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THE LEGACY OF YESTERYEAR, was published
in the fall of 2008.
The story initiates with the westward movement to the Pacific
Northwest. Two very important events occurred in young America that attracted people from all over the United States and Europe: First was the 1848 gold rush at Sutter’s Mill in California, and the second was the Homestead and Railroads Acts of 1862.
Following the end of the Civil War, the expansion to the Pacific Northwest began to spread.
By the late 1870s to the early 1900s a region to the north of Spokane Falls City, began to see a large influx of pioneers, who decided to take advantage of those two Acts.
This part of the United States was rich in salmon, deer, rabbits, and had an abundance of wild ducks and pheasants. The land was covered in virgin forest with trees that reached into the heavens.
A profusion of bushes provided a wide variety of berries for eating. There were unknown deposits of minerals that lay beneath the curst of the earth waiting to be discovered.
The first inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest were numerous Native American Indian Tribes that were scattered from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains.
The early pioneers forged their way into the wilderness, taking over the land that belonged to these tribes.
In doing so they discovered an abundance of food and wood for housing and sawmills, rivers and streams supplied a wonderful source of water for drinking and later for power.
These pioneers began to take control of the land, and farming communities such as Wild Rose Prairie, Williams Valley, Loon Lake, Deer Park, and Clayton developed.
In Deer Park, the Arcadia Apple Orchards was established. By 1916, the orchard was listed as the largest commercial orchard under one management in the world. The town of Clayton was built around the formation of the Washington Brick & Lime and Sewer Pipe Company,
which became the largest brick manufacturing town in the state of Washington, if not the Pacific Northwest.
Farmers and most pioneers were simple folks who turned to the Bible.
Circuit Riders traveled across prairies and fields to preach the gospel and save souls.
Most of the folks who settled in the Pacific Norwest were immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Ireland.
They came with such names as Westby, Olson, Prufer, Doyen, Casberg, Eickmeyer, Kelly, and Leuthold. The Legacy of Yesteryear tells the story of their lives through the use of 100 photographs and written documentation.
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