Wenatchee, Washington 98801
Gr. Nr. Ry. #931 4-6-0 wrecked in Washington about 1910.
‘Big Hook’ is picking it up.
Back in 1967, I read a story called ’30 Days in a Rut’
and it brought back memories of those rough and rugged trails they
called ‘roads.’ One of them went by our old homestead. In
#45’ and it goes from northern Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico.
Cars whiz by the old homestead (still occupied since it was built
in about 1910) at 60 to 80 miles per hour. I remember these roads
were graded by some farmer who had a contract of some kind with the
state or county.
One of my uncles had such a contract and used a team of big
black mules that could ‘outpull’ most ordinary horse teams
in that territory. They were a good team for roadwork or farm work
and he took good care of them and kept his contract for many
years.
In dry weather these so-called roads were dusty and rough with
washboard surface, but in early spring the ‘bottom went
out’ with the frost. Some of the ruts, sinkholes, and quicksand
traps would high-center even the high-wheel Buicks, Pierce-Arrows,
Maxwells, etc. I remember hauling rocks, brush short lengths of
wood, and other materials to fill up the ruts so the cars could get
through without getting stuck.
When the highway department decided to relocate a part of
highway #26, they detoured the traffic over a county road that
wasn’t as good as the state road. One of the worst sinkholes on
this detour was close to where my great uncle lived, and he made
‘fair wages’ pulling cars out of the sink-hole with his
team of his Fordson tractor. He was of Scottish ancestry and made
‘Abe Lincoln screarh for mercy’ on every penny that came
his way. When the sinkhole started to dry up it also ‘dried up
his easy money’ so at night he hauled water to it to keep it
‘open and soft.’ But his neighbors soon found out what he
was doing and convinced him to ‘let it dry up.’ He was a
thrift Scot, but I think the neighbors called him a few other names
when they found out he was keeping the sink-hole open so he could
make more money.
One time he hired several of us kids to pull mustard weeds out
of his oat field at 1 per weed. By noon of the first day he saw
that he had under-estimated the number of wild mustard weeds in the
oats, and cancelled the weed-pulling. Those were the days!