Gateway to The Oregon Caves
inois Valley News
A LIVE WIRE NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE ILLINOIS VALLEY AND SURROUNDING DI STRU TS
Volume I
No. 41
Gave Junction. Oregon, Thursday, February 17, 1938
Phil Snort
Sensibly
First in War
First in Peace
Soliloquizes
Dear Ed:
As the day is filled with falling
snow, and as I do not feel prone
to wading around in “The Beauti­
ful,'* I deemed it advisable to
take up a theme, much taken up
with some of my neighbors, like­
wise your readers; that theme is
obstreperousness and obtrusive­
ness. These are not just the
words commonly used but I feel
that they are more kindly sound­
ing than the shorter and uglier
words. Not for a minute do I
feel myself capable of doing the
subject justice, yet I may, in my
way, let fall a few words that may
produce good results among those
of us who characterize and criti­
cise our friends, or others with
whom we came in contact. In
order to elucidate my meaning it
may be well for me to recite a
story:
Over half a century ago—53
years, to be exact—a little boy
came to life, on the old stage
road, near the confluence of
Wood creek and the Illinois river.
This little fellow grew up know­
ing no schools but the O’Brien
school and the school of nature.
At the former school he was more
adept at play than study; in the
school of nature he learned much,
in fact, he graduated in the art
of fishing and hunting; he knew
his woods, mountains and streams;
he dragged many a fish from the
streams and many a deer, or smal­
ler game, from the hills; he was a
crack fisherman and a crack shot.
He was 19 years of- age when 1
first met him in the spring of
1904. In November of the same
year, I witnessed him catching
60 trout in as many minutes. He
gave me 12 of these fish to take
home and the smallest of them was
11 inches in length and the larg­
est was 17 inches. There may be
some who will disbelieve this, but
it is nevertheless true. Johnny
would “take the shirt off his back”
and give to those he liked and he
liked most everybody.
Among his environments was
mining and mines. His father
gained most of his livelihood from
(Continued on Page Three)
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| COMING EVENTS
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lii
Every Tuesday noon — Illinois
Valley Chamber of Commerce
meets.
Friday, February 18-—Basketball
at Kerby high school. Kerby
vs. Gold Hill, 7:30 p. m.
Saturday, February 19—Ameri­
can Legion Overall and Apron
dance, Legion hall.
Tuesday, February 22—Wa-hfhg-
ton's Birthday.
February 22—Silver Tea and
Exhibit of old books. Benefit of
Kerby Library.
Tuesday, February 22 — Kerby
Granddads vs. Cave City Pops
basketball game.
Thursday, February 24 — Ladies
Auxiliary card party in Auxil­
iary meeting room.
Friday, March 4 — Joint school
board meeting at Kerby of both
grade and high schools.
Bus
transportation to be discussed.
Tuesday, March 8 — Cave City
Womefl's club will meet at the
home of Mrs. Schumacher, at
2 p. m.
Thursday. March 17 — St. Pat-,
rick’s Day.
Friday, April 1—All Fool’s Day.
Sunday, April 17—Easter Sunday
Library At
New Mail
Kerby Has
Schedule
Had Struggle Discussed
Contributed
A rousing meeting of the Illin­
ois Valley Chamber of Commerce
was held last Tuesday noon.
When the meeting was called to
order by President Drews, after a
fine dinner served by Mrs. Pick­
ett and Mrs. Jackson, he said the
Chamber postponed passing on the
emblem last week and the matter
should be settled now. No new
designs were presented for con­
sideration, and Elwood Hussey
moved th.it the one proposed, a
miner’s pick and shovel crossed
with a gold pan in between, be
made the official emblem, as this
was a simple design that wood
carvers could use on the wood
signs that the Forest Service will
erect all over the valley. The mo­
tion carried unanimously.
A W. Bernd, of Wisconsin,
was introduced and said that he
wanted to come to this part of the
state and was looking for maps
and information from the North­
ern Pacific railroad. They hand­
ed him a folder put out by the
Redwood
Empire
association
showing the entire Redwood sec­
tion, and it was just what he want­
ed as it showed where Cave Junc­
tion was, and he was very well
pleased with the service the rail­
road hail given as to the section
he wanted to visit.
Mr. Hussey said after Mr. Bernd
had completed his talk, that it
showed the power and value of
the Redwood Empire association
and the work it was accomplish­
ing in advertising the entire sec­
tion.
H. A. Kesinger was introduced.
Mr. Kesinger is here from Seat­
tle and is a contractor and build­
er and will contract for buildings
and residences and will also have
a furniture manufacturing plant
that will manufacture unfinished
furniture for retail sale.
The power situation came in
for considerable discussion with­
out any definite action being
taken. Eugene Brown asked Mr.
Miller what proceedure he would
have to follow to get light and
power to his ranch, and Mr. Miller
gave him all the information avail­
able.
The secretary was instructed to
write to the California Railroad
commission for information con­
cerning the extension of tele­
phone, power and railroad lines
into the state.
Nat Woolley was present and
(Continued on Page Three)
President Drews asked him for
o
information concerning the new
rural free delivery that has been
News Items Fiom
mapped out and planned for the
valley.
Kerby High School
Nat said Postmaster McLean
was present and could give a more
intelligent answer than he could.
Mr. McLean explained in detail
Last Friday night our basket­
ball teams lost at Phoenix, The what the new route was and an­
swered many questions put to
scores were
him. He was asked for a state­
FIRST TEAM —
ment setting out in detail all in­
Phoenix 31 — Kerby 28
formation possible on the new,
SECOND TEAM
suggested mail route. He com­
Phoenix 18—Kerby 7*
plied and here it is:
Our team is now second place
"A proposed rural route exten­
in the conference. However, only sion has been submitted to the
by winning the game with Gold post office department. If the
Hill next Friday will it be able to change is approved the route will
retain that place. The Gold Hill be as follows: Starting at Kerby
game here, Friday, will be the last go to Cave Junction, thence to
regular game of the season.
the Oregon Caves Junction with
On Monday of this week the Bridgeview, follow the present
“big sisters” of the Girls' League route to Holland and thence to
had a Valentine party for their Oregon Caves highway, thence to
“Little Sisters." As entertain­ Bridgeview Junction, retrace to
ment, the proper color to be worn Harding corner, then to Takilma,
individually was demonstrated. thence to O'Brien, thence along
Valentines were exchanged, and the Redwood highway to Cave
refreshments of sandwiches, cook­ Junction and end at Kerby.
ies, and chocolate were served in
"The extension would bring
the home economics room.
rural route service to patrons be­
Wednesday, Mr John C. Ker­ tween Harding corner and Takil­
rick, representing Earl Snell, Sec­ ma, at present there is no service
retary of State, visited the school on this stretch of road. The star
and gave a short and interesting I service
between Takilma and
talk on traffic safety. He also O'Brien and O’Brien and Cave
showed some interesting moving Junction would be superceded by
pictures on the subject.
raral service.
Operations far the school an­
steviae has been likened
nual are beginning in earnest. All ta a past affiefe aa w4eeRi as the
subscriptions for the annual must raral pifroiPis ewt^-d to regis-
be placed before the 21st of this
(('ontlnft<-<l on Page Two)
kionth.
After tbe church and school,
the free public library is the most
effective influence for good in
America.” So said Theodore Roos­
evelt. For the past 17 years a
small- library has been struggling
to exist in the little town of Ker­
by, for the benefit of the public.
In 1920, Kerby, as the oldest
town in the county, received a
present from the Grants Pass Li­
brary association of a number of
books. Later Portland contribut­
ed a few volumes and other books
were secured from the state.
A library club was formed at
Kerby, and each member paid a
small fee toward the upkeep of
the books and the purchase of new
volumes. The books were housed
in a room of the old Pioneer ho­
tel building, and an elderly gen­
tleman, Cord Canfield, and some
of the ladies of the community
gave their services as librarians.
But the hotel building became
tenantless, and when Mr. Can-
field died, the library club dissolv­
ed, and the books were left home­
less. To save them from destruc­
tion, Chas. Hart, who was at the
time janitor for the Kerby school,
moved the books to his own home
by means of a wheel barrow. But
his house was small, and the books
numbered some 1500 volumes.
In 1930 the American Legion
Auxiliary took over the care of
these books
They were moved
from one private home to another,
and finally stored for a year.
A little over three years ago the
Kerby P.-T. A. and the American
leegion and its Auxiliary assisted
by the community, started to raise
money for a library building.
Dances, dance suppers, raffles,
candy sales, etc., were augment­
ed by a few personal donations,
and a donation of a hundrel dol-
lars from Jim Tuffs, The Kerby
school board and the Union high
school board voted to allow a li­
brary building to be erected on a
corner of the school grounds, and
the county court appointed a
building board of representatives
from the American Leiion, the
Legion Auxiliary, the Kerby P.-T.
A. and the Civic club.
The Kerby school district and
the Union high school again lent
their aid by combining the school
pump house under the same roof
with the library. Now the library
GEORGE WASHINGTON
On Tuesday, February 22nd, we celebrate the birth of Amer­
ica’s first citizen, George Washington.
In spite of traducers and so-called debunkers of history,
George Washington is still the first citizen of the United States
and always will be.
There is no doubt that he was human and as a human made
mistakes, the same as others, but as they say in this modern age,
those mistakes were of the head, not of the heart.
Anyone who has been through Mt. Vernon and stood at his
tomb or wandered over Valley Forge must be impressed with
the greatness of our first president. His treatment of his of­
ficers and men endeared him to them for life.
The debunkers have picked on stories of his youth and tried
to prove them untrue. The throwing of a silver dollar across
the Rappahanock was called impossible until Walter Johnson
did it and then skeptics said there were no silver dollars at that
date. Well, that may be true but there were silver coins of about
the size of our dollar though they were called pesos and were
coined in Spain. However, one of them might have wandered
over to the New World as Spain held Florida and the Spanish
Don used pesos as well as other coins in his trading.
As for the story of the cherry tree—Well it has been said that
there were cherry trees and somewhere we have seen pictures
of hatchets of that time, so why try to make that story a myth.
George Washington did so much good that all the writers
in the world will never lx* able to tarnish his memory in the hearts
of the American people. Ix't us have done with the traducers
and debunkers. Let the American people arise and continue to
fight for those principles that George Washington stood for. Ix*t
us keep America for Americans.
George Washington, we salute you: “First in War, First in
Peace, First in the Hearts of His Countrymen.
Sunday, May 8—Mother’s Day.
Monday. May 36 —Memorial Day.
Price 5 Cents
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