Last week, two changes marked the end of an era, the closing of chapters of history — the sale of the Uncle Sam billboard off Interstate 5 near Napavine and the shuttering of the last Hudson Bay Co. stores in Canada.
I’m thrilled to see the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation purchase the triangle of land near Exit 72 where the billboard has for years shouted conservative messages to passersby on the freeway. On Friday morning, the tribe paid $2.5 million for the 3½-acre property that has been for sale since March. I don’t know what the tribe intends for the property, other than buying back land ceded 150 years ago, but the 40-foot-by-13-foot sign with its conservative messages will pass into the annals of history.
At least we’ll finally see the end of the same old messages blaring nonsense for the past few years: “How many Americans will we leave behind in Ukraine?” and “No one died in WW2 so you could show papers to buy food!”
The sign, originally erected on the west side of the freeway in the 1960s, outlasted its founder, turkey farmer Alfred Hamilton of Chehalis, who sold his farm in 1995 and died on Nov. 9, 2004, at 84.
It’s definitely been a landmark along the freeway. When I need to identify the location of Lewis County, I’ve often said, “the place with the conservative Uncle Sam sign.” I even referred to the sign in my latest novel, “Shattered Peace: A Century of Silence.”
I wonder if people have favorite messages they’ve enjoyed plastered on the sign through the years. Or messages they absolutely detested.
As I’ve written in the past, the sign — whether you love it or hate it — demonstrates a First Amendment right we all enjoy: freedom of speech. Neither an 80,000-strong petition to remove the sign nor an arsonist’s attempt to burn it managed to infringe on that right.
But pure economics might.
That’s what shuttered the doors of North America’s oldest company, which had operated for 355 years. According to an article in Yahoo!finance, the company referred to by some Canadians as “The Bay” declared bankruptcy.
Hudson’s Bay Co., founded in 1670 as a fur trading empire, operated trading posts, forts, and stores throughout the continent, even before the United States became a country. Fur trappers working for Hudson’s Bay scouted the Pacific Northwest.
In 1821, Hudson’s Bay absorbed the North West Co. of Fort Astoria, which employed Simon Plamondon, a trapper who traveled in 1818 up the Cowlitz River to the Cowlitz Prairie in what today is Lewis County. He later became a Hudson’s Bay Co. employee.
In 1824, the company established Fort Vancouver, and in 1838, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company that farmed the Cowlitz Prairie near Toledo.
When he quit overseeing Fort Vancouver, Chief Factor John McLoughlin moved to Oregon City, which he had helped establish.
So much of our non-Native Northwest history stretches back to the Hudson’s Bay Co., which slowly changed from fur trading to brick-and-mortar stores, with its first store opening in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1881. Gradually, the department stores faded from the Canadian retail landscape and closed.
Canadian Tire bought the bankrupt company’s assets for $21.5 million and may use the name and logo on special products, according to the article.
HEARTBREAKING MURDERS
Like many people, I prayed for the three young Decker girls missing in Chelan County after their father picked them up for a visitation, and I later read about the horrific discovery of their bodies, likely killed by the father they thought loved them.
Law enforcement is still searching for Travis Decker who picked up his three daughters — 9-year-old Paityn, 8-year-old Evelyn, and 5-year-old Olivia — from their mother’s home on Friday, May 30, and failed to return them three hours later.
On Monday searchers found the bodies of the three girls, each with wrists zip-tied and plastic bags over their heads, near a campground west of Wenatchee, Wash., near Leavenworth. They died from asphyxiation. Their father is wanted on first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.
The lives of three precious beautiful girls cut short. Why?
Whitney Decker, the girls’ mother, through her attorney Arianna Cozart blamed the Veterans Administration. She said the VA failed to give her 32-year-old ex-husband the mental health services he needed after suffering from borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress following his Army service in Afghanistan.
Others blame the Chelan County family court judge who approved the September 2024 parenting plan drafted by Cozart that gave Decker visitation despite his mental instability. It was designed to protect the girls and their relationship with their father, Cozart said. He was ordered to have psychiatric and domestic violence evaluations for anger management issues.
Cozart said he tried to obtain the evaluations and treatment but never did, so the girls’ mother dictated their visitations. He lived in his car, so overnight visits were banned.
With plenty of blame to go around, I don’t know who’s at fault, other than the mentally unstable father who killed his daughters. He needed treatment, which it sounds like he couldn’t receive from the VA. The courts and the mother allowed him to take the girls unsupervised.
All I know is those girls should still be alive today, planning their next birthday parties or sleepovers, giggling with friends, looking forward to summer vacation and a return to school in the fall.
The safety of children should be paramount, overriding the rights of parents who might harm them.
MALL SHOOTER
Closer to home, the FBI and law enforcement agents in Columbia County in northwest Oregon thwarted what could have been another tragedy when they arrested a 14-year-old who planned a mass shooting at the Three Rivers Crossing mall in Kelso.
The Oregon teen faces second-degree attempted murder and first-degree attempted assault charges in juvenile court after searchers discovered plans for exploding an improvised explosive device or chlorine bomb and shooting innocent people as they fled the movie theater.
I’ve watched movies in that theater. I imagine many Chronicle readers have.
Columbia County’s district attorney also plans to charge the teen with two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, tampering with physical evidence, disorderly conduct and two counts of unlawful possession of firearms.
Thank God somebody discovered the plans and tipped off authorities so they could thwart the mass murder. But what kind of juvenile wants to kill innocent people? Why? And what of the parents of mass murderers and would-be villains who should have instilled values and respect for life in their children?
I appreciate the hard work of the FBI and Columbia County law enforcement in catching this culprit before fruition of the evil plans.
CENTRALIA PHOTO HISTORY
I’m scrambling this month to pull together a photo history book of Centralia, similar to the one I produced for Chehalis through Arcadia Images of America. The goal is to have the book available by the 150th Centralia Founders Day celebration on Saturday, Aug. 10, from 3 to 8 p.m. at George Washington Park.
If you have any photos you want to share for the book, let me know. I’ll be scanning photos at the Lewis County Historical Museum in Chehalis this month.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
