The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., February 12, 1942, page 1

ED PHILLIPS LAST OF STAGE DRIVERS

     Sixty years ago Ed Phillips, Klickitat county pioneer, was one of the hardest talking and hardest driving stage coach skinners between The Dalles and Ellensburg.
     As they must all men, passing years have even softened Ed Phillips, who will be a 88 on March 25. But Phillips, who now lives modestly just outside the town of Klickitat, still has much more of the pioneer stage coach driver in his makeup.
     Ed Phillips still talks plain and he'll still take a drink too. In fact he attributes his longevity to "plenty of good drinking whiskey" as he declared in a interview in Goldendale last week.

CAME AS YOUTH

     He was just 23 years old when he arrived in Klickitat county back in 1877. Born in the Missouri Ozarks before the Civil War, Ed Phillips grew to manhood in Topeka, Kansas. With his wife and small son he came west to San Francisco on an emigrant train and then travel by boat to Portland. He first settled on a farm a few miles west of Goldendale.
     After farming a short while Phillips sold his ranch and took a job driving stage for Tom Johnson, a pioneer Goldendale business man who founded the overland stage route between The Dalles and Ellensburg. Ike Darland, Billy Gillmore and later William Dickson, all county pioneers, were associated with Johnson in the ownership of the line.

ROUND TRIP A WEEK

     According to Phillips, whose memory is still quite keen, it took a week for a round trip between The Dalles and Ellensburg. One driver took the stage on the entire route. Relay stations were located every fifteen miles.
     After leaving The Dalles the first relay station was Happy Home, near Warwick. The second stop was Goldendale. After that the stage stopped for relays near the summit of the Simcoes and at stations across the Satus and Yakima Valley.
     Stages carried mail and express in addition to passengers, Phillips said. In ordinary weather it required 132 hours on the road for the 308 mile round-trip. In winter when stages were mounted on runners and drifts were piled high across the Simcoes travel was slower.
     "A saloon run by a couple of Germans in The Dalles had offered to pay $50 for a pair of rattlesnakes to send back home in Berlin. A man by the name of George Woodruff, from The Dalles, made a deal with somebody in Goldendale for two live rattlers. Woodruff crated the snakes and loaded them into my stage.

GOT HIS PRICE

     "Coming down the mountain the crate bumped around and came open and the snake crawled out under Woodruff's legs. He jumped and yelled 'snake' and I got the team stopped. Dan Scammon, a Goldendale flour miller and Hi Dustin, a local lawyer, were other passengers in the stage. Woodruff offered to pay me $5 if I'd put the snake back in the crate for him.
     "Snakes never scared me much so I took a couple of sticks and soon had the rattler under control and ready to stuff into the box. Woodruff was pretty tight and seeing how easy I'd handled the snake he began to back out on his offer.
     "But when I started to turn the snake loose again Woodruff came through and I got my five dollars."

LOTS OF WHISKEY

     In those days Phillips salary was $90 a month with board and whiskey thrown in. "And there was lots of whiskey," the old stage driver declared.
     Asked if he believed merchandise stocked by present day state operated liquor stores was as good as the stuff served up 60 years ago Phillips snorted "h___ no."
     Colorful old pioneer that he is, Philips is the only living member of that original crew of stage drivers who carried the mail on scheduled from Ellensburg to The Dalles and back again. Others of that crew were: Ike Darland, Billy Gillmore, Willard Barger, Al Lillie, Joe Lillie, Al Lockwood, Wilbur Ostrander, Don Shearer, Billy Bennett, Howard Marshall, Jim Stice, Brigham Young and Oliver Soper.

FISHES NOW

     In those days the stage line's Goldendale depot was the Chappell hotel which stood on the corner of Main and Grant now used for a parking lot.
     After driving stage for several years Phillips returned to the farm. Later with his son he logged for the Pierce sawmill north of Goldendale. He homesteaded in that area and later logged off his land.
     A few years ago he moved to Klickitat where he now what makes his home. It's near the river and Phillips likes to fish.

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer