mstation.html

The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., May 17, 1973, page 10

TOWN OF LYLE STARTS AS MAIL STATION IN YEAR 1859

In pioneer days the government was anxious to provide mail service to people who had gone into the wilderness to establish homes. The population of Klickitat County was along the Columbia River, when the county was chartered by legislative act in 1859.
This new mail station was know as Klickitat Landing (Lyle). The first white settler at Klickitat Landing was Egbert French who arrived from Ohio. He married an Indian girl and one daughter was born to them while they lived here.
In 1866 Mr. French sold his holdings to James O. Lyle and moved to White Bluffs on the upper Columbia River to engage in cattle ranching.
James O. Lyle was born in Pennsylvania in 1831, with his parents they moved west settling in Iowa. In 1857 James married Martha Snipes and in 1863 joined the Snipes family wagon train for Oregon. They arrived at The Dalles on July 10, 1863. For two years Mr. Lyle was located on a farm at Rowena, opposite Klickitat Landing. In 1866 he moved to his new holdings on the Columbia. Soon after locating, Mr. Lyle got a post office established and was the first post master, Klickitat Landing was one of the three first post offices north of the Columbia River and east of the Cascades in Washington territory. The other two were Yakima City and Klickitat Creek. Mail was delivered to Klickitat Landing by river steamer.
Mr. Lyle was Postmaster for eight years and records in the court house at Goldendale show he was elected county commissioner in June 1870. In 1892 Mr. Lyle sold his ranch to Sir Thomas Balfour, a British Lord, of London, England. Mr. Lyle then purchased land at Camas Prairie and also many acres northwest of Lyle, north of Columbia Grange hall, where he lived for sometime before moving to Camas Prairie. Soon after this Klickitat Landing was changed to Lyle.
Other early settlers were William Gilmer in 1864, Jack Perry from New York in 1866, Harry Lamont, a great prankster and handy man, and Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Howard who owned the general store. Many more moved into the area during this time.
The Balch or Lyle Cemetery was plotted sometime between 1878 and 1883. The first person buried there was Sarah James in 1883. She was the grandmother of Herb, Ira and Forest Hewett.
The first lumbering was cutting cord wood for river steamboats in 1858.
During the 80's there was a large general migration of home seekers in western Klickitat County. The new comers had to find homes farther back from the river. Localities in the Lyle area were the heights above Lyle, Panakanic, Timber Valley, Missouri Flat, now known as Appleton, Wrights Landing near the present site of Klickitat and Hartland on High Prairie.
Among these settlers was Frederick Homer Balch who moved here with his parents in 1880. The Balch homestead was on a bench flat about four miles north west of Lyle. It was located directly opposite Memmaloose Island. Not far away on Major Creek was an Indian village. Frederick had very little schooling but had a great love for writing, observing nature and spending much time with the Indians, listening to their stories. Through his encouragement a church was built with lumber and labor donated and some money contributed by the Congregational Missionary Association. When the church was completed there was no minister to fill the pulpit, but being solicited he accepted the work believing it was his duty, he also preached at White Salmon. Balch died in 1891 at the age of twenty-nine and one half years and is buried at the Balch Cemetery. His short life was full of much illness and unhappiness. Balch's main writing is the "Bridge of the Gods" which was first published in 1890. There were many poems and unfinished manuscripts. Some have been published in later years.
There was much speculation about a railroad and in 1890 a survey was made from Alfalfa Station on the Northern Pacific rail line in Yakima County to Lyle. Due to disagreement the line was never built. Then came the rush of Pacific Northwest timberland. In the spring of 1902 Homer C. Campbell, civil engineer and bridge builder arrived in Goldendale. He announced he had come to look the country over in hopes of building a railroad from Goldendale to Lyle. In December 1902 the first assignment of rolling stock arrived in Lyle. Two locomotives, two passenger cars and fifty-five freight cars had been purchased in Chicago. The track was completed and the first train arrived in Goldendale on April 25, 1903. This was a construction train, a regular common carrier did not begin for two months. It was estimated about 10,000 tons of wheat were awaiting shipments in warehouses along the line. The line was called the Columbia River and Northern Railroad Co. with Mr. Campbell as President.
SP&S Railroad construction was started in 1905 and in 1910 CR&N Railroad became part of the SP&S. The old town site of Lyle, which laid south of the newly constructed railroad was purchased by SP&S and in 1909 the present town site was plotted. Steamboats ceased to operate on the Columbia River after the completion of the North Bank line.
Most of this history was taken from Robert Ballou's book, "Early Klickitat Valley Day's" published in 1938.