LaVonne M Sparkman "The Railroad made a big difference"

The Railroad Made A Big Difference
by LaVonne M. Sparkman

The first homesteaders came into Davis Lake Valley (where Morton is located) in the 1880's. About the same time, the Big Bottom country (Randle area) and Packwood saw the first settlers. Although the earliest arrivals couldn't reach all the way to their destination by railroad, many came across country on trains to Chehalis or Tacoma. Their arrival meant the railroad directly affected settlement of this region.

A large number of people came to take advantage of the Homestead Law, which said that government land could be obtained for free after a certain amount of work was done every year for several years to "prove up" on the free land. Many of the pioneers worked at jobs during the winter, mostly in mills, in towns like Tacoma, Puyallup or Chehalis and then spent the summers improving their homestead property so that they could get their deed called a "patent". Several old-timers have copies of their parents' patents which were signed by President McKinley before 1900.

Also available were the alternate sections that had been given to Northern Pacific Railroad as an inducement to build west. Many pioneers were disappointed to find their land had to be purchased, however, the usual price was $1.25 an acre. Either way it was an attractive way to acquire your own land. Many flocked here in the early 1900's. Those who came, usually by train, had been struggling to make a living on poor, exhausted land so that free or cheap homesteads were very attractive. The same hunger for their own property drove people to come West on the Oregon Trail a generation or so earlier.

To get here by railroad, some came as individual families with their children, while others came with a group of families, such as the Stiltners and Clevengers, who had negotiated a special group rate with the railroad.

Before the settlers could reach this area by railroad, the nearest stop was Chehalis. From there they rented or bought a team of horses and a buggy or wagon to follow the muddy roads that were not much more than a trail hacked through the heavy timber, some improved with puncheon. One of the Riffe family daughters couldn't understand why her father passed by more open country to settle in a forest.

Later Tacoma Eastern Railroad was built, but it did not reach all the way into Morton until July 1910. The first depot was on the Divide between Mineral & Morton called Glenovan. From there horses and wagons had to be rented for the remainder of the trip of about seven miles to Morton.

The original plan was for the railroad to go to Randle, but when that proved to be too expensive, they went back several miles toward Mineral and re-engineered the route to come down the valley of a branch of the Tilton River.

It was a day of much celebration when the tracks finally reached Morton. It was not only a big boost for Morton and all of Eastern Lewis County; it meant a huge improvement in connections with the rest of the country.

The town began to grow although it remained smaller than Mineral until the mid-1920's. As settlers poured in to acquire property throughout Eastern Lewis County, the railroad was their means of bringing household and farming equipment with them.

The thick timber covering so much of this country did not discourage many of those hard-working people. With nothing but saws and axes (some had only axes) and their team of horses they fell the huge trees. That was the easier job; grubbing out the stumps with only horse-power and man-power was a real struggle. Often the wife worked right beside the man, so that land would be cleared for the essential garden first, then pasture, hay and grain for their horses & cattle.

After the railroad arrived, the difficult, lengthy haul of supplies was dramatically shortened. Before that settlers living east of Morton usually took horses and wagons to Chehalis, while from Mineral and Elbe they went to Tacoma.

Two passenger trains a day served the area. It was common for people to ride into Tacoma in the morning and return on the afternoon train. Elmer Sparkman's parents, W. Jay and Mallie Sparkman rode into Tacoma in March 1918, got married and came back to Mineral to set up their home all in one day.

At that time the large Mineral Lake Lumber Company, the Ladd coal mines, and logging all contributed to make Mineral a prosperous town, much larger than Morton was then. The M.R. Smith shingle mill also employed a crew. There were three general stores, a hotel, car agency, ice cream parlor, shoe repair shop, laundry, and a several of other businesses.

However, the big lumber mill burned down in 1922 and was never rebuilt. Ladd coal mine and the arsenic mine closed down about the same time. That brought Mineral's growth to a stop despite being on the railroad, while Morton continued to grow.

Another influence of the railroad was felt when most of Morton's main business buildings burned down in the big fire of July 1924. Store owners were able to quickly get supplies from Tacoma by train and set up for business within days.

It is a well-known fact that during the Depression, the train brought large quantities of sugar and corn here to supply the ingredients for one of the few ways the local men could make some money. They set up stills carefully hidden in the woods to make illegal whiskey known as "moonshine" or "white lightening".

The expertise came with the men from the hill country back east. One particular patriarch of a large family had the reputation of making a really superior product. The "revenuers" were well aware of this, but seldom were able to get the goods on the fellow. Oh, a few times he spent some time in jail, but that just went with the job.

During the late 1930's the railroad provided the means to ship logs from Kosmos Timber Company. Beginning in 1936, the logging outfit did all the hauling out of the woods with their privately owned trains & tracks. When the terrain they were logging became too steep, the railroad grade was converted to a truck road and over-size trucks did the hauling.

Kosmos Timber hauled the logs to the interchange located on what is now Davis Lake Road. Milwaukee Railroad (which had bought out Tacoma Eastern) took over for the haul to Tacoma mills. During the logging company's busiest years, they were shipping out a hundred cars of logs a day, yes, every day!

Then there was the era of railroad tie mills, beginning in the late 1930's and flourishing in the late 1940's. The railroad made it possible to reach the markets for the ties. The second-growth timber of this whole area was the perfect size to cut for ties and only a simple sawmill was needed. Estimated to number between 75 and 100 mills in Eastern Lewis County, it seemed every hilltop had a mill with their sawdust piles that could be seen for a long time.

A tie mill could be set up easily by buying a stand of timber, acquiring a few saws, hiring one man to cut the trees and a man or two to run the mill. Most of the mills were partnerships, so that they didn't need much hired help. Building the haul roads was tricky with the steep hills on which the mills sat. Often, the first lumber that was cut was to make a road.

Men were needed to drive the trucks used to haul the ties to the railhead in Morton where the longest tie docks in the world were located. Loading the trucks and unloading with a hooked tool on a long wooden handle called a pickaroon required skill which became a contest at the Loggers Jubilee in its earlier years.

Before World War II, power for the saws was steam from burning wood. After the war, diesel engines were available. It was at those years the demand for ties was great as Europe's railways had to be rebuilt.

Yes, the railroad made a huge difference in the growth of Morton and vicinity. Many people are hoping that reviving railroad access will make a big difference again.