Remember When?

80 YEARS AGO

JANUARY 12, 1944

THE DAYS OF GOLD

Golden Days Recounted

Continued from last week…

Mrs. Hattie Coleman who is still living was one of the first teachers in the schools here. Judge W.E. Nippert, who had been educated abroad, has a place of renown in the history of the town as one of our first teachers, who established education here on a firm foundation. His methods were simple. He first whaled hell out of the tough kids who were in school then who had a tendency to challenge authority and after he had them pacified he somehow managed to pound some knowledge into their unruly heads. Nippert was a remittance man from the east. His people were enormously wealthy and socially prominent, but Nippert was the black sheep of his proud and arrogant family, and so they sent him out west where he wouldn’t embarrass his family, and forwarded remittances to him regularly. Among all our famous remittance men out here Nippert was the most famous. He wasn’t noted for his sobriety.

Another colorful character in the town was John Willis. Willis was a famous guide. If you ever get around to reading that famous book “Roosevelt in the Rough” you will find recounted the days when Teddy Roosevelt and his party stayed in Thompson Falls, and Willis acted as guide for him on hunting expeditions. Then also there was an English Earl who stayed here and Willis acted as a guide for him. His Lordship got taken on a snipe hunting expedition. TheWillis home was the present house owned by Hattie Coleman, and was the most pretentious home in the camp. Willis is still alive, retired and wealthy, and lives in California.

Fred Haines originally ranched where the present O.J. Murray ranch on the flat east of town is now located. In those days the entire flat was a towering mass of heavy virgin timber. Later the lumber barons came in and cut, slashed and burned the timber and left charred and ruined desolation, but this is another chapter in the roaring, fighting, intriguing history of Thompson Falls, another chapter when nature was despoiled for the greed of man as the whole west in those days was looted and pillaged.

According to Mr. Haines the climate back in the early days was much different than it is today. Then nearly every winter a snowfall of from 2 to 4 feet was common. The snow came early and went off late. During the usual winter the snow got so heavy that all work in the woods had to stop because sleigh roads couldn’t even be broken through. That was at Thompson Falls, not up the line in the heavier snow belt. Today if we get a foot of snow right here at Thompson Falls it is most unusual.

In those days there was much moisture, and the creek and river flow was heavier. No one ever bothered to fight forest fires. They just let them burn. Most years because of the heavy moisture the fires didn’t do much damage, but occasionally when the summer was long and hot, forest fires became tremendously destructive and smoke got so thick all over the valley from enormous fires raging that it was as dark as night in the middle of the day. More timber was burned, ravaged and wasted in one bad fire year than is normally cut in this area in ten years.

Mr. Haines for his age is an exceptionally fine looking gentleman. His hearing, eyesight and all other faculties are excellent. He doesn’t have the slightest indication of rheumatism, and his walk is firm and brisk. Some men 20 years younger aren’t in as good a shape physically.

BIG PINE CAMP ATTRACTS THE TOURIST TRADE

Mrs. Kathryn Fessler advises that she has had a very promising tourist season this year. Her attractive tourist grounds, facilities, surroundings, and neat cabins have grown in reputation to such an extent that many tourists make it a point to drive out of their way, in order to afford the conveniences of the camp on the recommendation of other friends that have stopped there. Mrs. Fessler says that all the tourists seem to be especially impressed with Thompson Falls and its fascinating scenery.

The Big Pine Tourist Camp was located at what was most recently Little Bear Yogurt Parlor. There were one bedroom cabins fronting the river that were still around in the 1980s.