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The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., June 19, 1941, page 1
Includes photograph

BLOCKHOUSE ON THE MOVE AGAIN

To make way for Klickitat county's new courthouse Goldendale's 85-year-old blockhouse this week is being moved to a new location near the south city limits along U.S. highway 97. The old fort, built by U.S. cavalry troopers in the fall of 1855, will be placed on a plot of land leased by I.C. Robinson to the Klickitat Valley Pioneers association. This marks the fourth time the Blockhouse has been moved since it was first erected in a poplar grove near the present Blockhouse Mineral Springs. Records show that the old log fort stood at a its original site until 1903 when it was taken apart and moved to Goldendale. Its logs were dumped in a pile on the southwest corner of the courthouse block where they remained until World War days. These logs were then moved and re-assembled as a blockhouse at the city park just north of the I.O.O.F. cemetery. About 10 years ago, under the sponsorship of the local Pioneers Association, the blockhouse was again moved to its recent location on the courthouse grounds. Somewhere along the line in all this moving the old fort apparently lost a few of its original logs. Old photographs of fort show it to have been a two story affair. Old timers in this community recalled that some of the building's original logs were chopped for wood during the years it was piled up on the corner of Grant and A streets.

HISTORY VAGUE

County historians fail to agree on the part the old blockhouse played in the life of early day Klickitat Valley settlers. However after sifting fact from fiction its seems unlikely the blockhouse was ever called on to withstand Indian attack. The fort was constructed while General Isaac I. Stevens was serving as Washington's territorial governor. Located as it was on the direct route of the old military road that ran from Fort Dalles to Fort Simcoe and then across the Cascades to Steilacoom and Seattle, the blockhouse served as a convenient station for soldiers and settlers alike.

OLD CANNON BURIED

Records seem to indicate that a small troop of cavalry was stationed at the blockhouse for a year or so, perhaps even five years. The fort was built immediately following the murder of the Andrew J. Bolan, Indian agent. Bolan was killed by Klickitats on upper Bowman Creek. It was at about this same period that soldiers from The Dalles were called out to aid in quelling an Indian uprising on Puget Sound. History indicates that a force of 100 soldiers under a Major Haller left The Dalles and traveled across the Klickitat Valley and the Simcoes into Yakima Valley where they met a force of 1500 Klickitats. After a hard battle (some historians indicate the rescue force encountered nothing more dangerous than signal fires) Major Haller's force began a retreat across the Klickitat country to Fort Dalles. A small howitzer, apparently too cumbersome for fast trouble, was reported spiked by the soldiers and hidden near the summit of the Simcoes.

HAVEN FOR WORRIED SETTLERS

This cannon, said to have been hidden near what is now known as Potato hill, has been the object of many futile searches. Arthur Vincent, pioneer Goldendale sheepmen, says he recalls that as a boy herding sheep in that area he once discovered the old canon but made no effort to bring it back to camp. During the period between 1855 and 1865 it is probable worried Klickitat Valley settlers on occasion sought the comparative safety of the old blockhouse and its stockade of pointed logs. However romantic stories of Indian attacks on the fort appeared to be unfounded. During the early 1860's a pioneer settler named Willis Jenkins and his family made their Home in the blockhouse. Tradition has it that an early day minister, Henry Jenkins, son of the pioneer settler, held religious services in the fort and performed one of the county's first marriage ceremonies inside its walls. At its new site along U.S. highway 97 the old blockhouse once again will be located beside one of the west's great north and south highway just as it was 85 years ago. The blockhouse will remain at its new location so long as the Klickitat Valley Pioneers association maintains it in good repair.