History of Early Pioneer Families of Hood River, Oregon.
Compiled by Mrs. D.M. Coon

HOOD RIVER GLACIER IN THE BEGINNING AS NARRATED BY J.H. CRADLEBAUGH

Salem, Oregon, June 15, 1913

Editor Glacier:

     Your request that I write something of Hood River's earlier days is thoroughly appreciated, for my recollections of the richest and most beautiful little valley in the world are pleasant to recall, and to put them on paper, indeed a labor of love. There are two difficulties in the way of complying with your request, however. One, that with all the pleasant things that come trouping to the front as memory beckons, one knows not where to begin; and the other that once started there is no good stopping place. Added to this is the fact that you have still with you those who found Hood River valley, as it were, a wilderness, and have made it an orchard, who knew it from its babyhood, makes it presumptuous on my part to speak of it other than of my own too brief stay there. I first went to Hood River at the request of George T. Prather. At the time I was editing a newspaper at The Dalles, the old Wasco Sun, if my memory serves me right, and Prather suggested starting a little paper at Hood River. I visited the little town nestled under the hill, like a lone chick under its mother's wing, and took a trip out through the valley. I was deeply impressed with the beauty of the valley as all must who see it, and was struck by its immense possibilities in the way of fruit growing, but I must confess that when I came to looking at it as a newspaper field, it did not strike me as being ideal. Prather, however, had the courage of his convictions, and while he was not then in the millionaire class, guaranteed the payment of $20.00 a week. With this understanding and, a sort of quasi partnership, arrangement the first issue of the Hood River Glacier was gotten out. It wasn't very large, a sort of cross between a postage stamp and a letter head, but small as it was, through Prather' a hard work, it was subscribed for by practically every one in the valley.
     The first ten or a dozen numbers were printed in The Dalles and in a month or two it was enlarged to a five column quarto, and later to a metropolitan sheet of six columns, two pages patent.
     Then a Washington hand press was secured, and when it reached the six column size it was printed in Hood River. I did writing, proof reading, etc., all by my lonesome, some five or six columns a week. Mrs. C. "jerked the antimony" for a few columns from the one little case. I pulled "the devil's tail" on the hand press with Johnny (his name has slipped my memory, Henningsen, I think) running the ink roller. The subscription list and exchanges required 306 papers (Grant's number) and 320 were printed.
     The Hood River Townsite Company was organized soon after this, being composed as I remember it, of the Hon. E.L. Smith, Jos. A. Wilson and Sherman La France. The company very generously presented the Glacier the lot on the corner of Oak and Third and this alone kept the Glacier from the hospital, if not front the grave yard that yawns so hungrily for young newspapers. About the same time Henry Coe laid out Waucoma and an ad carried by him swelled the Glacier's income $2.50 a month, aiding materially in keeping its little bottle supplied with milk.
     Col. C.E.S. Wood, and Portland parties, completed Cloud Cap Inn, and the road there to that year and Charles Bone and Lou Adams put on a stage line. An armory was built in Waucoma addition and Hood River began to lick itself, wax fat and like Jeshuron, kick.
     Hood River at that time was not on the map very largely. J.H. Middleton had a general merchandise store, Prather had a little store, Uncle Bob Rand owned and ran the hotel, and I recall now that his advertisement in the Glacier, a stereo-type made when the Glacier started, read all through the next winter: "Neat, Clean and Cool." The Glacier home was built by "Jim" Langille, rare old Jim, with a tongue tipped with vitriol and a heart of solid gold, who said the meanest things publicly and did the most generous and charitable ones privately, of any man I ever knew. Will Langille, now a prominent Alaskan, was a guide from Cloud Cap Inn to the summit of Mount Hood at this time, and shortly after the Glacier arrived E.E. Lytle took charge of the O.R. & N. telegraph and depot work. He is a rail-road owner now, building the road to Tillamook. Dr. Adams, who had attended to the coming in and going out of this world events for the whole valley up to about this time, now shared this line of work with Dr. Brosius, who came from the east, from having read of the valley in the Glacier. Mart Harrison had a store, too, and later bought out Middleton. He also owned a fine bull, known as Tippecanoe, who roamed the streets at will, smashed fences and did about as he pleased. He furnished news enough for the little Glacier to entitle him to a salary, but -- well, he didn't get it.
     The Glacier owes its name to the humorous side of events. It's size and resistless force, suggesting the big Glacier. However, the name was a happy one, for the little bantling has lived up to its name and grown weighty.
     As I stated in beginning this article, there is no place to stop. I recall so many of the old settlers, good warm friends, both of mine and the paper's, to when both owe so much, and which I have stored away in my memory along with the countless other pleasant things, the only kind, thank God, that memory keeps fresh and green and fragrant for us, and let us live over again, while the sorrow and pain, the ills and suffering she blots out. The "forgettery" branch of memory is one of her most pleasant attributes, and my remembrances of Hood River are of such a nature that I have none I would willingly forget. Her people, like her fruits are, A1, first class, the best in George Crowell, Jack Luckey, and neither last nor least, T.C. Dallas, who could have been bigger hearted, if nature had given him a bigger body to hold it. It all seems now but a dream to me, and the five years of my stay in Hood River, but the happenings of a day. I do not remember the coming of any but S.E. Bartmess. Williams & Wolfard and the others, as far as I can recollect, were there all together, always.
     Mrs. Jennie Champlin for a large portion of the time was the local Nasby, and "Joe Aleck" the venerable aborigine, carried Uncle Sam's mail to White Salmon. Those five years were pleasant ones, though I realize now I gave five of the best years of my life to aid in the upbuilding of Hood River, and left it considerable poorer than when I went into it. I realized what Hood River would some time be, but I could not hold on. Sam Blythe, who had helped so materially in getting out the paper, and to whom I was indebted a hundred or more "sesterces," consented to take the paper off my hands, and carried on the work of boosting Hood River, how successfully one only has to look at the magnificent valley, now an orchard, to realize. May it continue its good work. As for myself, I have been in the newspaper business so long that I have but little hopes of heaven and feel that I have done penance enough here to let me steer clear of the other place, If I can, however, strike some place as a compromise as beautiful as Hood River, with as nice a bunch of "folks" in it, I shall never regret the gold paved streets, nor the divine music promised the faithful. I never cared much for gold, and have a poor ear for music besides. Hood River is about my size, my ideal for a here and a hereafter. I would like to mention the old timers out in the valley, who helped provide something, when the fire of love was kindled in the kitchen stove, and who in a thousand ways piled up obligations which I can never repay - and don't want to, for that would spoil some of the sweetest memories of a rather illy spent life. My time, your space, and their diffident modesty all forbid; but God bless them and theirs, one and all, and the Glacier long may it slide.

J.H. Cradlebaugh.

P.S. As a sort of hooker up the back of this rather rambling story let me recall another name -- Frank Button, big, generous and jolly, with a whole card of little pearl buttons.

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