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Bix
in Oregon In 1923 Ammi Leander Bixby, humor columnist for the Nebraska State Journal, and his wife embarked on an extended train voyage through the West. That December they stopped in the Rogue Valley to visit his brother Reuben: A. L. Bixby, an old and experienced newspaper editor and lecturer and at present one of the editors of the State Journal, published at Lincoln, Neb., visited here this week at the home of his brother, R. A. Bixby, one mile east of town. Jacksonville Post, December 14, 1923, page 1 DAILY DRIFT.
MEDFORD, Ore., Dec. 9.--Dear Journal:
When we awoke this morning we were crossing a spur of the Coast Range
into the Rogue River Valley some distance beyond Grants Pass. The
mountains looked beautiful but dreary from a recent snowfall that the
natives say will be gone in a day or two. Brother Reuben met us with
the standard mountain vehicle, and we are settled on his fruit farm for
a few days, very near the spot where gold was first discovered in
Oregon, and where the early settlers came in by pack trains and after
years of placer mining found there was more money in raising crops than
in washing gravel.This is the holy Sabbath day, With toil my hapless fix; I guess I'd better break away, And write tomorrow. BIX. Excerpt, Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, December 16, 1923, page 22 DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 10.--Dear Journal:
Matters of history never fail to interest me. If it were possible to
find out how and when these Siskiyou (pronounced Siskew) Mountains, to
the west and south of here, were projected toward the blue empyrean
from the original level of this terrestrial sphere, the information
would gratify my native curiosity mightily.----
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 17, 1923, page 4
I have learned
since coming to my brother's home, which overlooks this quaint old
hamlet--still the seat of government of Jackson county--that the second
settlement in Oregon was made right here in 1852. The third honor
belongs to Phoenix, a stopping point for slow trains between Medford
and Ashland.
----
The discovery
of gold in California in 1849 brought thousands of adventurers
to the
fields in that state and in less than three years this section of
Oregon caught the overflow, and right here, in the gravel of a stream
that trickles down from a gorge in the mountains to the west of the
town, the yellow metal was found in paying quantities. Communication
with the outside world was so difficult that the first fellows in were
monarchs of all they surveyed, with none to molest or to make them
afraid except the Indians. The oldest banker in Jacksonville, who has a
record of the early mining activities of this region, says that the
total of gold washings amounted to about $40,000,000; that the surface
soil for miles around contains a small percentage of free gold, but not
enough to pay for washing it out. For miles along the creek the ancient
"workings" are still in evidence, monuments to the enterprise of
pioneers who are sleeping under the shadow of these mighty hills.
----
Jacksonville
survives, but in a listless and sleepy way. It lives in the past, and
in a few sacred relics of settler days. It maintains in a state of
mournful preservation the first Methodist Church erected in this state.
[The
first Methodist Church in Oregon was erected in Oregon City in 1842.
Jacksonville's is the oldest surviving Methodist Church west of the
Rockies.] It also has, on a suitable marker, the names of all
the pastors who
served it. A brick building, now in a sad state of decay, is pointed
out as the safe rendezvous for women and children during Indian
attacks, which were once of frequent occurrence. [The McCully building, whose
steel shutters
are often pointed out as fortification against Indians, was completed
after
the Indians had been forced out. The town's precaution against Indian trouble
was to build a log blockhouse, but it was never used and may have never even been completed. Understandably, Indians
never attacked Jacksonville.] An abandoned
well inside of
the
building tells the story of how water was provided the imprisoned ones
in time of siege. Some years ago ambitious miners were stopped by
ordinance from drifting under the town for gold-bearing gravel, and the
mining industry in this region is at a very low ebb.
----
As a matter of
fact there is now more money in raising pears, peaches, cherries and
prunes, and in the wide valley of the Rogue River (presumably named for
the rogues who first peopled this region) alfalfa has become a favorite
money-producing enterprise, the demand for it exceeding the supply by
about four jumps. Nevertheless, only last week a local well-digger,
making an excavation in his own lot, washed an ounce of gold from the
gravel thrown out in one day.
----
An interesting object near the mouth of the canyon is the skeleton of
what was once a monster brewery. In the halcyon days of gold
activity it is said that this, with its retail accessories, was the
most prosperous institution in the valley. Most of the gold dust from
the washings above and below found welcome asylum in the waiting
coffers of men who were strong for personal liberty and plenty of it.
----
On the main street is a ramshackle frame structure, pointed out as the
first banking house in the state of Oregon. A merchant next door uses
it for storage purposes. One of the early settlers, long since gathered
to his father, bore the name of Beekman. He had a little money when he
came to the mines, and made a little more, which he refused to spend on
riotous living. Instead he put by some for a rainy day, and when in the
panic of thirty-one years ago county warrants went begging at 35 cents
on the dollar, he gathered them to him as the hen gathered her
chickens, registered the same and filed them away in a strongbox. In
the fullness of time or just a little before, he realized the face of
the warrants, with interest, profiting to the tune of $150,000, which
made him a man of mark in the community, and he was elected repeatedly
as a member of the board of education, and came to take an almost
fatherly interest in the boys and girls, and occasionally gave
scholarships to the deserving who became enamored of a higher
education. Although not a communicant he gave to the churches, the
Y.M.C.A. and foreign missions and to the district the finest site in
town for a high school building. Then he died, leaving his heirs a
million dollars, which is evidence that the man who is honest and
efficient can get along very well.
----
One thing that pesters me here is my inability to make the sun appear
to rise and set in the regular way, by the points of the compass. This
morning it came up far to the west and south, and this evening it went
down a considerable distance to the north of west.
----
This morning I dispatched a drayman for our trunk. He brought us one
that isn't ours at all. Mollie is sick over it. I am worried myself,
but am hoping for the best.
BIX.
DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 11.--Dear Journal: The finish
of yesterday's humble offering was a wail of woe over the loss of our
trunk, containing all our Sunday wearing apparel and all of Mollie's
society gowns. The gloom on our several faces all evening was dense and
impenetrable as an Oregon fog. It ruined my appetite, and Mollie nearly
ruined my temper by darkly hinting that, as usual, the embarrassing
mishap was the result of my impenetrable stupidity; that the missing
trunk might not be retrieved in a month, if indeed we were lucky enough
ever to see it again.----
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 18, 1923, page 4
To bed early, and little sleep. Up before daylight, a mouthful of two
for breakfast and then Reub and I to Jacksonville afoot to root out the
drayman with the undesirable trunk for another presumably fruitless
visit to the station at Medford to enlist the help of the railroad
authorities in locating the missing baggage. I was too nervous to lend
him more than my moral support, but the morning was frosty and the
patient drayman found the cranking of his engine a man's job. Fully
half an hour was consumed in fruitless effort before the discovery was
made that the flammididdle that regulates the intake of gas and
atmosphere had slipped off the spindle. It took ten minutes more to
make the necessary adjustment, and all this time I was on nettles with
anxiety to see the baggage man at Medford and enlist his services in
finding Mollie's raincoat and the only change of linen I can truthfully
call my own.
----
Medford is five miles from Jacksonville. We made the distance in
exactly
twenty minutes, and not all smooth going by any means. First stop at
the station, and me head-on into the baggage room without apology. And
the very first noble object my eyes rested on was the missing trunk.
The fellow who invented "eureka" never did a better job than I when I
said it aloud this morning and I meant every word of it. Home before
noon, and I think Mollie, in her heart, must have taken back some of
the mean things she said about me the day before. It had been my
purpose to chide the baggage man [possibly
Frank Willeke], and through him the Southern Pacific
railway company, but his humble confession of having made a mistake so
appeased my indignation that I grasped his proffered hand and remarked
what a fine day it was, when all surface indications were quite
radically to the contrary.
----
Yesterday I put in most of the day with old friends in Medford, and
trying to find others who located here soon after leaving Nance County [Nebraska], some
thirty-eight years ago. The Webbs and Faucetts have all either died,
or moved away. George Haskins, who rented the Bixby farm in Nance
County forty-four years ago and afterward owned and operated a drug
store in Fullerton, came to Medford in 1884, became prosperous in the
same line of business, and is now sleeping beside his wife. Dennis and
West Lawton, cousins of the late Charley Magoon, a schoolmate of mine
at Estherville, and once residents of Fullerton, are here and kicking
around above the sod.
----
I had a good visit with Denison, and we not only lived over old school
days in Emmet County [Iowa],
but very naturally reverted to the big blizzard of 1866--the 13th of
February, which did not last three days and three nights--when certain
children of Lawrence Landecker and William Presler came to their death
or worse than death, in that awful storm. Denison's father, who was
peddling sorghum molasses among the natives, put up at our home near
Iowa Lake the night the storm began, and didn't try to move on until
the day after the storm was over. Thinking of the terrible experiences
of that time, I am reminded of the grand old hymn, "We'll stand the
storm, it won't be long, we'll anchor by and by," and can't help but
wonder how many of those who buffeted the tempest then have welcomed
the clearing atmosphere in a better world than this.
----
Brother Reuben and I lunched with a Mr. Platt, a local business man of
mature years, whose father, then a jeweler of Fairmont, Minn., sold me
the ring I gave Mollie as an engagement token. I last met him when he
was a mere boy, December 21, 1884. He came to hear me talk to a
Fairmont audience, and I have a dark suspicion that he was sound asleep
before I got to Fifthly.
----
In a rather modest building in the center of the town, very near the
station, the Chamber of Commerce transacts its official business, not
neglecting to give the stranger literature but a very entertaining
exhibit of what can be grown in this country, and how it looks when at
its best. The corn display astonished me, as did some of the apples, so
large as to seem uncanny. The fruit they brag up most is the Bosc
pear, and from the samples I have tasted, and the price it brings as
compared to other varieties, confirmation of the story that it will
soon have the run of the country is naturally to be expected.
The weather indicates a rain-- I don't rely on Hicks-- But indications now are plain Of storm, not sunshine. BIX. DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 12.--Dear Journal: A jitney
bus runs from this place to Medford and return, making six round trips
a day, with no pavement until you strike the city limits of Medford.
The rough graveled road is safe against skidding, but not proof
against an occasional bump. We rode down on the dray yesterday morning,
and after retrieving the lost luggage, felt sociable enough to call at
the office of the Mail
Tribune, the only daily paper in the Rogue River
metropolis. This paper is the offspring of the consolidated Democratic Times, Medford Mail,
Medford Tribune, Southern Oregonian and Ashland Tribune, and
is the only daily between Eugene and San Francisco having Associated
Press service. [The Mail Tribune is the
product of the merger of the Medford Mail and the Medford
Tribune, which had earlier absorbed or succeeded the other
newspapers mentioned.] Robert W. Ruhl is editor and S.
Sumpter Smith business
manager. Mr. Smith was out at the time I called, but the editor told me
he once worked for a time on the State
Journal, and I shall see him later and expected to
recognize one of the friends of other days, though I am not familiar
with his name, except in a general way. I had a pleasant visit with the
columnist of the paper, one Arthur Perry, who writes "Ye Smudge Pot,"
and is known as the "funny man" of the concern. It may flatter him to
be
called that, but it always sound foolish to me, and I'd rather be
called
"the goat," any day.----
Excerpt,
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 19, 1923, page 6
To Jacksonville by jitney and the drayman was waiting at the stage
station with the trunk. We rode up to Brother Reuben's about a
mile
south of the village, and a good way up the mountainside. Twenty rods
from the front door the highway was so dripping wet it refused to give
traction and we had to requisition a wheelbarrow which was also
inclined to skid a little in its upward flight. Mollie was so glad at
the restoration of our wearing apparel, and its costly receptacle,
that she smiled benevolently upon me, almost as she used to when I was
a rival of Jap Livingstone for the benediction of her society.
----
At noon sister Cleora gave a dinner in our honor to the local
Presbyterian preacher, E. H. Edgar and wife, and evangelist Hart of
Grants Pass, who is holding revival services here, and has given the
sinners a jolt the like of which hasn't been experienced in the
community since the breweries went out of business. The occasion was
exceedingly pleasant, and the dinner so sumptuous that I forgot what
the doctors said I must avoid, and for prudential reasons swallowed a
bowl of hot water at supper time and slept like a child with the
prevailing fog sifting in through an open window, and serving the
purpose of air with which it exists in combination.
BIX.
DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 13.--Dear Journal:
Yesterday afternoon the man who lives just across the lane from my
brother took me to Medford by a new road, at my earnest solicitation,
that the shifting about might help me to get the this part of the world
to conform in a measure with the points of the compass. If I were
compelled to live here longer than for a short visit, I should be
homesick for a country where crooked paths are made straight and
crooked people made honest as they are in Nebraska.----
I called on S. Sumpter Smith of the Mail Tribune, and
he gave me a brief history of the city and valley; of the boom that
struck here a few years ago; how the
valley was advertised as the
garden spot of the world, and the city as the coming metropolis of the
West; how sales of city and suburban acreages were made at inflated
prices, how everybody caught the contagion and became a booster. Then
the disillusionment when it was found that the hundreds of apple
orchards were badly located as to markets. Then the collapse, taking
many investors, large and small, into bankruptcy. Then a tedious and
wearisome period of reconstruction; of learning what fruits could be
profitably grown; the development of the lumber industry in the hill
country adjacent to the valley, and even the recrudescence of mining
for gold in the mountains hereabout.
----
Medford, with a population of 8,000, has no empty
houses, and is doing considerable building. A new Methodist Church is
well along in the building, which either represents a wealth of
subscriptions or a robust deficit.----
This fills out the sheet,
and I must quit.
The hour is after six. The fog--I like it not a bit-- Still haunts the valley. BIX. Excerpt, Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, December 20, 1923, page 6 DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 14.--Dear Journal:
This region in winter would stir the soul of David G. N. [sic] clear to his
muddy boots, for such would be the condition of his pedal extremities
unless he restrained his ambition to get about on those ten-mile hikes
he delights to tell about. Near his house, their branches furnishing
abundant shade in summer, brother Reuben has two laurel trees, fully
seventy feet in height, clad in perennial green and now loaded to the
roof with red berries. Yesterday morning one of the trees was a sight
to behold because of a visitation of robins, all so busy feasting on
the crimson berries they had neither time nor disposition to sing.
These, and many other varieties of birds, such as meadowlarks,
sapsuckers, woodpeckers, quail, grouse, etc. stay here all winter, the
game birds taking comfortable refuge beneath the clusters of manzanita
that grow high up on the sides of the lower mountain ranges.----
Excerpt,
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 21, 1923, page 6
The thing that
distresses me about these Oregon birds is that they all appear to have
winter colds and can't sing. Of all the birds in this valley only the
tame geese speak out with any enthusiasm, and these garrulous gluttons
remind me of a flock kept by neighbor Craw in eastern Minnesota that
were the terror of my early childhood, often chasing me for a
considerable distance, and seeming to threaten my very life.
----
Wednesday a
heavy fog enveloped the valley, cutting off every view of the mountain
ranges; in the night the fog lifted and the stars came out, and all
hands planned to take the jitney line for a day in Medford. Rain began
falling during the breakfast hour, and our plans went glimmering.
Though the people here are always prepared for rain in the winter, I
notice they have a horror of getting out in it, same as people who live
in Nebraska. To catch the only means of rapid transit it would be
necessary to walk a mile to the terminal in Jacksonville. Rather than
run the risk of skidding into the ditch on the way down, we decided to
stay at home and listen to the patter of the soft rain overhead.
----
All day it
rained steadily, with the air as quiet as a Democratic politician
convicted of having deceived the voters, and I couldn't help thinking
how much good such a rain would do in Nebraska if it happened along
about the 'steenth day of July or August. But those two months are dry
here as well as in Nebraska, and I cannot, with my present
meteorological instincts, quite comprehend why this region, so near the
biggest ocean on the western coast, should ever be short of
precipitation. I am, in fact, puzzled to understand why it doesn't rain
all the time.
----
Yesterday I
learned something new--a thing I am ambitious to accomplish every day
of
my life--and that is that the little old Methodist Church building on
the main street in Jacksonville is not only the first one of that
denomination in Oregon, but the first Protestant meeting house west of
the Rocky Mountains. It never boasted a large number of communicants,
and the perpetual deficit greatly discouraged the tightwads who thought
that twenty-five cents a Sunday was all the lord ought to ask for when
taking into account his accountant resources of undeveloped wealth. So
they continued to give stingily, and long remained in debt and greatly
depressed in spirits.
----
When the war
came on the little Methodist flock consolidated with the local
Presbyterian society and has since worshiped in a more modern and
costly edifice, each side making honorable concessions for the sake of
harmony and good fellowship. Now the ancient landmark is used by
various religious and civic societies for public functions, while the
two leading bodies get along handsomely by simply failing to recognize
foreordination and free will, as matters over which it were profitable
to hold any controversy.
BIX.
DAILY DRIFT.
MEDFORD, Ore., Dec. 15.--Dear Journal:
What gets my goat when up in the foothills west of here is that the sun
stubbornly refuses to rise and set in the directions suggested by my
preconceived notions of where and when. At this auspicious season the
sun is very apt to refrain from doing either. A day clear of mists or
clouds is an event in the history of the natives.----
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 22, 1923, page 6
From
meteorological observations I find that when the rain comes down the
mercury goes up. Clearing weather is apt to invite frost and cold
noses. The sun shone brightly yesterday morning, making brilliant the
snowy peak of Mt. McLoughlin thirty-five miles to the northeast, said
to reach 9,000 feet above sea level. It is the tallest of the Cascade
Range for a long distance in this region.
----
The great
scenic attraction of southern Oregon is Crater Lake. They tell me I
shall never be happy until I have seen it, but as it can't be seen this
time of year, it is hardly probable that I shall ever be happy. From
what people say about it, it must be a wonder. The lake is six miles
long by four in width, its surface is 6,177 feet above sea level; it
has
neither inlet nor outlet; there be cliffs seven hundred feet high
rising sheer from its borders, its depth is 2,000 feet, and its waters
as blue as the face of a defeated Democrat.
----
In departed ages, of which we have no more authentic record than H. G.
Well's Outline of
History, this
huge reservoir must have been the crater of a tremendous volcano. I can
imagine it going full tilt through a succession of centuries, smoking,
puffing and exploding, throwing up boulders bigger than a haystack, and
all as a part of the process of making this earth habitable if not safe
for people and other animals. People who have seen the lake rave over
it as something even more wonderful and inspiring than Niagara Falls.
----
Yesterday we
made the expected trip to this city where I hunted up West Lawton, a
near and greatly loved neighbor in Fullerton [Nebraska],
who left there for this place in 1884. He had a wife and three little
ones when he left, and I went with them as far as Columbus. His wife
has gone to a better land than Oregon and the children have scattered
hither and yon. But what I like about true friendship is that it never
dies, and is about the only thing in life worth preserving and
cherishing to the end.
----
I should have
attended the last of the revival services at Jacksonville Friday
evening, but the lure here was too great. Evangelist Hart has
accomplished something in pulling a number of young men into the ark of
safety, but has enlisted the vital interest of a number of hardened
blokes who once did their share to make Jacksonville the roughest place
in the hills. In an experience meeting one of them told of the time
when he washed gold on his claim a league above the city, bringing down
the day's cleanup in a can which he invariably exchanged at the brewery
for the drinks for everybody as long as the dust held out. He is now
poor but respectable, and makes a comfortable living raising pears
instead of the devil, as he once did. The people believe he is soundly
converted, and everybody wishes him well.
----
For the man who lives out in the country a little way, and has no
automobile, the problem of transportation isn't always easy to solve.
If
he keeps a horse it costs all the beast is worth to buy hay for its
sustenance for a year. If he goes by ox team the natives laugh him to
scorn. If he has a ranch on the mountainside, same as my brother has.
and it is a mile to the jitney terminal, going to and fro after a
rain,or in one, has its disadvantages. One needs to wear chains to keep
from skidding, and while going downhill is a "smooth" enough
undertaking, coming home takes your breath, as well as trying your
patience.
----
We escaped this embarrassment yesterday by requisitioning the services
of a ranchman visiting at the home of a near neighbor. He brought us
all in Medford for the modest sum of $1.50. I found him to be a most
interesting character. His name is Boone, and he claims to be a
great-great-grandson of the noted Kentucky wonder who bore the name of
Daniel, and put in much of his time killing Indians. This man Boone,
who has my own modest initials [A.L.B.],
like his distant progenitor, loves the primeval forest, and is better
pleased to hunt, and fish, and trap, than to spray fruit trees, and
depend for his livelihood upon a falling market for prunes and peaches.
He has a ranch in the mountains eight miles above Jacksonville, and is
enraptured by the solitude of his surroundings. In the drive of five
miles we became very chummy, and he invited me to visit him in his
"hall in the grove," but to be among people pleases me better and give
me more live topics to write about.
----
The temperature at this moment is forty above, and it looks like rain.
It really looks that way most of the time.
The sunshine of Nebraska Would now allay my kicks. This is too near Alaska To suit the taste of BIX. DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 16.--Dear Journal: Back on
the ranch again in time to witness the sun sink down below the peaks of
the Siskiyou Mountains, a feat accomplished at this time of year at the
hour of 3:30, thus materially shortening the day already shorter than
serves the purpose of one who is afraid of the dark. Down in the valley
the day lasts a half hour longer than here.----
It was a small company at the Holland House in Medford yesterday for
lunch, the quartet from the ranch and the two Lawton "boys," Denison,
seventy-one, and West, sixty-eight. We sat long at table and talked
more than we ate, for West and I were near neighbors in Fullerton, and
we visited back and forth, celebrating every holiday and certain
birthdays with a feast at one home or the other. And our wives
walloped the children ever and anon to make them behave and, when every
other theme was exhausted, gossiped about the neighbors, just as women
do now when they become confidential. I had known Mrs. West Lawton when
she was Genie Palmer, and greatly admired her (in my bashful way) long
before Mollie grabbed me up in preference to remaining single the rest
of her life. And the Lawtons are older than their father was when they
all lived among the pioneers of Nance County.
----
Excerpt,
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 23, 1923, page 18
I met a distinguished-looking man on the street who wore an emblem that
suggested a certain conventional relationship. He returned my
salutation with a friendly handshake, and we at once became very
communicative. He admitted a residence in this valley of only fifty-one
years, during which he seems to have prospered, for he has one of the
finest residences in the city, and has retired from the active practice
of his profession at the age of going on eighty-five. He was born in
Missouri, served throughout the war in the Union army and voted the
Democratic ticket until the party declared for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. After the war he settled in St. Paul, Minn., and it
was like a visit back home to hear him tell of his acquaintanceship
with such of the old politicians as Mark H. Dunnell, William Windom,
John S. Pillsbury, Cushman K. Davis and the inimitable and unquenchable
Ignatius Donnelly.
----
In helping to compile a state gazetteer for Minnesota
this man, who admitted that his name was William M. Colvig, says he
visited every county seat in the state, when it was necessary to
traverse some of the distances on horseback. Old as he is, and nearing
the time when he must give an accounting of his earthly stewardship, he
boosts for Oregon as against anywhere also on earth. Nineteen above is
the lowest recorded temperature here this winter, he says, while
California went 2 degrees lower. And he chuckled when he said it.
----
According to the evolutionists, all forms of life are
developed from a primordial cell, and all the differentiations observed
in animal form and character are the outgrowth of natural selection
(whatever that is), and are only wonderful to our undeveloped senses
because we haven't attained the intellectual state necessary to the
comprehension of everything, when life and death, time and space,
creation and demolition, will be as perfectly comprehensible and
commonplace as simple addition, or the deceptive elements in a
Democratic platform.
----
What I would like to understand, without waiting for the flood tide of
wisdom that will ultimately engulf me like a mountain torrent, is by
what esoteric process this new Bosc pear came out of the cosmic dust,
and now flourishes in a mist that is not so damned
cosmic, but is almost palpable to the touch as one moves about trying to get from one specific locality to another equally so by mere intuition. That a Frenchman named Bosc turned the trick leaves one with moderate scientific attainments much in the dark. ----
But the fact is that luscious variety of fruit grows to perfection in
this region, and is fast supplanting other fruits. I saw an orchard of
forty acres, probably two thousand trees, with the Bosc branches
fructified from Bartlett roots. In the matter of "graft," it beats
anything I have ever seen since our last national Democratic
administration. Mr. Mitchell, who drove out of his way to show
me this orchard, said that the transformation, the very expensive
[omission] had proven profitable.
----
At the Chamber of Commerce in Medford I was informed that 95 percent of
this crop is marketed east of the Mississippi. I ate a few of these
pears the other day, wrapped and stored for our particular benefit.
Unless Lincoln has them for sale next year, the trade will receive no
patronage from
BIX.
DAILY DRIFT.
JACKSONVILLE, Ore., Dec. 17.--Dear Journal: With the
loss of its two breweries this village sobered up to a degree the old
settlers had never dreamed of, but the process reached perfection and
completion only when a few months later the local bank, having the
deposits of a trusting public, blew up [metaphorically],
and
it was found that the cashier had made so free with other people's
money that the easy-going receiver, after paying his own salary for
many months, had a residue for distribution among the waiting creditors
of only 5 cents on the dollar. Mr. Johnson, for that was the defaulting
cashier's name, was sentenced to a term of ten years in the state
"depository" at Salem, where he is said to subsist as a "trusty" under
more pleasant and propitious auspices than many of his depositors who
lost all they had in the bank that failed, and have no courage since to
do more than eke out a miserable existence, with scarcely a hope that
the financial fog that has settled over them will lift until the
lifting of the curtain that divides the territorial darkness from
the glint and glory of what lies beyond.----
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 24, 1923, page 4
These people have ceased complaining of their losses, but if you want
to start something, name the defaulting cashier and what the
authorities of Salem are doing to make home happy for him, and what you
hear in the next fifteen minutes is a reminder of some of the language
heard at meetings of the Lincoln City Commission when the usual state
of unanimity becomes unsettled by a vocal objection to the program of
the commissioner of byways and hedges. If a man named Johnson is
nominated for president, I doubt if he gets so much as a single vote in
Jacksonville.
----
One of the old characters of the town, with whom I formed a really
pleasant acquaintance, is a widower Scotchman named Langell. He is a
miner by trade or profession, a well-digger when not otherwise
employed, and is as much at home in these mountains of Oregon as a
mariner
bobbing about on the bosom of the deep. At seventy he looks twenty
years younger, and he can walk and not grow weary, run and not faint,
if he finds there is any object in doing either. If he has given me the
straight of it, the only woman he now loves is his good old mother who
lives in Canada and is shacking along at the lively age of ninety.
----
Mr. Langell has a dream. He is the man mentioned as having recently
panned an ounce of gold from a day's excavation of gravel on his lot
near Jackson Creek. From the amount of gold that has been washed from
the near environs of this small stream, he believes that not far away
in the hills above is the parent lode which, if once found, will yield
riches beyond the dreams of avarice to the finder. So he has staked a
claim several miles above the town, and is maintaining his right by the
required development process. He believes that by blasting his way to a
reasonable depth--which he cannot estimate to a certainty--he will
finally unearth an inestimable treasure of gold, and live happily ever
after. So he digs wells to get money to buy dynamite to blow his way to
independence, ever anticipating that which I greatly suspect he never
will attain.
----
But he is happy in his work and in the dream that inspired it, so why
should anyone try to awaken him from so satisfying a slumber?
Dream on, dream on, my old Scotch friend! The dreamers only wake to weep, So dream we all until the end Comes to us in death's dreamless sleep Awaking, we may be surprised To find our dreams all realized. ----
I am writing in haste this Monday morning, for at noon I must be at
Grants Pass, thirty-five miles north of here, to answer an invitation
of the Commercial Club to gobble with them and then gabble at them for
a little while. The ride to and fro--through the Rogue River
Valley--is to be taken by auto, evangelist Hart, who heard my
lucubrations here one day, kindly volunteering transportation.
----
Tomorrow is my brother's birthday, the seventy-fourth anniversary,
after celebrating which the pilgrims will make the long move to San
Jose
for the next stop.
----
I forgot to mention that day before yesterday late in the afternoon the
sky cleared for a little while and the sun shone full on the towering
peak of Mt. McLoughlin, which greatly resembled an ice cream cone, the
same constructed of very blue milk to give it whiteness.
----
I hope great pleasure from this trip,
And home again at six. The wagon waits, and I must skip Or miss my dinner. BIX. DAILY DRIFT.
HILLCREST HOME, Ore., Dec. 18.--Dear Journal: This is
the name I have arbitrarily chosen for my brother's habitat on the side
of a hill as hard for me to climb with the feet I am wearing this
winter, as the political eminences were for the Democratic bandwagon,
according to the estimate of Judge Howard when he once posed as both
prophet and reformer, and sought to direct his party in the way it
should go.----
Excerpt,
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 25, 1923, page 4
It occurs to me that an orchard in Nebraska on the west slope of a hill
would need deep mulching to keep the sap from starting too early in the
season. Here the sun in the south, at its meridian height, and in
its western descent, beams coyly over the treetops at the
crest
of the hill and in no way encourages the fruit trees to bud and blossom
ahead of the season. And in the summer the fogs from the valley roll up
against it and supply a moisture to vegetation very helpful to the
growth of stuff.
----
Grants Pass is thirty-five miles north of here, and the man delegated
to take us there yesterday, evangelist Hart, was promptly at the gate
at 10:30 a.m., the hour agreed upon. From Medford north we negotiated
the thirty miles over the Vancouver to Los Angeles paved highway, now
complete for the entire distance, save a stretch in northern California
from the state line through the Siskiyou Mountains, which now has a
graveled surface. From Medford to Grants Pass there is a total descent
of 400 feet, and what with the smoothness of the grade, and the desire
of the dominie to sift in a few minutes ahead of the schedule, the
speed attained was near fifty miles an hour until at Gold Hill the
valley narrowed to a gorge and the windings of the road made it unsafe
to go faster than the Shasta Flier.
----
Gold Hill is one of the rather few Oregon mining towns where some
millions of the precious metal have been unearthed, and men are still
patiently toiling in the adjacent hills getting out ores that justify
the maintenance of smelter fires that never go out. It is difficult to
describe the scenery along the drive taken, because of the cosmic mist
that these people, who are ignorant of the things Mr. Shumway and I
have evolved concerning the universe, call "fog."
They call it fog, but I insist It is a form of cosmic mist; And mighty hard to break the spell, Because it hangs right on, Lykell, Day after day, and nightly bars The pale light of the moon and stars. When daylight comes again you spog About, rejoicing in the fog, If you're one of the native yeggs; If not, you rise on your hind legs And kick and rant and shake your fist, Then keep on slopping through the mist. ----
Members of the Chamber of Commerce (they
call it that at Grants Pass, same as we do in Lincoln) gave me the glad
hand, and listened respectfully to what I had to say, and seemed glad
when I got through, as though I were one of them and merited the
approbation so pleasantly bestowed upon me, and us, for Mollie went
along as chaperon, and our hosts were quite impartial in dividing the
applause, Mollie making quite as distinct a hit by keeping still as I
did by breaking the silence. Anyhow the occasion was wonderfully
pleasant for the pilgrims, and the meeting broke up with apparently
friendly feelings all around.
----
Grants Pass has a population of 4,000, and has very pronounced lumber,
mining and fruit interests, and above the city a few miles is a dam and
power plant, furnishing light and power to a number of places along the
line. People who in Portland or Salem are asked concerning Grants Pass
are informed that the name was given it because of a visit of General
Grant to the place in the early Indian troubles. Nothing to it. In 1864
the place had one store and a few settlers' shacks. The people got
their mail at Gold Beach. They wanted and petitioned for a post office.
The postmaster general asked that they name the place. News that Grant
had won the Wilderness battle reached them at the same time. That
circumstance gave the suggestion of the name, and it was sent in
accordingly. Let us keep history straight.
BIX.
DAILY DRIFT.
SISKIYOU, Ore., Dec. 19.--Dear Journal: This is
beginning the day's work under rather distressing auspices. We are on
the high divide of the Siskiyou Range. It is snowing, and while it is
difficult to see far through the noonday mist, it is a distinct
deprivation to feel that I must go on with this stunt when the impulse
is to use all the eyes I have with me on this trip to see all that is
to be seen of this wild region.----
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 26, 1923, page 4
Yesterday morning I left my brother's home with much reluctance, moving
down to Medford to stay overnight and be ready for the morning train
that is taking us a long way south. I checked the trunk to Porterville,
California, where the boy lives, and accepted with becoming gratitude
the tickets the agent had been instructed to issue from Medford to San
Francisco as recompense for the Portland to S.F. coupons stupidly taken
off at Tacoma by a sleepy Pullman conductor. Thus equipped for today's
journey, the balance of the day was passed in unalloyed enjoyment among
old friends and a few new ones.
----
Some time during the night the fog had lifted and cleared away, and the
sun rose in the sheer southwest in all its glory. No rain fell until
very late in the afternoon.
----
It being the birthday of brother Reuben, I took great satisfaction in
giving a luncheon in his honor at the Holland House in Medford, the
company consisting of the two Lawton boys, my brother and self. As it
was we put in an hour and a half of reminiscences not to be forgotten
unless my memory goes bump and I have to be toted to a bughouse to keep
me from forgetting to behave myself.
----
We were the guests last night of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Cochran. She was
Little Fanny Haskins back in Fullerton, where her father ran the first
official drug store more than forty years ago. Her husband is a real
fellow and so is she. He has been a resident of Medford twenty
years and, while admitting that the country has its drawbacks, declares
he wouldn't live anywhere else if they'd give it to him. Every year he
takes time off to go far into the mountains where the game wardens
can't find him, and not having the revised statues with him is unable
to tell what to kill and when to kill it, so he gives himself the
benefit of the doubt, and butchers nearly every living thing that gets
in his way, justifying himself on the grounds of self-defense.
----
In the afternoon the Cochrans drove to the ranch for Mollie and bags,
and I went along to say goodbye to sister Clo. Later we went for a
drive to Ashland, passing many of the finest and most extensive
orchards in the valley. A heavy rain stopped us about two miles south
of the village of Phoenix; the third permanent settlement in the state
of Oregon. We came back and looked at the monument that marks the site
of the first stage station on the Oregon side of the old
California-Gold
Beach trail. Several shacks as old as the history of the place,
moss-covered and mildewed with age, tell something of the story of
pioneer life when all the region was a forest, peopled by wild beasts
and wild Indians, and one had to be as rough as the bark on the forest
monarchs to be in harmony with his environment.
----
Before leaving the ranch yesterday morning I was called up by the
secretary of the Commercial Club and invited to participate in the
noonday lunch and make a talk at the finish. It was too late to disturb
our program, so I had to decline, though I am always pleased to gabble
when the opportunity to do so is preceded by an invitation to gobble.
----
Last evening was a memorable one at the home of the Cochrans. Her
brother, Leon Haskins, came over for a visit. At the Nance County Fair
in 1883, Leon was the prize baby, and the handsome looks of his
babyhood hang on like a Democrat to his delusions. Like his
brother-in-law, Leon is much given to turning his business over to the
hired help and going into the wilderness for a few weeks to hunt and
fish. And the boys verified the story of their successes in hunting
deer and catching rainbow trout by displaying photographs taken at the
time. It must be rare sport indeed, but could I learn to love southern
Oregon in the wintertime? My mind is a bit "foggy."
----
Brother Reuben was down from the hill this morning to say goodbye, and
wish us all good fortune on the balance of the journey. He is taking
his life easy among the pear trees, and fogs and jackrabbits, but
admits a homesick feeling now and then for the village station in
Nebraska, and the railroad boys who used to abuse him for wanting to
switch empties where the farmers would be more fully accommodated in
the matter of "loading" the same.
But I am almost tired out My mind is out of fix, And I'd much rather look about Than do this writing. BIX. DAILY DRIFT.
SAN JOSE, California, Dec. 20.--Dear Journal:
It was train number 13 we came on yesterday from Medford, Oregon, the
same that was halted in the Siskiyou Mountains while three desperadoes
did a bit of killing and then robbed the passengers of considerable
ready money. [Two months
earlier, on October 11, 1923, the DeAutremont brothers killed the
engineer, fireman, brakeman and mail clerk--but did not rob the
passengers.] Naturally one would suppose that a timid
creature like myself would shrink from taking a train bearing the
unlucky number, and over the same road where the dire tragedy so lately
occurred. Mollie, I think, felt some trepidation, but it encouraged her
to hear me say that the righteous have nothing to fear, and in my calm
and complacent attitude she faced the danger as one having confidence
in a favorable outcome.----
Excerpt,
Nebraska
State Journal, Lincoln, December 27, 1923, page 4
This particular train is a slow one. It takes 22 hours to reach San
Francisco from Medford. Surely it isn't difficult to hold up the likes.
It can easily be held up when it slows down. It has a schedule, like
other trains, and never makes it. Passengers grumble at the frequent
and long stops. It sidetracks for freights. It wastes steam whistling
when there is nothing to whistle about. It is 105 miles from Medford to
Sisson, the little city nestling under the very shadow of Mt. Shasta.
The distance should be made in six hours. Yesterday it took seven. An
auto can do it in half the time and take out thirty minutes for lunch.
----
Something must have obstructed the track farther down the line, for at
Dunsmuir we were nearly two hours to the bad; but all that time was
made up on the long, easy grade down the Sacramento Valley. There was
considerable snow for thirty miles or thereabouts before reaching the
summit at Shasta Springs, and in making the grade with one engine, the
steam that should have warmed our sleeper was diverted to the more
important office of propelling the mogul draft machine ahead. Some of
the passengers grumbled. I made a few uncomplimentary remarks, to which
the train crew paid not the least attention. All the heat that came to
me was generated from within.
----
It always interests me to know the location of the imaginary line that
divides states or provinces. About nine miles this side of Siskiyou,
which is in Oregon, is a signboard reading California, as you come this
way. Going north the same board bears the name Oregon. On this side of
the dividing line is the town of Hilt, California, and not much of a
town you can tell the world.
----
This morning gave me the first surprise since the drayman brought us
the wrong trunk. The sun rose in the right quarter for a winter sunup,
and there was no cosmic mist to obscure its glory. But there was a
white frost visible on the roofs from near Sacramento the Oakland pier.
This climate corresponds with zones Beyond the mountain fair; The air of morning chills my bones. So does the evening air. Against the weather on this trip I have no vicious kicks, If it don't suit me I can skip Back to Nebraska. BIX. Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Bixby entertained at dinner Friday Mrs. J. A. Cochrand, Mrs. Laura West and Mrs. D. T. Lawton, of Medford, and Sears of Sand Point, Idaho. The ladies from Medford and the Bixbys were old-time friends in Nebraska, and it was recently learned that the Bixbys and Mrs. Sears have mutual friends in Iowa.. Jacksonville Post, August 1, 1924, page 3 Ammi Bixby, Veteran Columnist, Charms Kiwanis with Version of "Daily Drift" and Reminiscences
Medford Mail Tribune, November 18, 1929, page 1
A lovable character, whose white hair swirls out and around his head in
every direction from a given point in the back--and whose thoughts, a
startling concoction of humor and pathos, apparently emanate in the
same manner. That is Ammi L. Bixby, veteran newspaper columnist of
Lincoln, Nebraska, who charmed the local Kiwanis Club this noon with an
oral version of the "Daily Drift."
Fragments of his early life, when "Mollie and I crossed the plains," purchased some reservation land in Nebraska for $2.50 an acre and built them a sod shanty, were among his reminiscences. He recalled pioneer pals, whose friendship endured through the years. "When people are poor they are good to one another," he observed tenderly. "And when they get rich--oh Lord." The 73-year-old newspaperman sighed and added, "I'm glad I'm not rich." It was during his experiences on the plains, over 51 years ago, when the journalist laid the foundation for his column, which he has now edited in the same paper for 37 years--although he didn't realize it at the time. It is out of his memories of the past, with their wealth of humor and pathos so poignantly intermingled, that he derives a quantity of his present inspirations. "I never try to be funny, because then people would expect it of me," observed the visitor at one point in his talk, and in the same breath declared that during his 37 years of service he had written more poor poetry than any one man in the United States. Mr. Bixby is a great-grandfather. He told of a granddaughter in Salt Lake who married a man by the name of Swan. A son was born the 4th of this month, and the columnist, whose first name is Ammi, promised the young parents that if they would name the boy "Ammi A. Swan" he would give them $100. Although he hasn't received any response one way or the other, his journalistic sense warns him that his offer is safe. Having sent his 45th letter back to the Lincoln Journal today, since starting on his present extended journey, the columnist enclosed the following bit of verse, applying to this locality. Out here my soul finds little rest--
The facts I will set forth; The sun comes up far south by west And goes down east by north. At night I'm puzzled by the view; The stellar lights are all askew. If this keeps up, I'll have to run With speed my western race, And hurry homeward where the sun Knows how to keep in place. Out here the planets play me tricks; I can't tell morn from sunset. BIX NOTED COLUMNIST A. L. BIXBY VISITS JACKSONVILLE KIN
A. L. Bixby, of Lincoln, Neb., famed throughout the Middle West as the originator of the column Daily Drift in the Lincoln State Journal, paid a visit to the Mail Tribune today
with his brother, R. A. Bixby, who for years past has lived on a ranch
in the Jacksonville district. Mr. Bixby has visited his brother here
every fall for several years and, as before, is en route to
Porterville, Ca., where he will visit his son, A. L. Bixby, Jr., a
prosperous rancher, who also for many years was a very successful
newspaper executive in Newark, N.J. Mr. Bixby, though over the age of
three score and ten, is as hale and hearty physically and as alert and
whimsical mentally as a man many years younger. As he has done for
nearly 40 years when on his travels, Mr. Bixby sends a daily letter to
fill his column in the Journal.
Medford Mail Tribune, November 4, 1930, page 3 Amby Bixby, of Nebraska, is spending a few days visiting with his brother, Ruben Bixby, at their home east of town. "Jacksonville," Medford Mail Tribune, November 6, 1930, page B2 REUBEN A. BIXBY DIES NEAR JACKSONVILLE
Reuben A. Bixby, 81, passed away at his home, one mile east of
Jacksonville, Wednesday morning after an illness of some time. Mr. and
Mrs. Bixby were residents of Jackson County for the past nine years,
coming from Lushton, Neb., where Mr. Bixby had been station agent for
the C. B. and Q. railroad.The couple celebrated their golden anniversary a year ago last June. Besides his wife, Cleora Bixby, Mr. Bixby is survived by one brother, J. A. Bixby of Lincoln, Neb. The body is at the Conger funeral parlors, and funeral services will be announced later. Medford Mail Tribune, September 2, 1931, page 1
Last revised January 30, 2024
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