| Summary: | Stevens County Cradle Of Civilization. Stevens County Cradle of Civilization. Stevens county pioneers, who hold their reunion today at the farm of W. Lon Johnson near Arden, have a site of much historic interest. There, in 1859, B. F. Yantis set up and operated the first American-owned flour mill in the Colville-Spokane region. And that quarter-section was the first homestead entry in that region, filed in 1870. Prior to that, occupation by white settlers was on a basis of "squatters' rights." Mr. Yantis, the miller, had represented Thurston county in the first territorial legislature of 1854, at Olympia. W.H. Struve, contemporary pioneer, said in the Washington Pioneer association at Tacoma, 50 years ago, that Yantis was "an intelligent, conscientious and upright citizen and legislator." He was one of nine members of the council, corresponding in territorial days to the present state senate. The flour-milling industry had a much earlier start in the Colville valley, where its origin was under the British flag. At Meyers falls on the Colville river, the Northwest Company of Canada operated a little mill, prior to its absorption by the Hudson's Bay company in 1821. The Hudson's Bay company enlarged it, and ground there wheat from its large diversified farm on Marcus flats. Stevens county has a historic background of extraordinary interest. It was the cradle, under the fur companies, of commerce, agriculture, industry and transportation. Missionaries, Protestant and Catholic, brought religion north of Snake river, was instituted by white settlers at Chewalah. Mining started with the discovery of gold by Joe Morrell, in 1854. Stevens county pioneers take a sustained pride in the inspiring history of their region and the heroic records of the pioneers. They do well to impress upon the rising generation the lessons of their heroic past.
|
|---|