TOLD by the PIONEERS - Washington Secretary of State

Told by theP'ioneers
papers. The furniture was crude and mostly home-made, mattresses
were filled with straw and bunch grass. Fuel was mostly sage brush
which grew in abundance on the prairie. Clothing was of rough denin
and the cheapest of split leather work shoes. Transportation was
by wagon and horseback, and some used the recently completed railroad,
providing they could afford the fare. The food was very plain,
but substantial, as the farmers raised most of their own vegetables
and had plenty of livestock for meat.
MRS. O. G. FRANCE (Mam-ie Irene Blair)
Chelan County
In 1889-90, during the cattle-killing winter, there was no flour in
the valley. My father rode into Ellensburg and brought back twenty
sacks on a sort of land raft made of logs, and which was dragged Indian
fashion over the Pass.
P. B. BATEMAN
Columbia County
Each fall we chinked our old log house with mud. Other preparations
for winter consisted of filling the root cellar with vegetables,
apples, preserves, and pickles, put up by the women. There was no
way of canning' known to us at that time. We dug a trench and filled
it with cabbages, leaving the tips of the roots sticking out so we could
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locate them. Such crisp cabbage we had all winter!
The Palouse, Lapwai and Umatilla Indians traveled the old trails,
visiting back and forth. Some of the old trails over the hills are still
visible. The Indians tied two long poles at one end and set this end
in front of their saddle horn, leaving the other ends of the poles Oil
the ground behind the pony. A buffalo robe was tied between the
poles to form a sort of basket for their packs and the children too
small to ride ponies. The squaws would mount their ponies and away
they would go, the children riding safely in their buffalo-robe basket.
One of the most interesting sights that I can now recall was a Chinese
pack train. There was a small band of these little yellow roell,
probably ten or fifteen. Each had a bamboo pole, probably six or
seven feet in length and four or five inches in diameter. On each end
of this pole was a basket holding fifty or sixty pounds, packed with
rice, bacon and tea.
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