outpost between Portland and Mount Hood. Marmot became a regular stop along the way for travelers.

Immediately after acquiring the land Adolph started work on a log cabin for him and Dora, but it soon became clear that many of the friends that he made in Portland were interested in coming to the Aschoff’s to stay or launch adventures to Mount Hood. Adolph was quoted as saying, “I never really intended to run a resort, but my friends importuned until I had to, and I have had as many as 200 guests at one time.” Many climbing parties started from Marmot with Adolf acting as a guide. He built guest cabins and started entertaining borders and guests at 50 cents per day or $3/ week. Business was so good that he built a hotel and by 1902 had expanded to 23 rooms. The hotel was named “Aschoff’s Mountain Home”. It was a large two story building with balconies surrounding both levels with ornate trim that reflected its owner’s artistic abilities. The main level contained a large dining room which could seat 100 people, a kitchen with a huge wood burning stove and a zinc covered sink board as well as a sitting room and a bedroom. Upstairs held seven bedrooms.

In 1890 Adolf built a post office and became the postmaster for “Marmot Oregon”. It’s an interesting story about how he chose the name Marmot for his town. When he arrived there he noticed burrows which some locals had told him were made by marmots but he later discovered them to be mountain beavers. When the post office was established Aschoff and two of his friends decided to name it “Marmot” in spite of this error.

Adolf built a store where he sold essentials to guests and travelers. He also built a museum on the site where he displayed relics of the past, his artwork, photographs as well as mounted displays of animals that he had hunted. The animals were featured in a display at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1907 in Portland, Oregon.

On May 19, 1897, he was appointed the first Forest Ranger for the Cascade Range Forest Reserve, which became the Mount Hood National Forest and was soon appointed as Supervisor in charge of many Rangers. Adolf is credited with blazing the Skyline Trail between Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. His service lasted until 1906 when he left due to disagreements with supervisors and the bureaucracy of the job. He resigned from the Forest Service.

Adolf and Dora had nine children. The first four were born while he and Dora still lived in Kansas. Operating a hotel, a post office, being a guide as well as his position as the Mount Hood National Forest supervisor was a lot of work and so having a large family helped.

Mary Sophia Aschoff (1873–1914) 25 Sep 1873 • Pioneer Township, Rush, KS
Ernest John Aschoff (1876–1954) 21 May 1876 • Pioneer Township, Rush, KS
Amelia O Aschoff (1878–1939) 29 Oct 1878 • Pioneer Township, Rush, KS
Otto Ernest Aschoff (1880–1958) 13 Aug 1880 • Pioneer Township, Rush, KS
Henry Aschoff (1882–1961) 4 Nov 1882 • Marmot, Clackamas, Oregon
Emma Margaret Aschoff (1885–1973) 29 Apr 1885 • Marmot, Clackamas, OR
Margarette Aschoff (1887–) Mar 1887 • Marmot, Clackamas, OR
Karl Aschoff (1889–1931) Apr 1889 • Marmot, Clackamas, OR
Gustav Adolph Aschoff (1895–1914) 08 Jan 1895 • Marmot, Clackamas, OR

A part of running his hotel entailed stabling and feeding relief horses for freight wagons that operated on the old Barlow Road. Adolf was often involved in driving wagon loads of vacationers to Government Camp where they would enjoy the sights and activities found there including hiking and climbing Mount Hood. This allowed Adolf to become acquainted with Will Steel, best known for his campaign to create Crater Lake National Park and for the creation of the Mazama climbing club, and O. C. Yocum, famed Mount Hood pioneer guide, and was soon climbing and guiding tourists on Mount Hood himself. This led to his participation in the organizational climb of July 19, 1894 when the Mazama climbing club was created, where he became a prominent and active charter member.

Through his association with the Mazamas he hosted many events at Aschoff’s Mountain Home where he would have up to 200 people come out at once. They would come up from Portland to Troutdale where they would board the train that would take them to the Bull Run powerhouse where a freight and passenger depot was located. From there they would hike to Marmot. It’s told that it was a common sight to see Adolf walking down the road to meet his guests and accompany them back to Marmot.

Life at Marmot was good. With the activities centered on his involvement with the tourist trade, including accommodating and entertaining guests, those must have been some wonderful times. They weren’t easy times but business was good and the Aschoff family did well in the venture. Guests were well taken care of and at meal time the table was filled with good things to eat and was a large family affair. After supper the tables in the room were pushed aside to make room for games, dancing and singing. Adolf enjoyed entertaining his guests. After supper he would entertain his guests by telling tall tales or playing his piano. He told his stories in his thick German accent and in such expressive ways that sometimes it was hard to tell truth from fiction. To the delight of his guests he would bring out his tiny Sheffield scissors and cut silhouettes of birds and animals from paper, some as small as postage stamps.

Adolf told a lot of stories but few were recorded or saved but a couple of examples have survived. One was when he was discussing the hazardous local roads one day when he told of how he and his wife were coming home from Gresham in a high box wagon when a grouse flew up from the side of the road spooking the horses causing the wagon to hit the ditch. They both were able to duck and were spared from harm but were trapped under the wagon. “Belief it or no, he stated, “I had to walk a quarter of a mile before I found a fence rail so I could pry up the wagon and get Mama out” One of the listeners reminded him that he too was trapped under the wagon. “Ach,” Snorted Adolf, with a twinkle in his eye, “I forgot all about dot.”

Another was when some Marmot friends were complaining about a sudden change in the weather. Adolf said, “Gentlemen, let me tell you about Kansas. I was driving along in a light one horse wagon on a lovely Spring day. The sky suddenly turned black as night, the rain fell so hard that I could not breath, water filled the wagon box and ran over the top of my shoes. Then the cold wind started to blow. In two minutes my hands were so numb I dropped the reins and had to call to the horse to take me home. When the horse stopped at the barn door I yelled for my wife to bring the axe and chop my feet loose from the ice in the wagon box. Just then the sun came out and melted the ice before my wife could find the axe. Marmot weather is not so bad”.

A man of medium height but quite stout in stature, he had amazing strength. Witnesses tell about seeing him hold a 100 pound flour sack at arm’s length with either hand. One time Adolf was demonstrating his strength when he lifted a 200 pound man with his neck. He put his head between the mans legs and lifted him right off the ground but when he was finished Adolf’s head drooped onto his chest and he was only able to raise it by using his hands. He was taken to St Vincent’s hospital in Portland where they found a broken vertebra and a torn tendon. His head was put into a brace and he was inactive for three months until his neck healed. He was eventually able to get full use of his neck back.

Sadly in June of 1914 Adolf and Dora’s youngest son Gustav went missing. It is said that he had a quarrel with one of his brothers and Gustav threatened to take his own life and he left. A search took place and his body was eventually found in the Sandy River about a mile from home. The coroner returned a verdict from his inquest that Gustav had died of suicide. This event hurt the Aschoff family deeply.

On July 13th of the same year Adolf and Dora’s oldest child Mary died after a year long illness at 40 years old. Mary had married into one of Sandy Oregon’s pioneer families. She was married to Paul R. Meinig, Sandy’s second mayor, and first official mayor under the new charter of incorporation in 1913.

Four years later Adolf’s wife Dora died. Dora was the glue that kept Aschoff’s Mountain Home working. Adolf was the attraction and the entertainment and did the heavy lifting, but Dora and the children did a lot of the work behind the scenes. The table filled with food each night. The tidy rooms, all with their own clean linens and handmade quilts folded neatly on each bed. The garden and orchard that grew the fruit and vegetables that were used throughout the year. The feeding and stabling of the horses. There was a lot to operating a resort out in the countryside.

With Dora gone and the children getting older and starting families of their own, coupled with the new Mount Hood Loop Highway bypassing Marmot completely, the place started to deteriorate. Adolf was left alone except for visits from friends on a Sunday where he would, once again, become the happy entertainer that he’d enjoyed so much most of his life in his days that he spent at Marmot.

Adolf resided at his beloved home until 1929 when he sold everything to Percy Shelley. At the time he was quoted as saying, “I cannot tell you how I feel giving up my place. My nine children grew up here and I have gone through all kinds of hardships, but only God and I know how much I have loved it here.” On May 16, 1930 Adolf Aschoff died in Portland. An era had passed and those that were still around to remember the glory days at Aschoff’s Mountain Home mourned his passing.

Then on July 4th 1931 the old hotel burned. The Shelley family lost all of their belongings. The buildings on the south side of the road were spared but fell into disrepair quickly. Today there’s not much left of Marmot but if you use your imagination as you pass through you can still picture what it must have been like at the peak of popularity, and why Adolf Aschoff loved it so deeply.

Source Information:
Photos from the Gary Randall collection
Information Bill White, Brightwood, Oregon
Sandy Pioneers, Early Settlers and Barlow Road Days – Sandy Historical Society
Jack Grauer – The Illustrated History of Mount Hood
Various newspaper articles from the period

Marmot, Oregon

Marmot is an unincorporated community in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States located in the Mount Hood Corridor. It is within the boundaries of the

Adolph Aschoff

of Oregon in the late 19th century. He established the community of Marmot, Oregon in the western foothills of Mount Hood in the late 19th century. Most

Oliver C. Yocum – Mount Hood Photographer

Oliver C. Yocum, Mount Hood Photographer – I love Mount Hood, history and photography, and when I can bring all three together in one place I’m happy. Loyal readers of my blog may remember the article that I wrote about Jennie Welch and her photography and its importance to the history of Welches and the Mount Hood area. Before Jennie Welch took her first photo another Mount Hood icon, Oliver C. Yocum, was bringing cutting edge photography technology that would eventually allow consumers, such as Jennie, an easier method to create their own photos to the Pacific Northwest.

Oliver C. Yocum, known to everyone as “OC”, came to Oregon in a wagon on the old Oregon Trail as a five year old child with his parents in 1847 and by the time that his life ended became a legend indelibly etched into the history of Mount Hood. His family settled in Yamhill County where he spent his childhood working on the family farm and odd jobs in between. By the time he was 17 he had worked as a clerk in the family hotel in Lafayette, was an apprentice saddlemaker, a builder and in his spare time studied law. In time he struck out on his own. He loved Shakespearean novels and travelled mining camps with a troupe reenacting the plays on a portable stage for the miners.

He eventually made it back to Lafayette where he met Ann Robertson, herself an Oregon Trail immigrant who travelled to Oregon as a two year old, and they were married. OC did some building, cabinet making and grain buying before the couple moved to Portland in 1881 where OC became a photograph printer and eventually a professional photographer.

Photography, back in the old days, was a messy and complicated procedure. It required a glass photo plate to be prepared with chemicals, exposed and developed all within a 15 minute period of time and required a portable darkroom in the form of a tent if you were taking photos in the outdoors. This form of photography was called wet plate photography. But in 1871 a process called dry plate was invented and by 1879 factories were being made to manufacture glass dry plates. Oliver Yocum was the first person in Oregon and, perhaps, the Pacific Northwest to manufacture dry plates. Dry plates were portable and able to expose the photo quicker allowing for hand held photos and were able to be stored for a time after the photo was made before it needed to be developed. This allowed more people to be able to enjoy photography and even though the cameras were still rather bulky, they allowed folks to carry their cameras into the outdoors.

In 1883 Oliver C. Yocum climbed Mount Hood for the first time. During the trip he carried a large 8” x 10” wooden camera and all of it’s accessories weighing close to 50 pounds. It was on this trip that the first photos taken on the summit of Mount Hood were made. It was also on this trip that Yocum fell in love with the countryside on the south side of Mount Hood.

For several seasons Yocum did photography in Portland during the Winter and came to Government Camp in the Summer. He took every opportunity to climb the mountain. In 1887 he was a member of the party that illuminated the summit and was one of the founding members of the Portland climbing club, the Mazamas, in 1894. He guided people to the top of Mount Hood until he turned 67 years old.

In his quest to spend time outdoors in clean air, due to “pulmonary problems” caused by smoky air in Portland, and no doubt the chemicals from the photography process, he changed his occupation to surveyor and in 1890 Yocum moved to Mount Hood, homesteaded, operated a sawmill and started guiding people to the top of Mount Hood. In 1900 he built the first hotel in the town that was named Government Camp.

Oliver lived on Mount Hood until 1911 when he sold most of his holdings in Government Camp and moved back to Portland where he decided to study dentistry and accepted a position at the North Pacific Dental College. He was 69 years old at that point and had sold most of the business to the soon to become legendary Lige Coalman, including the hotel.

OC lived a long and varied life and will forever be associated with the history of Mount Hood, but will also be a part of Mount Hood’s photographic history. OC died in 1928 and was followed into eternity by his wife Ann two years later. Although his legacy rarely mentions his contributions to photography, his name will be preserved in some of the geographic locations on and around Mount Hood. Yocum Ridge, a very challenging ridge on the southeastern side of the mountain was named for him as well as the picturesque waterfall on Camp Creek, Yocum Falls.

Yocum Falls (Clackamas County, Oregon) – Wikipedia

Yocum Falls, is a waterfall located in the heart of the Mount Hood National Forest, … the west slope of Mount Hood, comes from businessman Oliver C. Yocum.

Jennie Welch Mt Hood Photographer

Jennie Welch – Mt Hood Photographer

Not as well know as some of her contemporaries, Jennie Welch deserves to be remembered as one of Mt Hood’s early Photographers. We’re all photographers in the 21st century. In 2018, the day of cell phones and their cameras, we hardly think about it when we pull out the phone to get a photo of friends, family and places that we visit. A hundred years ago it wasn’t so easy. Back then cameras were bulky and film was inconvenient. Not all photos turned out and you didn’t know what results that you would end up with for a long time while your film was away being developed, if you didn’t develop your own. But, of course, there enthusiasts.

There were photographers that ranged from full fledged professionals to home hobbyists with their own darkrooms. Most professional photographers provided services to those who didn’t have their own photography gear. They would travel and offer their services, sometimes door to door. They would photograph anything from individual portraits to family groups. Even photos of prize possessions such as their home, pets or a brand new automobile.

At the early part of the 20th century postcards were a big deal. Many people would order a set of the photos printed as a postcard to provide a way to send a photo to a friend or a family member that lived away.

Many of these same photographers provided photo postcards to souvenir shops of local iconic landmarks frequented by tourists. Afterall it was easier to just buy some picture postcards than it was to fuss with a camera and the subsequent rolls of film.

Some of these photographers made a name for themselves that has endured through the years but some of them were a little bit obscure. Some churned out massive amounts of these photo postcards while others only made enough to sell in their own roadhouse gift shops or country stores. Billy Welch’s Hotel was no exception.

Back in 1905 the Welches post office was established at Billy’s Ranch with Billy as postmaster. Billy married Jennie Faubion, the daughter of Oregon Trail pioneers and local homesteaders, and in 1940 became the Welches postmaster. Jennie was the Welches postmaster until 1960. Jennie Welch loved antiques and enjoyed collecting daguerreotype, ambrotype and tintype examples of early photography. It’s obvious that Jennie enjoyed photography.

Most people who remember Jennie remember her primary passion being antiques, but what a lot of people don’t know is that Jennie Welch was also one of the first local photographers of her day. She took photos and most likely had someone else develop them and apply them to a postcard backs to be sold to tourists in the Welches Store and Post Office. They’re quite rare as she didn’t make volumes of them like some of the other pro photographers did and they’re hard to take notice of when you see one, but every now and then one is recognized by the keen eyed postcard collector.

Although not recognized as such, Jennie Welch should be included in the list of early 20th century female photographers. Her photos capture the history and beauty of the Welches. Without her photos many early scenes would be lost with the passing of time.

Today her photos are considered rare and collectable. Gone or the days of pictures postcards and travelling photography salesmen but thankfully their work lives on. Jennie Welch – Mt Hood Photographer

Oliver C. Yocum – Mount Hood Photographer – Mount Hood History

2 May 2019 … Before Jennie Welch took her first photo another Mount Hood icon was … Oliver C Yocum, known to everyone as “OC”, came to Oregon in a …

Steven Mitchell – Husband of the Hills

Steven Mitchell, Mount Hood History

Steven Mitchell was legend on Mount Hood in his times, as well as his son Arlie, who was the last tollgate keeper at the Rhododendron Tollgate of the old Barlow Trail Road. Lige Coalman, who was raised by Steven, was also a legendary mountain man on Mount Hood in his own right.

Steven Mitchell – Portland Oregonian Sept 12 1920

“Steve Mitchell – Husband of the Hills

Man of the mountains

Whose Life Near Mount Hood Is a Story Book of Many Treasures

By Earl C. Brownlee

For 60 years Steve Mitchell, husband of the hills, has been fleeing, terrified, from civilization.

Yet the dreaded ogre as pacing at his heels again, debauching the icy waters of his streams of melted snow, defacing the majesty of his brilliant autumn hills, slaughtering the game that gave him his meat and heaping its insults upon injuries suffered at its hands.

The dusty road before his cabin door, an artery that helped to carve from the wilderness of woods, is leading multitudes of folk through the most wonderfully romantic section of the land of the last frontier.

And from end to end of the timber bordered highway of delightful vistas there is nothing or no one so romantic as Steve himself; Steve Mitchell, as old as the mountains he loves so well-the last of a sterling generation of brave men who revered the quiet grandeur of the hills above all other things.

Far from the paths of man’s progress Steve Mitchell many years ago sought the realm of heart’s desire. To achieve his goal this man of the mountains first cut his way as a workman over what became, by dint of labors like his, Portland’s Hawthorne avenue. With the street completed, civilization advanced and Steve Mitchell fled to far places again, cutting roadways as he went, into dark forests the circled Mount Hood.

There he found his glorious freedom and there he has remained, while time has etched its wrinkles on his face and has woven a mantle of white for his brow.

Meanwhile, he has reared and sacrificed to man’s estate four splendid sons and two accomplished daughters, among whom are those who have forsaken the ways of their grizzled father and have found success in the hated city.

“Confounded thunder buses” roll by his forest-bound home in ceaseless numbers nowadays as Steve Mitchell peers peacefully into the future for a spot where the profits and pleasures of men cannot be encroached.

In the ‘60s Steve Mitchell looked into the west from his home in Iowa. He kept faith with the vision and from a point near Cleveland, Ohio, he started the pilgrimage.

“And I’ve been tinkering aling ever since,” he says, as he declares he has other distances to gain.

Briefly, his tinkering was centered in mines of gold in California, but in 1866 he came to Oregon. He helped build streets through the timber and then built roads to and through Sandy to the mountains.

About the man and his life many tales are told, but none more truthfully nor well then Steve can tell them. There’s the story of his gold claim to entrance the mountain novice.

It is said that far back on the Salmon River, concealed for nearly half a century against the prying eyes of friends and enemy, Mitchell has a gold mine.. There, the story has it, he chips great nuggets from a rocky wall whenever he’s in need of funds and brings them to the counting house. The claim is a priceless treasure, we are told, that would yield the cost of every comfort if its owner chose.

“Bah!” Steve Mitchell will exclaim if you inquire into the story. “There are more lies in these hills than there wever were cougars.

“Liars, thunder buses and a new kind of man-animal with a whooping sort of holler are the torments of civilization. There’s too much civilization in the world.
“If you write articles tell about these man-animals who have come into the hills to pollute God’s creeks by washing their unworthy feet in them and tearing the quiet night with their whooping hollering. They’re ornery-worse than a cougar, and a couple of ‘em aint very far away.”

Folks don’t know the mountains, Steve Mitchell says, and can’t love their dim trails and rocky peaks as he does. Wedded to their wonders, Mitchell has learned their lore as the schoolboy learns from books; in them he has built his home and in them he will find his grave.

In the interim, though, there has been a lifetime of marvelous days, attended with thrills at times, yet always mandatory in their hold upon the heart of this fine fellow.

Steve was bent over a kitchen stove, when by inquisitiveness born of long acquaintance, he was interrupted, and his story elicited by many questions. Upon the stove a frying pan, containing a stewing portion of carrots, simmered as Steve jammed more firewood into the blaze that was heating his dinner.

He hauled forth a shaggy, yet sadly worn pipe for himself and from his seat on the end of a wood box, fanned romance by his talk.

Nineteen fording places in the river back of Steve Mitchell’s cabin mark the old Barlow trail, pathway of the pioneers who first crossed the Cascades around the base of Mount Hood. Mitchell can point out each ford and can tell of the days when he trod the still fresh trail of those empire builders who preceded him.

He will show from his front door the vast, timbered hill where, within his mountain lifetime, has grown a forest. When Mitchell selected his mountainous home there was no sign of woods save the blackened bulk of great trees destroyed by an ancient fire.

He has seen those hills yield heavy timber, where, within the scope of his own memory, there was but a charred reminder of a once deep forest. Over their denuded slopes he has watched by the hour while his dogs ran deer that he might have food, he lolled in their shade times unnumbered as he hauled from their roaring streams great trout to appease the mountaineer’s keen appetite. He has tracked the bear to favorite berry fields and his gun has brought the mountain lion hurtling from his tree.

He has held communion with the lords of nature’s great open spaces, and he has studies their secrets until they are his lexicon-his primer and his Bible.

From it all he has learned both hospitality and hate. He hates civilization; yet he is hospitable to a degree unlimited.

As he spread his Sunday dinner a demand to partake with him declined, he proferred (sic) a piece of his “bachelor pie” that would bring envy to the most dainty housewife. Its flaky crust enough to belittle a salaried chef, the pie he had manufactured, with filling of raisins, was a delicious morsel the he insisted must be followed by a generous slab of light loaf cake he had just drawn from the oven.

“And now,” he jocularly said, “you can stay overnight if it rains real hard.”

“Folks from the towns are taking all the fish from the creeks are we’d have a mess for breakfast too. No, ‘planted’ fish do not restock the streams. Does a hen lay all her eggs in one day, once she gets started? Neither do fish, if they’re left to their natural means, and scientific methods can’t change nature’s way.

“The same civilization that has ‘fished out’ the streams has frightened the few remaining animals back into the mountains, where these confounded thunder buses can’t chug and sputter and roar their dusty way through night and day.

“Between thunder buses and these man-animals down the road one can’t even sleep anymore.

“Civilization is coming too close and I’m about to move back with the deer and the bear and the fish. There are no neighbors there to let their people starve on their doorstep. There is no whopping holler at midnight, but the call of the mountain winds and the cougar’s cry.”

Steve Mitchell’s comfortable little cabin sits beside the road 10 miles west of Government camp, and for many miles around there is hardly a foot of ground that this main of the mountains has not trod and whose charms he has not sought.

He is known to the folk who live in the hills, but to those who come from “civilized” places his is but one of the modest homes that may be found in the wilderness.

His, though, is a home in every sense, for he lives in it in summer and winter, through snow and sunshine. Only upon “occasions” does he venture from his mountain haven and such occasions are all to frequent if they occur more than once in a decade. The sturdy sons who remain in the family drop in now and then to visit with their father or to spend an idle day under his roof. But his wife who saw his early happiness in the hills has been called to “civilization.” She lives at Sandy, where, Steve declares, he has no business. Two splendid daughters hold worthy positions in centers of “civilization”.

Three sons remain of the four reared in the Mitchell family. Lige Coalman, famous Mount Hood guide and forest ranger, whose knowledge of the timbered wilds founded on training at Steve Mitchell’s hands, was reared as a son by this mountaineer and his wife. But Coalman, too, has quit the mountains for the profits of a farm.

When the world war opened the four stalwart Mitchell boys, each loyally attentive to their father and each a convert to the nature-loving, out-of-doors creed of their forebear, were prepared with strong bodies, capable hands and a will for the fray. Mountaineers, each of them, the four enlisted for service. Two were members of the marine corp, one chose navy and the fourth wore an army uniform. The first three were overseas fighting men. Arlie, a strapping young chap wonderfully versed in mountain lore, made 11 round trips over the Atlantic as a member of the nation’s naval forces and did eight months of shore duty overseas, where he visited almost every important city on the continent and in the British Isles.

“I hadn’t been out of the mountains much before,” he says, “and I never want to be again.

The sons who were marines, members of the mow historic fifth regiment, were also initiated to the ultra-modern delights of the world’s capitals, but they gleefully returned to the mountains of their childhood and resumed to their work in the forests.

One of these, a boy respected by every mountaineer who met him, fought through all the hot campaigns in which the American marines mouled war history in France, before he returned to the wooded, romantic land of his choice.

Again in the mountains, held fast by their appeal, this youth, just a year ago, gave his life to the protection of his playground when fire swept through the forest almost within sight of his father’s cabin.

With the same strength and courage that he fought his battle overseas, Steve’s son fought the blaze that would denude his homeland. Nor did he care a whit for the danger that surrounded him when a great fir, rocked upon its fire gnawed base, crashed down upon him.

That was an “occasion,” a day of sorrow for Steve Mitchell. He was drawn to the city-hated Portland-to hear the funeral dirge. And he vows he will never return.

The lonesome trails of the mysterious mountains have felt the footfall of Steve Mitchell. He will not profane the joys the hills have given him by the belated association with the world beyond his forest bound home. “

Mount Hood – Wikipedia

Mount Hood, called Wy’east by the Multnomah tribe, is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It was formed by a subduction zone on the …

The Ivy Bear at Alder Creek

The Rise, Fall, and Revival of the Ivy Bear: A Highway 26 Landmark

For decades, travelers along U.S. Highway 26 in Oregon have been greeted by an unusual roadside landmark—the towering Ivy Bear at Alder Creek. This massive, vine-covered structure has a history as unique as the man who built it. From its origins as a tribute to a beloved pet to its dramatic collapse and eventual revival, the Ivy Bear remains a cherished piece of Mount Hood history.

The Man Behind the Bear

The story of the Ivy Bear begins with Gerald Wear, a skilled craftsman, dog trainer, and builder who lived in Alder Creek, Oregon. Wear, who was deaf, was known for his ingenuity and love of animals. In addition to training German Shepherds, he took care of a pet bear, which he kept in a cage near the roadside. The bear entertained travelers who stopped along the two-lane highway, becoming an unofficial mascot of the area.

However, as the story goes, the bear’s love for handouts—particularly candy bars, soda pop, and bottle caps—led to its untimely death. Heartbroken, Wear decided to honor his beloved bear by constructing a larger-than-life ivy-covered statue in its memory.

Building the Largest Ivy Structure in the World

In 1947, Wear began constructing the Ivy Bear. Using a wooden frame and chicken wire, he planted ivy around the structure, which eventually covered its entire surface. The project took more than a year to complete.

At the time, it was considered the largest ivy-covered structure in the world. Travelers passing through Alder Creek soon became accustomed to seeing the massive bear standing watch beside the road. Wear even added special touches to bring his creation to life—inside the bear was a rear door and scaffolding leading to its head. At night, he would climb inside and light up the bear’s eyes with candles, later replacing them with old Volkswagen taillights.

A Growing Landmark

Over the years, the Ivy Bear became more famous than the businesses on the property. Skiers heading to Mount Hood developed a tradition of saluting the bear for good luck. Wear continued to expand his creations, building houses and water wheels in the Alder Creek area.

In 1972, Wear passed away, but the Ivy Bear remained, standing as a testament to his creativity and craftsmanship.

June 1984: The Fall of the Ivy Bear

For nearly 40 years, the Ivy Bear stood tall. However, time and weather eventually took their toll. On June 18, 1984, a light breeze was all it took for the aging wooden structure to collapse. The bear lurched forward and landed on its massive tin snout. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the wooden beams supporting the ivy had rotted at the base.

Despite the relatively minor damage to its exterior, the bear could not stand on its own again. The loss of the Ivy Bear was felt throughout the community, with travelers slowing down or stopping along the highway to search for their missing roadside friend. Even the Portland Chamber of Commerce became involved, reaching out to the property’s owners in hopes of restoring the landmark.

A Community Effort to Bring Back the Bear

Recognizing the bear’s importance, local residents and organizations came together to bring it back. Ron Rhoades, owner of the Ivy Bear Restaurant at the time, along with Michael P. Jones from the Cascade Geographic Society and the the Friends of the Ivy Bear launched a fundraiser in 1987. Their mission: to rebuild the beloved structure.

By 1990, enough money had been raised to reconstruct the Ivy Bear. This time, it was built with a steel frame to ensure its longevity.

The Ivy Bear Stands Again

The revival of the Ivy Bear was met with excitement from the community. Once again, there was hope that it would once again stand proudly along Highway 26, welcoming travelers and serving as a nostalgic reminder of Oregon’s roadside history. Today, it stands, albeit it a bit untrimmed, as a landmark to visitors of Mount Hood and a tribute to Gerald Wear’s vision, craftsmanship, and love for animals.

Murder on Mount Hood

When one thinks of Mount Hood they do not usually think of crime, especially such severe crimes as murder, but there is one story that is a part of Mount Hood’s past that should be told. The first murder on Mount Hood.

The Oregon Trail had been active for about 40 years, with the Barlow Road becoming the main route to the Willamette Valley. The Barlow Road was a toll road with toll gates placed on the route to gather toll from the travelers. One toll gate keeper will be remembered as an integral part of Mount Hood’s cultural history.

Perry Vickers was one of the first residents of the south side of Mount Hood, an area that today includes the little ski town of Government Camp. He was well liked by everyone in the area especially those who were passing over the south side of Mount Hood on the Barlow Road in their wagons. He had squatter’s rights at Summit Meadow, a natural clearing at the top of the pass as the road began to descend the west slope of Mount Hood and the last stretch before arriving at their destination in the Willamette Valley from points east. He built the first traveler’s accommodations in the area when he built the Summit House in Summit Meadow. He had a corralled field for grazing the stock as well as a series of buildings including a lodge, a store, and barns.

Summit House at Summit Meadow with Mt Hood in the distance

During his time on Mount Hood Portland grew exponentially with the new settlers that poured into the Oregon country. A trend was to return to the mountain that held so many challenges to them and their families during the immigration to recreate. Perry Vickers was Mount Hood’s first climbing guide. Hiking and climbing the peak was very popular at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was an enthusiastic promoter of early visitation and recreation on Mount Hood. He even created a tradition of illuminating the mountain by carrying fuel for a large fire near what is now known as Illumination Rock. He is attributed to being the first person to spend a night on the top of Mount Hood.

Perry Vickers was described as a dreamer and a poet. The Oregon Historical Society has some of his verses of sunrises and sunsets and of his beloved mountain. He did not start out his residence in Oregon on quite a solid footing. His early days here are said to have been troublesome. Perry Vickers arrived in Vancouver Washington in 1865. As he was looking for work, he fell into the company of three other young strangers in a seemingly similar situation. As it turned out their situation was different to his.

As he was in the company of his three new friends military officers from Fort Vancouver arrested the group and charged them with horse theft, quite a serious crime back then. They were held for about two months as they awaited trial, each wearing what was referred to as an “Oregon Boot,” a seven-pound iron clevis that was worn on an ankle to impede any progress of escape similar to a steel ball and chain.

As they were arrested together, held together in the same cell, and although unsure of the guilt of his cellmates, he was sure that he would be found guilty by association. He felt that he needed to escape. Their cell was made of wood and so in time the method was created for the breakout. Several 2″x4″ wooden window bars were removed, and the group escaped into the night. Once Vickers was away, he separated from his undesirable companions as he heard activity indicating that their escape had been discovered. Still weighed down by his Oregon Boot, he stumbled his way away from the fort toward the Columbia River. The sounds of those in pursuit became louder and he soon found himself about to be surrounded as he stood on the bank of the river.

His ankle was becoming chaffed and painful, and he tried for a moment to find a way to pry off the iron implement around his ankle. As the sounds of pursuit became louder, he knew that he had only one choice, to attempt to swim the mile wide and swift Columbia River. It is not sure how he learned to swim, but he indeed made it to the other side still carrying the weight of his seven-pound clevis attached to his ankle.

Once across the river he came across a small farm where he was able to find some tools to remove the iron device. He found an old wagon wheel wrench that he used as a hammer and a bolt to use as a punch to remove the pin that held it together. The next morning, he came across some wood cutters who fed him and gave him directions to Powell Valley where his brother lived. Once there his brother gave him clothes and supplies and advised him to head to Eastern Oregon by way of the Barlow Road and seek work until things cooled down for him.

Rhododendron Tollgate on the Barlow Trail

As he headed east, he came across Stephen Coalman, the one who oversaw maintaining the old Barlow Road. He told Vickers that he would be hiring help to clear the road after the Winter storm’s damage. That June he went to work for Coalman and developed a lifelong friendship. Stephen Coalman and his son Elijah “Lige” Coalman became legendary on Mount Hood for their many adventures. Stephen Coalman had said that through time Vickers proved that his character was not one of a horse thief and was convinced that Vickers was a victim of circumstances.

That June the crew set up camp at Summit Meadow and Vickers took time to explore the area from there to the timberline level of Mount Hood. Thrilled by his hikes he swore that he would climb to the top of the mountain.

Vickers took the job of gatekeeper on the eastern entrance to the old road, away from the chance of being recognized as a fugitive. In time his friend Stephen Coalman persuaded him to return to the west side of Mount Hood, assuring him that if needed he would secure legal services to defend the horse stealing charges if necessary.

No charges were ever brought against Vickers, but on his trips to the west side he fell in love with the area, especially the area around the summit meadows right under the looming view of the south side of Mount Hood. He envisioned a business. One that would help travelers as they passed through. He filed for a squatter’s claim at Summit Meadow and went to work on the buildings there between his work on the old toll road.

By 1866 work on the Summit House was underway. It was a large building, 20x20x32 feet with a huge fireplace at one end and sleeping quarters upstairs and spacious cooking arrangements. He built all the furniture from natural materials. In the Spring of 1868, he opened the Summit House as soon as the snow melted, and the road was cleared. He provided food for travelers as well as their livestock, spaces for camping and in many cases insisting in having folks in for a meal.

An enduring story is told of a day when a group of wagons came to Summit Meadow in 1882. A baby boy from one of the parties, the Barclay family, was ill and died at the meadow. Vickers granted permission for the baby to be buried at the meadow. The little graveyard and headstone are still there today.

For many years Vickers resided at Summit Meadows and helped countless travelers that passed by and hundreds of people to the top of the mountain, until one day in August of 1893 when a man named Steele, a farm hand near the Columbia Slough, stole his employer’s shotgun and headed east. Few more details are known, but the Multnomah County Sheriff was called, and two men were deputized, one being the owner of the stolen gun a man named Roarke and sent after Steele.

The deputies reached Eagle Creek and had to have their Multnomah County warrant re-issued in Clackamas County, where they learned that Steele had traded the shotgun for a Sharps rifle. They reached the town of Sandy where the weather turned bad. They stayed only long enough to buy a bottle of whiskey and then they went on their way. The two men reached the town of Salmon, near the present town of Brightwood where they met local resident John McIntyre who owned a trading post there. It was then that one of the deputies decided to return home as he became ill. At that time John McIntyre was deputized and the two men proceeded to travel east toward Summit Meadow.

Once the men reached Summit Meadow and Perry Vickers’ Summit House, Vickers advised them that Steele had stayed there the night before and he had judged him to be an unsavory character and said that he knew nothing of the gun theft. He also told them that he had mentioned that he was going to camp at White River, further to the north and east from where they were. Because the deputies had drank some of their whiskey Vickers told them that he would advise them to get some sleep and to proceed in the daytime. He also thought that they would be at a disadvantage in the dark. Roarke insisted that they push on into the night. Vickers told them that they would eat and then he would go with them after Steele.

With Vickers deputized the men mounted their horses and, because of his familiarity of the area, Vickers took the lead. The group made it to the White River Trading Post which was operated by a man named Gray and his family. It was there beyond the buildings that the men spotted a campfire. They figured that it was Steele. Being concerned for the condition of his companions, and because he was equipped with a set of Colt Revolvers, Vickers volunteered to proceed toward the fire while the other two stood back to provide back up in case of trouble.

Vickers rode toward the campfire that would make the two horsemen barely visible in the background and confirmed that it was indeed Steele. Steele was aroused as Vickers approached and appeared to come forward to talk. Vickers went to dismount his horse and as he was in a helpless position Steele picked up the Sharps rifle and shot Vickers in the stomach. As he fell from the horse, he grabbed one of his revolvers but did not get off a shot before Steele disappeared into the darkness of the night. Vickers emptied his revolvers into the night, thought that he hit Steele, but this was never proven.

Cornelius Gray heard the gunshots from his trading post, grabbed his rifle and came running. Two other men who were at the trading post as well as the two deputies got to Vickers who was on the ground in agonizing pain and mortally wounded. They took Vickers inside Gray’s home.

Vickers claimed that he saw his companions come toward him, but not until after they drew away during the gunshots. The men claimed that their horses bolted from the shots. As he lay there, he confronted the two men, say that they were too experienced with guns and horses to believe them and that he claimed them to be cowards, this account being from Cornelius Gray.

A rider was sent to get Stephen Coalman, Vickers’ best friend, but Vickers knew that he did not have much time. Vickers said that he had some laudanum at his place and that he had killed the pain in a lot of other people, and he said that no one will be able to help him much. Vickers died before his friend could return.

Many of the locals from the era helped with his burial. Samuel Welch and Stephen Mitchell split the boards for his coffin. Oliver Yocum, the man who established the town of Government Camp officiated the ceremony. Perry Vickers was laid to rest in the little graveyard next to the baby Barclay, as were his last wishes. Their headstones can still be seen today at the west side of the meadow.

Stephen Coalman kept Vickers blood-stained coveralls for years after with the hope that they may be used as evidence to convict Steele of Vickers’ murder. A couple of years later a horse thief was hanged in eastern Oregon that claimed that he had killed a man in the Cascade Mountains. It was assumed that this was Steele. Not long after that Stephen Coalman burned Vickers coveralls, closing a chapter of an era on Mount Hood, and the case of Mount Hood’s first murder.

Perry Vickers Grave next to the baby Barclay at Summit Meadow

Who Was E. Henry Wemme?

Well, it seems that it’s been long enough between posts, that I should at least post the articles that I have written for the Mt Hood Magazine. If you haven’t been to the web site, please take a minute and give it a peak.

The first article is about Wemme, Oregon and the town’s namesake, E. Henry Wemme.

I hope that you enjoy the article.

Wemme, Oregon, the place with an odd name. Is it “Weemy” or “Wemmy”? How in the world did it get its name?

Wemme, pronounced “Wemmy”, is easily overlooked as folks drive past on the highway either to or from their stay at Mount Hood and its Villages. With the highway being four lanes and nearly as straight as an arrow, it hardly indicates how our road to Mount Hood used to be. And, as a matter of fact, the name itself is very much related to the growth of the highway that bypasses it.

The story of the Village of Wemme must start with the establishment of the Barlow Road and its development into a toll road and a two way track from its original westerly Oregon Trail route. In the later part of the 19^th century, the Barlow Road, established in 1845 by Oregon Trail immigrant Samuel Barlow, was the route to Mount Hood’s south side and its recreational possibilities for the early Portland area adventurers. The road was a private toll road and, throughout its years, was held by several different companies. It went into many different levels of repair and disrepair over the years.

In 1912, Portland businessman and early automobile enthusiast, E. Henry Wemme purchased the old road for $5,400. Mr. Wemme is considered Oregon’s first motorist as he purchased the first automobile in Oregon, an 1899 Stanley Steamer. He owned a tent and awning business during the Alaskan gold rush, and became very wealthy supplying tents to the miners.

In 1915, after spending $25,000 on the much needed improvements, he eliminated the toll and opened the road to free travel. Upon his death in 1917, the road was willed to Wemme’s attorney, George W. Joseph, and it was held in trust until it was accepted by the Oregon Highway Commission in 1919 to be developed into the Mount Hood Loop Highway that we enjoy today.

Back in its heyday, Wemme was separated from the other local communities by the wooded, winding, rutted unpaved road. Pavement, modern automobiles and rapid travel had yet to come into existence, which made each village its own separate community. It was only after the widening of the road into a modern highway and the loss of the slow paced country road that the local communities started losing their separate identities.

Many aren’t aware that in 1977 Welches came very close to being called Wemme. The old Wemme post office building was to be closed and replaced with a new modern facility that had been built further east and down the road to Welches. At the time Welches had no post office. A local resident, Bill White, understanding that the new post office was not in Wemme, wrote letters and petitioned the postal service to name the new post office Welches. His efforts were successful and the community of Welches retained its identity and its name.

Today, almost as soon as you enter Wemme, you’re leaving Wemme and headed to Welches. Don’t blink, you might miss it, and because of the terrific businesses and restaurants that are located there today, you will be missing much.

Bill White – Mount Hood Historian

Meet Bill White

Humans have been interested in preserving their legacy since the dawn of time, and that want for the preservation of their legacy may have been a major reason for the development of written language. In recording history, a first hand account is always the best source. Most of those that hold the historically valuable information are our senior citizens, many of which discount their role in the stories, thus keeping the story from being told.

That’s where the next generation must assume the responsibility of searching out these people and begging such stories to be told. In my research of our local history, I have become acquainted with a long time Brightwood resident that has had the foresight to recognize his role as a record keeper of our local Mt Hood History. He has been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to become close to, and visit with many local legends that are no longer around The Mountain.

William H White, “Bill”, and his family have owned a home in Brightwood for almost 40 years. His interest in local history was keen while Jenny Welch, who was married to Billy Welch, whose family the village of Welches was named for, was still spry. He was able to get to know Arlie Mitchell, who was the last tollgate keeper at the Rhododendron tollgate of the old Barlow Road as well as folks like Harry Abernathy, who when he and “his bride” first came to Welches, camped out at the spot that the Hoodland Shopping Center sits today. As past president of the Friends of Timberline, among other civic activities that he’s been involved with, he has been in association with many other notable figures who have shared their memories with him.

Bill has kept all of this information handy for historical work involving many projects and events. The Mt Hood area’s history has found a bridge in Bill White, a bridge between the generation that settled the Villages of Mt Hood, and those of us who enjoy learning as a benefit of the fruits of their labor.

Bill and his wife Barbara, are retired now and live in Brightwood full time. Bill spends much of his time sorting and filing the historical information that he has collected through the years. Bill won’t accept it, but he really is the Villages of Mt Hood Official Historian, and we owe him a debt of gratitude.