Chapter 5

In a previous chapter, Weiser began to take on signs of life in the spring of 1881. The board of county commissioners decided that a court house should be built and planned for a frame building 24 by 40 feet. with offices below and a court room above. The contract was awardcd to J.W. McCully for the sum of one thousand dollars. Lumber for the structure was hauled from mills north of Salubria, and the doors and window sash were made here, and they were as neat and substantial as any factory made goods. The floors were surfaced and matched by the hand of the writer and the job was pronounced good by the boss who was an expert carpenter. Weiser school district was also formed that year from territory formerly a part of the lower Mann Creek or Jeffreys district.

It extended from a line two miles east of the east side school house as far west and north as there was territory within the county.

A one room school house was also erected that year at a point about a block north of the ruins of the old court house. Thomas Shannon that year platted an addition to the town which still bears his name, and A.B. Watkins also platted an addition, bearing his name, the two additions being divided by what is now East Main Street, J.H. Reavis, later for many years a resident of Middle Valley, started a small store in town, which he sold that fall to Kaufman, Haas and Durkheimer of Baker, who enlarged the building and put in a large stock of general merchandise.

The Haas mentioned as of this firm was the late Herman Haas, long a resident and prominent business man of Weiser. Several dwellings were erected that year and at about the beginning of the year Robert Morehead and Co. completed and began the operation of its grist mill, located on Monroe Creek a short distance below where the railroad bridge spans that stream. The power for the mill was water from the Weiser River conveyed to the mill through what is still known as the mill ditch. The building and operation of this new venture was of great value to the farmers who had been obliged to haul their wheat to Middleton, 50 miles away, to get it converted into flour. The following year, 1882, saw a still greater growth in population and building than that of the year before, as new people were coming in to make settlement both in town and country, not in the lower valley alone, but in the upper valleys as well.

This influx of population naturally increased the trade of the business people of Weiser as it was the trading place of all the people as far back as Meadows. Ramberger and Frank, a Baker firm of general merchandising started a store here and began a thriving business. Owing to the coming of the railroad workers and others, the trade of the town was immense. The greatest problem confronting the merchants was getting in goods sufficient to supply demand, as they had to be freighted from Umatilla, on  the Columbia River by teams, with freight rates sometimes as high as six cents a pound. As the O R N approached from Portland, freight was later hauled from Pendleton, later Cayuse station, at the western base of  the Blue Mountains, later from La Grande, and for a time from Baker. By the time the western road had reached Baker, the Short Line had reached CaIdwell, after which freight was hauled from the latter place until the cars reached the now long defunct city of New Weiser. In the fall of 1882 Washington County saw the launching of the first newspaper venture within its borders, when the Weiser Leader made its journalistic bow before the public. It was founded by a  man by the name of Stein and AC. Mitchell, then  a young lawyer of Weiser. Stein had had considerable experience in newspaper work, both as a writer and typesetter, while Mitchell had none. The outfit was not a pretentious one, as the press was an old Washington hand concern. probably the first one Hoe ever built. They had a small ammount of type, sufficient for printing two pages with the advertising. The other two pages were what Bill Glenn, later publisher and proprietor of the sheet, denominated  "Patent Guts."

The venture was not a profitable one and it was shortly sold to another party, and changed hands a number of times until it was finally taken over by R.E. Lockwood, who had founded the Weiser Signal, when it lost its identity.

Stein left Weiser and was later killed in a drunken melee somewhere in Willamette valley.

Weisers First Depression

After the completion of the railroad and a junction was made at Huntington with the 0. R. & N. and the host of workers left this section there ensued a period of depression, when prices of farm products fell below that of any previous time. Grain could hardly be sold at any price, a cent a pound being the highest when sales were made. Hogs brought three cents per pound on foot, eggs, in the summer time were sold at 12 dozen for a dollar and other commodities of the farm accordingly. Farmers became involved in debt to the merchants and it was necessary for them to mortgage their lands in order to make payments. Several eastern loan companies established agencies here and did a thriving business making farm loans, some of which were never paid except through foreclosure proceedings. There was some local money to be had on short time at the rate of 18 percent per year.

One of these local lenders would always claim that he had no money to loan for himself but if the borrower would see a certain person that it might be obtained from him. This certain party was the agent of the Shylock who had the money, and he would make him the loan at a rate of 18 percent per year with an additional six percent for the agent as a commission, which was divided between Shylock and his agent. No loan was for a longer period than six months and if the borrower could not pay then, the time was extended for another six months provided the interest was paid up to date and another six percent commission was added. The old fellow never lost anything at this kind of business snf died with a fortune of over a hundred thousand dollars.

Big Fire

In the dull days following the completion of the railroad, Weiser did not increase in population to any extent, nor did there occur any outstanding events worthy of recording here, until on the evening of May 30, 1890, when the business portion of the town was laid waste by a destructive conflagration. The fire started in the barroom of the Weiser Hotel, caused by ttre dropping of a coal oil lamp by the barkeeper. He was an old fellow by the name of Jack Jewett. commonly called 'Shirt Collar Jack because of the immense standing collar he wore. He was drunk at the time and took the lamp down to fill it. On attempting to put it back in place, he dropped it on the floor. breaking it and spilling the oil, which immediately ignited.

In five minutes the whole of the lower part of the building was in flames which were crawling up stairs to the upper story which soon became a raging inferno. As there was no fire protection, the f lames flashed across the street and to other buildings on the same side and within two hours every house on the two sides of the street for the whole block were in ashes. Before the fire, B.W. Watlington and a number of Boise people had bought the land on which all of the town west of the present State Street is now located. They had surveyed what is known as Watlingtons addition to Weiser, with the intention of starting an opposition town there, and many thought, and with reason, that there might have been some connection between Watlington and old Shirt Collar Jack in his accidental dropping of the lighted lamp. Before the fire the Odd Fellows had built a two-story building on the corner of East Main and Eleventh Street, a block south of the court house, into the lower story of which Herman Haas had removed his store from the old building, which was destroyed by fire.

After the fire, some of the people who had their investments in the old town were determined to rebuild it a block further north and one further west. C.W. Townley, who was one of the owners of  the destroyed hotel, with others built a brick hotel across the street east of the Odd Fellows building. David Gorrie and Louie Sommercamp built a brick structure across the street from the hotel, all quite respectable structures for that time. While these old town people were strenuously laboring to build up their town, the new town people got busy building down at the new location. Watlington formed a corporation and started a hardware store with a bank in connection. J.B. Coakley and M. McGregor built the Vendome Hotel, which has been considerably enlarged. There were a number of cottages built by the town-site people during the year as well as a few business buildings other than those already mentioned  and there was quite a rivalry between the two locations.

Old Town Doomed

Within two or three years it became apparent that the old town was doomed, and the brick buildings were torn down and their material put into buildings at the new location: that of the Odd  Fellows building  into the present building of that lodge, and that of the Hotel building and the Gorrie and Soomecamp building into a new Weiser hotel built by F.M. Barton and F.M. Hubbard. Thus ended all attempts to ever rebuild the old town of Weiser.

When the Watlington addition was platted the streets were given different names from what they now bear. West Commercial was called Eoff Street in honor of Alfred Eoff (pronounced as if spelled Ofe) one of the stockholders in the new addition. West Idaho was called Perrault street in honor of Joe Perrault, another stockholder, both Boise residents. West Main was called Watlington in honor of B.W. Watlington, and West Court bore the name of Raum Street in honor of an old fellow who was cashier of the new bank. Some years after, when Watlington and associates bank and store went into insolvency and a number of Weiser people had lost their deposits in the bank, the city council, in resentment, changed the names of these several streets to those now used, and few there are who ever knew or now remember that these thoroughfares ever bore such appellations.

Having witnessed the building and destruction of old Weiser and the rising of the new, and having given my readers some of the details, I  must turn back again to other themes and bring their history down.

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