Columbia County Courthouse, Dayton, Washington

Columbia County Courthouse

The Columbia County Courthouse in Dayton, Washington, is a stately structure as befits its grandee dame status among the state’s courthouses. County officials claim it is the oldest working courthouse in the state, having been completed while Washington was still a territory.

The county seat, Dayton, was founded in 1871, but it wasn’t until 15 years later that construction of the courthouse began. Until then, trials and county business were conducted in rented hotel rooms.  Construction costs came in at $38,069, under the budget of $40,000/ Construction began in 1886, with the county using it for the first time in 1887. Washington became a state in 1889.

An ornate cupola tops the building. The building is accented by bronze statues of a Blind Justice and eagles. Two Civil War cannons stand in the front yard. The Blind Justice statues were melted for scrap metal during World War II.

The courthouse, located at 341 East Main Street, has seen some remodeling over the years. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Idaho railroad trestle carried trains for 80 years

Railroad trestle at Lawyer's Canyon in Idaho

Railroad trestles that were once used by trains carrying people and goods in western Idaho can still be seen today along U.S. Highway 95 between Lewiston and Grangeville.

The picture above shows one of many trestles built in 1908 to cross Lawyer’s Canyon and Camas Prairie gorges.  This trestle was 1,500 feet long and 296 feet high. The trestles were mostly wood with a metal structure.

The trestles were used by Camas Prairie Railroad, a joint venture of Union and Northern Pacific railroads, for 80 years.

Oregon's Wallowa Lake popular with campers, recreationalists

Wallowa Lake

Wallowa Lake is nestled among the scenic beauty of the Wallowa Mountains in northeastern Oregon. The area is sometimes known as the Oregon Alps or the Switzerland of Oregon.

The 3.7 mile long lake was formed by glacial action. Its waters are pure and clear, allowing boaters to see fish swimming on the bottom.

The lake and its facilities, including campgrounds, boat launches and lodging, are located at the end of the road that comes from nearby Joseph. It has a day use picnic area and floating docks where boaters can alight for picnics. The lake and some of the facilities are operated by the Oregon State Parks system.

The lake sits at more than 4,300 feet in elevation, which means it sometimes freezes over in winter. The water warms up enough in the summer for swimming and water skiing.

Deer rest beside the highway to Wallowa Lake on a winter day.

 Wallowa Lake is popular with wildlife visitors as well. It’s not uncommon to see deer roaming the camp-ground, sometimes resting under travel trailer awnings to keep cool on hot summer days. A pair of eagles nests on the south shore of the lake. Visitors also may see elk, coyotes and bears; t higher elevations they may spot mountain goats.

This family oriented recreation area is located about 4-1/2 hours drive from Boise and six hours from Portland.

Washington's Garfield County Courthouse gleams in sun

Garfield County Courthouse, Pomeroy, Washington

The Garfield County courthouse in Pomeroy, Washington, is an interesting structure, portions of it looking almost castle-like.

Made of brick and stone, it stands out from the other stone bounty courthouses built in that era because it’s painted a gleaming white. The official architectural style is Late Victorian.

The courthouse was built in 1901 after the previous wood courthouse was destroyed by fire a year earlier; the fire also destroyed much of this small city’s business district. Built at a cost of $18.783, the courthouse was constructed primarily of local products: stone from the Snake River region, Bricks made locally and roof shakes from the nearby Blue Mountains.

A statue of Justice stands atop the clock tower. It is one of only 20 Justice statues nationwide where Justice is not wearing a blindfold. The statue lost its arm in a windstorm in 2006, with the arm being replaced.

The courthouse has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974. A courthouse restoration project, which cost $2 million, was completed in 2011. The project’s scope was to stabilize the aging building and restore its historic character that was lost over the years.

Pomeroy was named the county seat in 1882. Garfield County, created in 1881, is named from US. President James Garfield who died that year. Pomeroy is the county’s only city.

Pomeroy is located in eastern Washington.  The courthouse is located on Pomeroy’s main street, also known as U.S. Highway 12.

Stagecoach stop reverts to meadow status

Sled Springs

Sled Springs once offered respite for weary travelers headed west to Elgin, Oregon. These travelers arrived on wagons, stagecoach or horses beginning sometime before the turn of the 20^th century and continuing until about 1925.

It also was a railroad logging camp, inhabited by about 300 people, after that. Today it is a quiet meadow, part of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

Sled Springs is located on the highway that connects Asotin, Washington, with Enterprise, Oregon. The highway is called 129 in Washington and 3 in Oregon.

 

 

Lewiston, Idaho, square honors polio victim who never gave up

Brackenbury Square in Lewiston, Idaho

There are two good ways to travel Highway 12 east through Lewiston, Idaho. The first is to take an immediate right turn after crossing the Blue Bridge from Clarkston, Washington. It loops around under the bridge and you follow the Snake River by the "Wave" canoe statue and by the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. This is the signed route. It’s more fun to stay on the road that takes you through the tree-lined Main Street of Old Lewiston.

This one-way street will take motorists by Brackenbury Square, named in honor of a Lewiston resident who overcame adversities to thrive in this town. The entrance to this small park is marked by a statue of children playing in a fountain. Take time to enjoy the serenity of this small square; be warned, though, on-street parking sometimes can be difficult to find.

Mary Case Brackenbury grew up in Lewiston’s Hotel Idaho that was owned by her parents. Using the name Launi, she became a professional Polynesian dancer on the vaudeville circuit. In 1953, after dancing at a March of Dimes fundraiser, she was stricken with polio and placed in an iron lung. After a lengthy recovery, she came back to the Hotel Idaho to run the hotel, raise three children and care for her mother. Her husband, Rod Brackenbury, died from wasp stings on a 1957 hunting trip.

When people saw her children taking lessons in international dances, they, too, wanted to learn those dances. Soon he teaches and students were giving costumed presentations throughout the region, with proceeds going to the National Polio Foundation. Mary was named a March of Dimes mother of the year; she died in 1970 from complications of polio.

Lenore, Idaho. tram hauled grain, not people

Spring grain field above Lenore

The awesome scenery along U.S. Highway 12 east of Lewiston through the Clearwater River canyon hides what’s on the other side of the hills: fields of grain, thousands and thousands of acres of a variety of grains.

Getting that grain to market was a challenging task for early farmers, who had to drive wagons full of grain down a long steep hill. That changed in 1898 when the railroad was extended from Lewiston to Lenore, about 25 miles east. A tram was built to carry buckets of grain down 1,600 feet from the prairies above to a new freight stop on the other side of the Clearwater.

The tram system was completed in 1903, with the gravity-activated tram hauling about 100,000 bushels of grain annually until 1938, when a fire destroyed the tram system.