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The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., September 18, 1980, page 7
Includes photographs

BLOCKHOUSE TRADING POST WAS 'SOMETHING ELSE'
By Glenda Luloff, Sentinel Staff Writer

Nellie Counts of Goldendale remembers her mother telling her at the Blockhouse store was "something else in those days."
"Those days" were the years following the construction of the store in 1880. The store celebrates its 100th birthday this year as a museum, still sitting on its original site about 6 miles west of Goldendale.
The Blockhouse store is owned by Paul and Delores Bellamy but has seen a variety of owners and uses in its century of existence.
In 1904 when Counts' mother, Bertha Willis, worked at the store it was operated by Harriet Kayser. Willis was 14 when she tended and cleaned at the store. She also cooked and served meals and milked the cows for her dollar-a-week wages. Counts says she thinks her mother worked at the store for at least one year before she married Jay Beaver in 1906.
Harriet Kayser was considered a shrewd business woman in her dealings with the settlers and Indians. She grubstaked homesteaders and when they packed up and moved away she took over their places in payment for what they owed.
The Blockhouse store was built in 1888 by Albert Kayser, Harriet's husband. He named it the Spring Creek House. The name was changed around 1894. The trading post was built on the spot it occupies because when Kayser moved here in 1879 he noticed the Indians passed the spot on their way to Mt. Adams for huckleberries, farmers passed through on their trips for wood and lumber and it was a handy location for outfitting sheep camps.
The Kaysers operated the store for nearly 20 years before selling it to Slim Bowen. Bowen had come to the area in 1920 and married the Kayser's daughter-in-law, Maggie. She had been married to the Kayser's son Millard. Descendants of the Kaysers still live in the Goldendale and Centerville area.
Bowen operated the store from 1920 to 1960. He traded with loggers, farmers, ranchers and Indians. Over the years the store became a prime candidate for a museum because Bowen kept all the odds and ends he collected.
Following Bowen's death the Bellamys purchase the store from his sister. The store went out of operation in 1965 because of lack of business.
"The store was just too close to town and there wasn't enough business," Mrs. Bellamy said.
The furniture that is in the museum now is not the original store furnishings. The things there now came from the estate of Clarence Baker. He died in 1968 and left the things to the Bellamys. The furniture was brought to this area in 1905 by Baker's parents.
Except for the furniture most other things displayed in the store still remain from when it was in business.
The museum building itself is the original building put up by Albert Kayser. It was built with square nails, which were still being sold from a bin when the store went out of operation. Owners of the store lived in an apartment constructed in the back of the building.
The building also has a room upstairs. At one time it was used to hold dances. About 1960 the room upstairs was converted into two rooms.
The Blockhouse Store also housed the local post office from the early 1900s until 1930 when the post office was discontinued. One item on display at the museum is a postcard from the State Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics to the Blockhouse postmaster. The postmark reads 1905.
Other articles in the museum include a stove that Mr. Bellamy thinks has been there since the store was built. It still works and is used to burn paper.
There are also slate boards that were used by a schoolteacher named Mrs. Bowen. She taught in Appleton from 1907 to 1915. The store has shelves of books that belonged to Mrs. Bowen and to Clarence Baker's sister, also a teacher in the area.
A replica of the Blockhouse Fort is set up at the store. It was built by Vic Bryant. The miniature of the fort is similar to the fort on the inside.
Another novelty item in the museum is the "ox-ox beads." Mrs. Bellamy says the beads were popular with Indian women and had to be ordered from The Dalles. The store carried them in the days when it was a trading post.
Also among the curious at the store are a 1876 rocking chair, a 1889 safe, a 1905 Victorola, a 1889 automatic cigar clipper, a 1915 candy scale, a 1906 mustard plaster, and 1912 or 1914 Model T coils.
Mr. Bellamy still owns the Model A that was purchased new by Slim Bowen in 1930. He said it has had only two owners since it was made and has always been kept in the same broad.
Even packed with the many other articles it holds, the Blockhouse Museum is still holding up strong. It is open to the public by appointment. The building is kept closed except when visitors are there to view it. The museum is free of charge.