Illinois Valley news., December 09, 1937, Image 7

Illinois Valley News, Thursday, Decemlwr 9, 1937
SPIRIT OF GHOST TOWNS
(Continued from page two'
“Ghost Town.”
Waldo!
It is nearing Christmas now,
for the 80th Anniversary Jubilee
of the trail blazer whose road ran
at the foot of the cliff by Waldo
is set for December 15th, and of
old Waldo all that is left standing
is the store building erected in
1863—and it in ruins — ghost
town!—and the memories of old
Waldo are so distinct that among
the Sons and Daughters of the Ill­
inois Valley Pioneers there is a
woman who had hoped that there
might have been this year a com­
munity Christmas tree at Waldo,
with candles on it and with sing­
ing carollers about it — as there
always was in the glorious days
when the miners and the people of
the Valley foregathered in the old
store— in ruins now. There is
to be a community Christmas tree
along the Redwood Highway—she
had longed for one on the old
trail road that runs through the
townsite of Waldo. It must needs
be on the Redwood Highway,—
But there might yet be one on the
memoryful ground at Waldo, on
the ground that had grains of
gold in it.
There is still another woman
who remembers that her folks
were one day and a night; another
day and another night; and a day
—three days and two nights on
the trail road in going from Wal­
do out of the Illinois Valley to
the sea. As the crow flies it is
only twenty miles from her old
home in the Valley to the far
sounding sea.
“Did you drive it often?” she
was asked.
“Yes, quite frequently,” she re­
plied.
“On business?” her hostess ask­
ed.
“Oh, no!” she replied, her face
beaming and her voice raised
“For pleasure!”
A woman living on the Redwood
Highway recently drove it in one
hour.
“Three days and two nights!”
"three nights and two days,” this
lovely daughter of an Illinois Val­
ley Pioneer repeated in a remi­
niscent mood as she thought once
again of the other days that were
love lustered and filled with pleas­
ures and wonders scarcely known
today.
“Ghost Town!”
Waldo is its name!
There are too many ghost towns
in America the beautiful.
Only a few have such memories
as the first born in the homes of
the Illinois Valley Pioneers carry
in their treasuring and evaluating
minds.
And there is a daughter of a
certain pioneer who wishes to see
the goldened days of historic Sail­
ors’ Diggings-—later called Waldo
—this daughter wishes to see
again the glory that never has de­
parted but lingers still in the
ruins—even in the ruins of the
old store building now standing—
but in ruins—she wishes to see the
old building restored and the
ground around it parked and
made beautiful once again: as
beautiful as it was when the
Chinese dug the precious metal
out of the gulches and held a feast
of their faith in God and their
gratitude to Him for His gift of
gold.
So she wishes to see the old
store building made life like again
—as she and ever so many re­
member it to have been.
“Sentiment,” you say—sheer
sentiment.
That is true.
But somehow sentiment is the
foundation of everything.
It is the lasting foundation of
the home.
It is the final word for the
world.
Love IS a sentiment.
Men are dying for the lack of
it!
that is why writers were wont to
come to Waldo for informing
news about those heroic days. That
house cannot be made to live again
but the old store can be made the
beginning of that unfulfilled
dream which a thoughtful person
conceived for the preservation of
historic documents.
It is a matter of genuine interest
that one of the several objectives
in the 80th Anniversary Jubilee
of the trail blazer— (fragments
of whose kindly consideration of
the people of his time are to be
seen in portions of the trail road
which remain as it was, only now
the workers on the highways keep
it in repair).—one of the objec­
tives in this remembrance of the
trail blazer is to memorialize the
discovering miners and the pio­
neering families following close
upon them.
But what form of permanent
value and historic interest could
stand for all the eventful and
colorful life of Sailors’ Diggings
and W’aldo?
As a beginning toward this de­
voutly wished expression of grow­
ing appreciation for the pioneers
in those glorious days the follow­
ing program is being widely dis­
Sentiment rules the world. So cussed and is arousing unusual in­
we must agree that this daughter terest
1. Secure the town site of Wai
of an Illinois Valley Pioneer is
quite justified in indulging het­ do.
sentiment since the memories
2. Make it into a Memorial
which linger about the old store Park.
building concern her mother and
3. Restore the old building.
father and their devotion to all
4. Make of it a Museum of the
that is highest and best.
vast quantities of rare materials
One of the hallowing memories to be found in the homes of the
that adorns the ennobling picture descendants of the Pioneers.
gallery in her mind is of the night
5» Build a replica of the old
the man came who in her religious Briggs Home—the famed house
faith stands for all that is good fortress to which the early settlers
in life— and in the old store, with repaired during attacks by the
mother and father close by, she Indians.
was baptized into the faith that
6. Make this an Old Miners'
was theirs and is hers— and ever Memorial Home.
will be: the faith which is the
7. The residents in the Memor­
victory that overcomes the wflrld. ial Home to be custodians of the
park, curators of the museum,
and guides to visitors.
Do you wondgr that this daugh­
------------- o-------------
ter of an Illinois Valley Pioneer
BETTER THAN BRITAIN
longs to see the old store restor­
ed?
The Empire of Great Britain
The store building may be re­
stored for it still stands—in ruins
to be sure: but it can be easily re­
stored.
Not so the house which stood by
and stood in almost pristine
grandeur until a few short sea­
sons ago when ¡t was demolished.
And that is the house which had
been papered with newspapers, so
they say. No, really, the papered
walls was the suggestion of a
library. For the newspapers were
arranged in order and told the
printed story of the Civil War,
has one: Illinois Valley has two!
And the building of the Red­
wood Highway is responsible for
it.
The sailors came over land in
the fifties of the last century and
they found gold: and the place of
their finding was called Sailors’
Diggings. The sailors got gold and
went away.
Th»* permanent settlers of Illi­
nois Valley were homesteaders
largely, coming with the tides of
population which swept over the
western plains and climbed the
rockies and rode down the river
courses toward the sea.
They are the truly remembered
and highly prized pioneers, win­
ners of the west and builders of
the larger, grander nation.
Here in Illinois Valley the re­
membrances of them are beautiful
indeed.
To keep in perpetual remem­
brance their deeds and their lives
it is proposed to build finally the
Waldo Memorial Museum, or
something similar to it; and thus
preserve the fast fading memor­
ials of increasing value with the
swift passing of the years. A
few Illinois Valley Pioneers who
came in the early fifties and bore
the arduous tasks of those diffi­
cult days, great souls and heroic,
have lingered until lately. This
is written to our irreparable sor­
row:—within the space of sev­
eral months they have moved over
into the Lightsome Land beyond
the stars—and they took with
them imperishable values lost to
us here because there was no
suitable way of treasuring them.
The project of providing such a
place merits the heartening and
the encouraging which we all al­
together might give.
To carry over and to carry
along the mighty works of the
creators of the intermountain
world in which we live, the Sons
and Daughters of the Illinois Val­
ley Pioneers has been organized,
with Mrs. Addie Skeeters Martin
as president.
Now there are two wonder
groups growing up together in Il­
linois Valley; descendants of the
early settlers and the folk who
may be styled the new comers.
It is the Redwood Highway
which makes the difference.
The descendants of the folk
who came to the Valley in the
last century are eligible to become
members of the Sons and Daugh­
ters of the Illinois Valley Pio­
neers. The century marks the
difference.
The late comers, the less favor­
ed people who did not discover
this delectable place until re­
cently, they are marked off by a
distinction which is very modem
indeed: It is the building of the
Redwood Highway. That is the
point between the real pioneers
and the late arrivals. .
Now the British Empire has
only one aristocracy: Illinois Val­
ley has two! There is the aristoc­
racy the social prestige which in­
heres in auctual residence in a land
Then there is the aristocracy which
inheres in the social standing of
the traveled trader: professional
folk who come late into settled
communities the world over.
Illinois Valley has both orders
of society.
And one of the prime purposes
to be served in the 80th Anniver-
(fonllnued on Pa«e Four»