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The Hood River County Sun, Hood River, OR., January 18, 1939, page 8

EARLY HISTORY RECALLED

     Ned Van Nuys entertained the Game Warden, Larry Gramse, and an old pioneer, Jake Lenz, as his "Pocahontas" lodge last week. Ned's granddaughter, Jean Thompson, gave him a guest book for Christmas. Now he can have a history of his guests. Ned built his first "Den" on his ranch just above the East Fork of the Hood River in 1922. He says if he had only thought of a guest book then he would certainly have a lot of famous autographs. Mrs. J.A. Candee has kept a guest book since 1910. She has had one book filled and another half full. It was Andy Brown's father who was her first border and interested Mrs. Candee in the registration. She and her husband bought land and developed one of the first orchards. Alfred T. Allen, who homesteaded west of them (where the Steinhausers and Wm. Smullen) afterward went into the real estate business and brought moneyed men in from the East to buy land. London and Powers came into the country during this period. It was 1902 to 1910 that Hood River experienced its first great boom. That district above Parkdale was called Valley Crest. It was homesteaded and developed before Parkdale. The school had an enrollment of about twenty. Pearl Playlock was the teacher, and the "Strangers" Sunday School had an enrollment of 40 on some Sundays. There had been a school higher up on the Davis homestead (the present Mt. Hood Club.) Hope Shelley of Odell was the first teacher there. It was called the Chinahill school, for the camp of Chinese who worked on the Cooper's Spur road in 1880-90.

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer