ALEN DALE VICTOR
ADV: My grandparents homesteaded on Smith Mountain.
GT: Where is Smith Mountain located?
ADV: It’s just on top of the hill from Minam, Oregon--on top there is a flat--several miles up
there that’s called Smith Mountain. It was named Smith for the first road that was put into
Wallowa County by a man by the name of Smith. The road was called Smith Road and then they
called the land Smith Mountain.
GT: So they got up to Smith Mountain and you got a homestead and set up there. Can you tell
me a little bit about what you know after they homesteaded?
ADV: Well, yes. After they homesteaded, then the tourists started coming into Wallowa
County, right after 1900. So there the only way to get in was by stage or horseback and so on.
So my grandmother decided that a good business to get into would be a stage stop. So they went
to Minam--now Minam was just underneath Smith Mountain about four or five miles, so there
was a part of a stage stop at that time. It had a hotel, but it wasn’t doing very much good. My
grandmother said if she could get a hold of that, she would make it go. So she did. They lived at
Minam from 1887 and then they didn’t leave the Minam area until about 1913, something like
that. One reason there was a stage stop there was, the only bridge across the Wallowa River to
get into Wallowa County was a toll bridge. So my grandfather said that he would run the toll
bridge for this company, and my grandmother would run the hotel, so that’s how they got started.
After about two or three years, they opened up a new road up to Smith Mountain, up about two
miles above Minam. My grandmother decided, well, a lot of the people are going to go up there
and go up that road. So let’s just build a stage stop at the mouth of what is called Miller Canyon.
They built a stage stop and a hotel and had a big barn for horses and feed. They ran this stage
stop for, well, until the train came in. The train came in actually about 1908. In about 1910 or
11, all of the stage people had quit running because of the train. So that put them out of
business. So then they already had this homestead land up on Smith Mountain, so they just
moved back up on Smith Mountain instead of Minam.
GT: So what was the name of your grandparents’ stage stop? Did it have a name?
ADV: Yeah, Canyon Hotel. Now, the interesting thing about the stage, everybody came
through on the stage or on foot or horseback. If they stayed at all, they stayed at my
grandparents’ stage stop and hotel. So they knew everybody--everybody had to go through their
property. In 1903, Chief Joseph returned to Wallowa County to buy some land, because he
wanted to be buried by his father who was buried near Wallowa. So, he came back to Wallowa
County in hopes of buying enough land to have a burial site. Well, my father was about nine
years old and he got word that Joseph and a party of about 30 Indians were on their way to
Wallowa. So, he went out--they had fruit trees and a big garden and all kinds of stuff, so he went
out and picked the biggest red apple he could find. He polished it all up so when Joseph came
through, he met Joseph and welcomed him back to Wallowa County. He also gave the Indians-they said they could have all the apples they wanted and all the stuff out of the garden and so on.
So then Chief Joseph came on up to Wallowa and tried to buy land, but he wasn’t able to buy
any land.
GT: So was he not able to buy land because people wouldn’t sell it to him? What was the
situation--was there a law that was around that said you couldn’t?
ADV: No. The land where his father was buried was land owned by a man by the name of Bill
Minor. So, he went to Bill Minor to see if he could get enough land so he could be buried by his
father. Well, Bill Minor said, I would sure like to sell you the land, but he said a lot of these
people have it in for the Indians and they said, you will never have a day’s peace--somebody will
bother you all the time.
GT: So at this stage stop then, your mom [grandmother] ran the hotel . . .did she cook as well?
ADV: Yeah, she furnished meals.
GT: Did she have people who worked for her?
ADV: I never did hear her say. It was pretty much . . .
GT: A mom and pop operation?
ADV: Yeah. And then he collected toll on the toll bridge.
GT: So what would the toll be for the toll bridge?
ADV: It’s kind of funny. I think it was two bits for a wagon and two bits for a team of horses.
If you walked, it didn’t cost you anything. So they had a sign tacked on the bridge that said the
prices. So this guy came from Elgin horseback and looked at the sign. He said, oh, you can
walk for free. So he takes his saddle off his horse and takes his lasso rope and tied it onto the
saddle horn, and he walks across the bridge and leads his horse across the river. Well, when he
got to the other side, my granddad says, where is your 50 cents? Oh, I don’t have to pay--it says
people don’t pay. My granddad says, in his country anybody that has a saddle on his back is
called a horse! So he made him pay his 50 cents. So he waded all the way across the river, had
to take his shoes off and his chaps, and everything to save 50 cents and it didn’t work out.
GT: So how long did it take to get a buggy or, say, the stagecoach from Elgin to Wallowa
County?
ADV: Well, it’s really faster than you would think. When my grandparents had this stage stop
and served them meals, somebody from Elgin could leave Elgin horseback, which was about 20
miles or so, and they could stop at the stage stop and eat dinner, and then ride up to Joseph that
afternoon if they had fast trotting horses and so on. Really, it was faster than you would think.
GT: What’s the beginning of your story from your father? How did that . . .
ADV: Well, after he had his homestead, see, then the war started. So he volunteered for World
War I. Well then he met my mother back in Washington, D.C. She was working in Washington,
D.C. While he was back there, he met her. He met her there in Pennsylvania and then she came
to visit him, but he married her back there when she was working in Washington, D.C. They
came out in about 1918 and went right down into Joseph Creek. It was full of rattlesnakes and
everything else. He had a log cabin. Also, his brother had taken out a homestead too adjoining
on Joseph Creek.
GT: So your mom was okay with the rattlesnakes?
ADV: Well, not really! There wasn’t anything she could do about it. She was up in the
morning, especially in the fall, and there would be a rattlesnake up against the door trying to
keep warm, you know. Everything worked pretty fine until 1920, and Wallowa County and
Joseph Creek area had the coldest winter on existence. So the winter of 1919 and 1920, there in
the bottom of Joseph Creek, for a period of 30 days, it never got above zero. The snow was five
feet deep on top, so they couldn’t get any hay in. The hillsides were so steep and frozen that the
cattle couldn’t stay on it and 100 of them slid off and were killed. So, my father was wiped out.
So then he went back to Smith Mountain to work for his father. The school at Minam only had
three students--it had two eighth graders and a first grader. But they couldn’t find a teacher.
Well, my dad said his wife had been a school teacher in Pennsylvania, but she didn’t have a
certificate for Oregon. So they said if you will take the job, we’ll get you the certificate. So they
got her a certificate. Well, the school was a little one-room school up on top of the hill above
Minam to the south. So she lived in the schoolhouse also. My brother John was born in March,
and he was only five months old when she started teaching school. So she taught school in a
one-room schoolhouse. She lived in a one-room schoolhouse with a five-month old boy. There
were only three students, two boys and a girl. The boy was only in first grade, and the two other
children were in the 8th grade. The girl would take care of my brother while my mother was
busy, and then the boys would fill her wood box full of wood and so on. So she had quite a life.
GT: So, she actually lived at the schoolhouse?
ADV: Right.
GT: What was your dad doing?
ADV: He was on Smith Mountain working for his father.
GT: So they spent a lot of time separate in order to make ends meet?
ADV: Right. On weekends then, he would ride his horse down to the school and spend the
weekend with her. She had quite a rough time.
GT: How long did that last?
ADF: Well, it was just the one year and then they closed the school down and that was it. So
then my father went into the wood business, cutting wood and cutting logs. Also, in 1920, that’s
when the mill--the lumber company bought out Maxville.
In 1920, my father bought 80 acres on Diamond Prairie near Wallowa. About the same time, the
lumber company came up from Louisiana and started logging the timber on Smith Mountain. So
my father had 80 acres and he said, you know, I’ll see if I can get a contract with the company to
furnish them with meat and milk for the logging operations. So he got a contract, and he built a
slaughterhouse and butchered his own beef, raised his own beef, and then he furnished the meat
and milk for the company at Maxville. So, that’s how come he ended up at Maxville.
GT: So what was the name of that logging company?
ADV: It was Bowman-Hicks. So he bought a brand-new Model T truck and hired his brotherin-law; his wife’s brother-to help run it. Every other day, he would take a load of meat and milk
to Maxville to the company. Everything worked well--even in the summer it was kind of bad
because it was always so dusty and everything, and it wasn’t much of a road he had to travel on
to get to Maxville. In the wintertime, the snow would get so deep, he would have to use a team
of horses and sled to haul. In the summertime, if he needed to, he could make a trip once a day if
he had to, but in the wintertime, it would take two days--one day to get to Maxville and one day
to get back from Maxville because of the snow. He got to know a lot of people at Maxville. Of
course, my wife’s father was at Maxville. Her mother was at Maxville, and her three sisters were
at Maxville. In fact, her brother was born at Maxville.
GT: So was he around before the blacks started moving there?
ADV: Well, yes. See, he went there in 1920 and the blacks started coming in 1922 or 1923.
Because, I think my wife’s parents came in--I think the company came in, in 1923, and then her
dad sent for his wife in 1924 after Maxville was established. Because there wasn’t any place
before then--they didn’t have any place to take care of married people. So pretty near everybody
waited until they got Maxville built and then they sent for their families. Now, I don’t know if
the blacks did the same, but that’s the way the whites did.
GT: So tell me about the connection with the Klan.
ADV: Well, it would probably be about the middle ‘20s--a group of Klu Klux Klan members
with their hoods on showed up at Maxville. MacMillan, who was the superintendent, and Jim
Criley, who was the woods boss, they told them to get the hell out of Maxville. They said, don’t
you people ever come back. Jim Criley (sp?) says, maybe you guys have a mask to fool us, but
he said, I know who you are. He said I don’t ever want to see your face around here again. So
that was the end of the Klu Klux Klan.
GT: Do you think they actually moved out of Wallowa at that time?
ADV: No, I don’t. Because Wallowa at that time was against the blacks--that is, part of the
people were. They couldn’t get a hotel room, they couldn’t eat at the restaurant, and their first
schoolteacher was a black woman. They later had a white man. But she came down to Wallowa
to take an examination for school and she had to spend two days for this deal. She couldn’t find
a place to stay in Wallowa. So her husband had to bring her into Wallowa and then at the end
of the day take her back up to Maxville, and then bring her back the next day because she
couldn’t find a place to stay in the town of Wallowa. But then just as soon as the blacks moved
into town, everybody got along with them. I don’t know why the people in town was against
them so, because after they moved into town, it was altogether a different deal it seemed like.
We got along fine with the Negroes who lived down here.
GT: I have heard a lot of stories from you today about the choices that the men in the family
made and the choices the wives made, and how do you think the women felt about being in this
country and being a part of a frontier life?
ADV: I know Vera’s mother said that she enjoyed her years at Maxville more than any place
she had ever been. Just wonderful. The type of people they were, they were hard working
people and they seemed to everybody get along pretty good. I guess that type of people was the
only ones who would come out here west anyway. You had to be that kind to rough it.