Remember When?

70 YEARS AGO • JUNE 27, 1951

OLD-TIMERS FETED ON FATHER’S DAY

Continued from last week

Every town has a real fisherman, and Thompson Falls has one in the person of “Swiftwater Bill” who has caught bigger and better fish than any one he has ever met. Born William Knowles on February 22, 1875, near Rice Lake, Wisconsin, he arrived in Thompson Falls in June of 1894 on the third to the last train to come for three months, due to high water.

From Pioneers and Early Settlers of Thompson Falls:

Clarence “Swiftwater Bill” Edward Knowles was 19 years old in 1894 when he decided to come west making the journey mostly on horseback. That first winter he spent in Plains working for Colonel McGowan feeding cattle.

A local resident of Thompson Falls noted that Clarence helped build the Ward Hotel (Black Bear) in 1906.

In 1908 he was one of the laborers working on the construction of the courthouse.

The Sanders County Ledger, August 4, 1916 – Interesting article on Clarence Knowles known as “Swiftwater Bill” and how he caught seven char totaling 80 pounds and how during the night someone robbed him of his fish, and how angry he was.

Clarence was asked in an interview by Loren Fessler where he obtained his nickname, Swiftwater Bill. The story according to Bill: “It was up by Weeksville, there were four of us and only two logs left when I told the Frenchman to swing the boat around and give me a hand. I turned back for a minute and when I turned around the dirty crooks were headed for shore leaving me on the log. On down through the rapids I went about a half mile. I tried to paddle into the shore but someone came along and pulled me in by catching onto the log with a pike pole. We got in his boat and went back above the rapids. The Frenchman was nearly dead after I had beaten him up for leaving me. He couldn’t make it back to camp under his own power. This happened about three or four weeks after I came to Weeksville in 1897 or 1898. Clarence was working as a river pig at that time.

Though Swiftwater Bill earned his title the hard way, Bill never became really good at "riding the logs" and on several occasions had to be hauled out of the water.

The Plainsman, March 4, 1937 – Fined for Killing Elk at Thompson – Last Saturday morning at Thompson Falls, before Justice of Peace J.P. Sheridan, Clarence Knowles, familiarly known as “Swiftwater Bill,” pleaded guilty to a violation of the game laws and was fined $225.

The case was the result of the discovery of two elk and one deer on the premises of what is known as the old Jake Herman place, across the river from Thompson Falls.

Acting upon evidence secured by Hugh Hearing and Ben Cox, men employed on the Cabinet Forest for game study work, Deputy Game Warden Dale Shook obtained a search warrant and searched the premises of the Herman place. The search disclosed two elk and one deer.

Two other arrests were made in connection with this case, but at present we have no particulars as to the outcome. The trial is in progress at this writing.

Clarence died of heart trouble February 22, 1952, with burial at the Fraternal cemetery, Thompson Falls.

The Plainsman, February 27, 1952 – Clarence E. Knowles “Swiftwater Bill” Crosses Divide – Another old-timer to this section, familiarly known as “Swiftwater Bill,” spoken of often as best fisherman in this country and a noted hunter, died in Thompson Falls.

He came to western Montana in June 1894 and worked in Plains, Eddy, Belknap, Whitepine, Heron and Thompson Falls as a sawmill worker most of his life.

30 YEARS AGO

JUNE 20, 1991

LEDGER LINES by K.A.E.

All the current problems with garbage disposal are relatively new. As a kid I don’t even recall having a garbage barrel at our home. An occasional empty bottle or a can was thrown into a pile behind the barn or chicken house, but there was no big garbage dump or a lot of refuse to be disposed of every week or even every month. And neither did my mother make near as many purchases at the grocery store as families do today. She baked the bread we ate, canned in glass reusable jars the fruits and vegetables served. Meat was a rarity, except for a chicken killed for a Sunday dinner. We raised a hog and butchered it in the fall.

There wasn’t much to throw out as garbage.

And recycling came naturally to poor kids. We were always looking for junk metal we could sell to the junk dealer – copper wire, zinc canning jar lids, pieces of aluminum or any pieces of brass or lead we found.

After World War II America abandoned the recycling efforts that reached a peak in the war years when everyone saved rubber, paper, metal, conserved gasoline with carpools and gas rationing.

If the nation could revive the attitude of wasting less and conserving more our garbage problems would be much easier to handle.