The Mt. Adams Sun, Bingen, WA., November 19, 1953, page 4
Includes photographs

BLOCKHOUSE STORE RECALLS LAST CENTURY
(From the Goldendale Sentinel)

     Walking into the Blockhouse store, about 4 miles NW of Goldendale, is like turning the calendar back 50 years. The old building itself reflects the age of the business. With its false front and porch it looks like something from the set of the western movie.
     The store itself is one of the few remaining country general stores. In stock are groceries, hardware, some cloth and thread, gas and oil, and some automobile supplies.
     A big wood-burning stove surrounded by what was at one time comfortable chairs adds to the traditional country store aspect, as do the buckets, oil cans, lengths of stove pipe and all sorts of merchandise hanging from the ceiling. On the floor are kegs of nails, 100-lb. sacks of sugar, blocks of stock salt and other heavy articles.

STARTED IN 1870

     Albert and Harriet Kayser started the Blockhouse store in the early 1870's. There were only four settlers and the old Blockhouse in the area when the business first started. In its early days the old store was a trading post and gathering place for the Indians as well as the few white men in the vicinity.
     Among the early settlers in the Blockhouse area were John Hause, Bob Males and John Green according to R.M. Divers, who is an old time resident of this area.
     Divers said the original store building was torn down in the early 1900's. In 1907 the present building was moved across the road Divers said. The building was at one time a hotel used by travelers from the Dalles to Fort Simcoe on the old military road.

A MURDER

     In 1892 when the hotel belonged to John Cleaves there was a murder in the building. John Green killed a man named William Dunn in a heated argument over some cattle.
     If the old building could talk, it probably would have many tales of the early days in the Blockhouse region that no living man can remember and that have never been recorded. The business is now owned and operated by B.T. Bowen.

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer