TOLD by the PIONEERS - Washington Secretary of State

Told
by the Pioneers
We were just starting in the cattle business when the blizzard and
freeze of the winter of 1889-90 caught us. The cattle were on the
range. Noone had ever fed their stock. The boys had six weeks feed
stored and thought that a lot. They cut brush along the Columbia
and kept the cattle until March 10, 1890, when the temperature went
to 10 degrees below zero. The animals were too weak to stand it and
died in their tracks.
COLUMBIA RIVER FLOODS
The Columbia River, with its 259,000 square miles of watershed,
much of which is mountainous or rolling, has a rapid runoff. Each
year it has its high waters but four times in the last century it has
gone on a regular rampage, flooding thousands of acres and doing untold
damage.
The Columbia Basin project, with new dams and reservoirs, will
eliminate a great deal of this damage in the future, although the
Snake River, largest of the Columbia tributaries, is still unharnessed.
MRS. OLARA DAVOLT
Cowlitz County •
Father's house was very good. It was built in 1889. He knew how
high the water came in 1867, so he aimed to build this house above the
flood water level. He built it fonr feet above the 1867 flood stage,
nevertheless, the 1894 water level was so much higher that it ran in
through the windows. I recall four very high waters all the Columbia,
in 1867, '82, '94, alld 1934.
There "was a school house at Monticello before the town was carried
away by the flood. All of the five acres of ground on which it was
huilt were completely washed away in the flood of 1867.
DANIEL W. BroSH
Cowlitz Countv ,"
The flood of 1894 swept away all of our buildings . It came in slowly
so we could save our livestock and no people were drowned. It
stayed up about six weeks. My brother and I took a sailboat and
sailed all over what is now the site of Longview, "Washington.
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