"Backward from a Hilltop"


Think of a road that threads through time, and a particular hilltop along that road. For this basin, the chosen hill marks the edge of the pioneer onslaught. Looking backward from its top, one sees little but wilderness. Just ahead lies rapid changes and settlement. The hill will be near the turn of the century, perhaps represented best by a period reaching from 1900 to about 1903.

Previous to this time came the miners, beginning a slowly gathering movement which started as early as 1860. They turned the gravel in a few streams; dug a few holes. In the concealing forest, the signs of their passing -- the small scars they left -- would soon be lost.

A few settlers came, also, before 1900. The numbers were still small, but a rising tide was on the way, and its flood was inevitable. For several decades, closely following the miners, settlers had moved into the more open, grassy country to the west. By now they had arrived there in great numbers.

The Indian who had roamed here freely as a youth, claiming the land without doubt or challenge, had now become an old man. Nearly a century had gone by since the passing of Lewis and Clark. Yet settlement here had barely begun.
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MEMORY LANE 2000