Applegater
Summer 2011 21
BACK IN TIME
Remembering an old log cabin
By eveLyn ByRne WiLLiams With Janeen sathRe
One of the best recent changes in Clara was born.
my surroundings here on Palmer Creek My grandfather was mining in Palmer
Road is the elimination of the obnoxious Creek when he succeeded in finding a large
star thistle weed on the forest service gold nugget. With this nugget and a loan
acreage adjacent to the north side of my from Zack Cameron, he bought a 160-
property. Much credit is due to our local acre farm at the mouth of Palmer Creek in
forest service botanist, Barbara Mumblo, 1908. My home now sits on a small piece
who has had groups pulling the nasty of the original property.
weed for several years now. As I often
There is no way to know how
take a walk by this area, the results give me many different people lived in that first
much pleasure and bring back such fond log cabin. I do know that Valores and
memories.
Helen Haskins were there for several years
These memories are of the old log in the mid-1930s and then Hiram Head
cabin that sat on this piece of land, with lived there until the early 1950s. He was
its picturesque setting against the hillside. a wonderful neighbor who liked to be of
My mother told
help, such as building
about her parents
a laundry bench for
ith this nugget and a loan
moving into it in
my mother to place
from zack Cameron, he
1889, with her two
her laundry tubs in.
older brothers and bought a 160-acre farm at the
Years later, he built new
mouth
of
Palmer
Creek
in
1908.
herself at age four
kitchen cabinets for her
years. The cabin
but refused payment
was a three-room
for his labor. Mother
affair, with two small bedrooms. The made sure he ate many meals with us
bedrooms were portable, so to speak. The through the years.
walls could be removed when the family
One time, when Mother needed
wanted to have a neighborhood dance, to go to Medford, our car wouldn’t start,
a common entertainment in those days. so she contacted Hiram and he offered to
The division walls and the floors were very take Mother and me in his Whippet. It
interesting because they were of planed was quite old and only had one seat in front
pine lumber 1-¼ inches thick and 22-½ (the driver’s seat), so mother and I had to
inches wide.
sit on the floor board in the back. I was
Spring water was available from somewhat embarrassed being seen in such
the mountain gulch behind the cabin. a vehicle. Nowadays that old car would be
That saved digging a well for water as neat to ride in, say in a parade.
many pioneers had to do. There was a
We never knew much about
rock fireplace, but my mother didn’t say if Hiram’s background. My parents were
it was used for any cooking. It is hard to careful about asking questions about one’s
imagine a family of five living in such small personal life. It was not very neighborly to
quarters, especially during the winter when do so. We did know he had a daughter in
they were more or less kept inside, as snow Portland who came to visit him one time
often reached the windowsills.
and when his health began to be a problem,
I don’t know why or when they he moved up there and we never heard of
moved from there into another cabin about him again. That was sad; he had been such
half a mile up the road near Palmer Creek, a good neighbor and loved living in that
and then shortly after that to the Rey Gold old cabin.
Mine near the headwaters of Palmer Creek.
Before he left, he wanted my dad
At this mine, they moved into a nice two- to have his mining claim. My dad was not
story log house where my mother’s sister a miner but decided to do the assessment
W
work in order to keep the property for a few as a memento of her family once living
years. When the forest service was tearing there…back in time.
down old, unsafe buildings on mining
Evelyn Byrne Williams
claims here in the Applegate, my parents
with Janeen Sathre
put a torch to the cabin. My mother saved
541-899-1443
a board from the cabin, which I now have,