Many families in the Mossyrock area were displaced when Tacoma City built two hydroelectric dams on either side of the community in the Cowlitz River Gorge in the 1960s. These families had worked hard from the time of settlement at the turn of the century to establish farms, homes and businesses. The fallout and “uprootedness” consequences for these families and their descendants are still being felt almost 60 years later. The impact affected those who remained in the area as well, changing the cohesiveness the community had enjoyed. Seldom do entire communities share such a singular, devastating experience.
I was a child when my family was forced to move from the area, but a longing and curiosity to regain that sense of belonging propelled me into decades-long research of Mossyrock, Riffe and surrounding communities. I have spent almost of all my spare time and “pocket change” for some years now interviewing people while they were still with us and gathering research in order to establish a historical framework that will benefit not only my own passion, but enrich others who were dispersed even more widely than I was. It doesn’t take long for those of “us” to make connections and understand the historical bond between us.
In 1994, George Justice, from Riffe, and Lowell Davis, from Swofford, initially encouraged me to publish my research. Even back then, George and Lowell would chuckle and say, “I don’t see how you are going to get all that in one book!” They were right. It grew into a five-volume work titled, “The Cowlitz River Valley Heritage.” The first volume on the Swofford, Green Mountain and Ajlune area was published this fall. The other four volumes are in the final stages of research, although photos and information for the upcoming volumes are still welcomed for inclusion.
One of the more interesting areas when I began my research was the Lone Trail area, north of the Cowlitz River near Riffe. There never was a road to the school, it was remotely placed, deep in the forest, astraddle the fork of two ancient native trails. Lone Trail was the name given to the old Indian trail on the north side of the Cowlitz River. Lone Trail School was just that: a tiny split cedar building nestled in a small clearing secluded among tall Douglas fir trees.
Black bears in the valley were frequent visitors, including one that once visited the school and caused a bit of excitement among the students. Bears enjoyed the fruit from the nearby abandoned orchard, where the original Ernest Tietz homestead had been.
The school never served over 10 pupils at one time. It was built about equal distance from the homes of several families with children attending, so none would have to walk too far to attend. The trails merged on the south side of Peterman Hill, down from Nesika toward Riffe on the north side of the Cowlitz River. At various times, there were Hunt, Cook, Cox, West and Justice students served by the school.
Elexious Hunt, Jim Justice, Harmon Justice, Orange West, Cox and Johnny Cook and their families had homesteads in the isolated area, which was without advantage of a road. The area did not have road access until 1936 and never did have electricity.
Bill Justice and his wife, Mary Prater Justice, arrived in November 1903 from Pike County, Kentucky. A young doctor had told Bill he needed a better climate to improve his health. Bill’s brother, Harmon, also brought his family. Harmon settled his family on the west side of the Cowlitz and his children attended the Riffe schools. Bill settled his family consisting of 10 children on the east side of the Cowlitz in the Lone Trail Valley.
For quite a few years, they had to ferry everything across the river, as there was no bridge yet. There also was no school in the valley at this early date, so the Justice children attended Morton schools, as they were closer and easier to attend.
The road up from the river to the homestead was so swampy in places, including torturous creek banks to ford, that the Justice family did not go to Riffe very often. They were effectively cut off from the community, but oddly they could hear roosters crow in the early mornings, dogs bark and, if the wind was right, voices would occasionally carry across the river.
Johnny Cook had come west with the Foister family and was running the ferry at Nesika when he married Pricie Hunt, daughter of John Hunt. He acquired the homestead of Ely Cook in the valley because it was too far for Ely’s girls, Elvie Martin and Betty Lester, to go to school. Johnny and Pricie’s oldest children, Lula and Elzie, were born in their first little home in the valley, up quite a ways from the river.
When Johnny got a job as mail carrier from Riffe to Kosmos, the family moved to the old Blue or Melaney place along the road about a mile west of Riffe. Henry (Hank) was born there and then the family moved back to the Lone Trail Valley where Jess and Goldie (Jo) were born.
When the Cook family moved back it was closer to the river and into a more substantial house on the old Henderson place. “I remember it was my job to keep the shades of the oil lamps clean,” recalled Goldie. “Every day I would carefully remove them and wash them and return them to their spots on tables and dressers. From the log house, there was an excellent view of the Cowlitz River from the huge back porch that ran all along the side of the house. Our home’s location was down from Highland Valley and the Hunts’ place.”
Elzie, Hank and Nellie went to the Nesika School for a year and to the Baugh School for a year. “It was so hard for my dad to ferry us across the river each day and was very dangerous,” remembered Elzie Cook. Rather than run the risk of ferrying their children across the unpredictable Cowlitz twice a day, Elexious Hunt and Johnny Cook built the school halfway between their places. The Hunt place up towards Peterman Hill meant his kids walked downhill to school. The Cook kids walked uphill to school, from the river. About a three quarter mile walk through the woods offered much less risk than crossing the river.
Goldie Jo Cook Mayhew remembered there was no television or movies for entertainment. The most they had was an occasional newspaper. “We didn’t know how to get in trouble. We liked to play a game where we would throw a ball over the schoolhouse, while yelling, ‘Annie Over’.”
Concerning her childhood memories of school in the Lone Trail Valley, Fern Hunt Jackson remembered, “My dad would make each of us kids brand new homemade soles for our shoes and buy us each a pair of new shoelaces each fall; I was so proud of them. In school, our teacher used to put black beads on me in order to tell me apart from my twin sister, Fay.”
George Justice, at age 88 in 1993, recollected a hike to the Lone Trail School. “When I was a young student at Riffe, my entire school walked into Lone Trail to participate in a Christmas program. It wasn’t the program, but the going there, that made it memorable for me.”
There was never a post office or store of any kind in the Lone Trail area, but was well known because of the school and also because of a cable car that was built across the river by Johnny Cook. His son Jesse Cook recalled, “The teachers would ride across the river in the cable car basket that my dad built.”
The Lone Trail School was moved into an old farmhouse about 1929, on land that adjoined the Hunt place that the Hunts had purchased from the Harmon Justice family. Since the Cook family had moved from the valley it was no longer practical for the Hunt students to hike the trail to the old schoolhouse as they were the only students left on the north side of the Cowlitz.
Don Hunt recounted, “The original sign was removed from the old Lone Trail building and brought to the new schoolhouse. However, the old original Lone Trail schoolhouse was still standing and had wood stacked in the woodshed until after WWII, when the area was logged.” Hunt also remembered they found out one of his teachers smoked cigarettes. “It was discovered when my brother and I found an empty discarded can of Prince Albert ‘roll-your-owns’ in the brush where the teacher had left it. This caused that teacher to be considered a ‘bad one.”
The independent lifestyle of the Lone Trail families was unique and seemed idyllic even in their day. If it entailed less convenience and more hardship they seemed somehow to be unaware of it. In July of 2008 Goldie Jo Cook Mayhew viewed herself in Lone Trail School photos and reflected that she and her siblings had bare feet. “I don’t recall that we had walked to school barefoot. I guess we were poorer than I remember. We always had plenty to eat. We couldn’t afford a camera and probably didn’t know much, or think much about them. My mom kept sheep and sheared them and spun and dyed the wool. She had a big loom and spinning wheel and all. Oh, boy, when I think of those times now, I wish I had been old enough and knew enough to have asked more questions! I still have a piece of a green blanket she made. I also remember a green skirt and a purple top she made for me. Boy, we sure have come a long ways since those days, haven’t we?”
