THE DOUGLAS COMMUNITY

By Luke Ellington

Douglas mailboxes on Highway 2 across from general store

 Timeline of Douglas

A Look Back

(“Gone for water, will be back in a week”)

“Gone for water, will be back in a week.”  Just two miles north of Douglas, a hopeful town once stood as the county’s seat.  There, signs hung on doors and in windows alluding to a lack of water were not uncommon.  When Douglas County was formed in November of 1883, “New” Okanogan boomed from a single tent owned by Walter Mann to a full-fledged town, complete with a store, saloon and hotel.  To the dismay of its benefactors, however, Okanogan had no water under it, and it was only a matter of time before the community was gone.  Though accounts differ, it was in 1884 that Ole Dale took up residence in Douglas, and the quaint farming community began its formation.  The Douglas townsite was platted in 1886, named after the county in which it was located and well on its way to claiming county seat honors.

The story of Manford Payne: 

At one long-remembered frontier party in Douglas, a large cowboy named Manford Payne arrived.  Manford’s father had shot and killed a man in Missouri and the family was on the run.  They had decided to take up residence in Douglas, where they thought no one would ever find them.  One day, however, two Spokane officers tracked down old man Payne and took him away.  Manford let them get away from town, then strapped on his six-shooter and rode out after.  He opened fire on the buckboard, killing one officer and his father.  No one dared arrest Manford, and for years he was not seen without his holster.  He eventually turned himself in, but no one could prove his crime.  No one believed he would shoot his own father.

The first business in Douglas was Henry Thompson’s blacksmith shop.  A handful of general stores and a drug store soon followed.  In the spring of 1885, the residents of Douglas made a bold attempt to bring the county seat honors from Okanogan to Douglas.  Pressure from Douglas’s residents was high and the board of county commissioners was persuaded into taking a direct vote to transfer the county seat title.  Unfortunately for the Douglas community, which had not yet even petitioned for incorporation, the illegal move was voted down by a two-vote majority.  The following year, Waterville, located four miles northwest of Douglas, won the race.  With no water and no form of profitable business, Okanogan quickly withered and died.  Its post office was transferred to nearby Douglas in 1887.  That same year, the Douglas school was built with two classrooms.  One room held grades one through four and the other held grades five through eight.

Though Douglas would not be the county seat, 1887 and 1888 met the hopeful settlers with fortune.  The gold rush on the Salmon River mines led optimistic miners from Ellensburg directly through the Douglas community.  The fire of 1891, and others, caused the destruction of many of the original businesses, but the community was determined.  With a population near 75, the Douglas of 1904 had a general store, a hardware and implement store, a feed mill, two blacksmith shops and the German Lutheran Church.  The next year, William Puffert would build the general store that remains as the hub of Douglas activity.

   Roadside view of Douglas General Store

The Willms, Wittens, Westermans, Kirchners, Monks, Weyens, and Peters’ chartered the first German Lutheran Church, erected in 1889. The church was built by its members, and the reverend M. Steinke built the altar, pulpit, and benches himself. A new church was built in 1915 and dedicated as Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church, which stands today. Saint Paul’s offered services in English and German. However, as the second generation of German immigrants in the Douglas community assimilated, fewer and fewer spoke their parents’ language and the German services were discontinued prior to the 1940's. In 1961 the Douglas congregation merged with those in Waterville. The towering spire of the well-crafted church they built continues to dominate the landscape of the Douglas community.

   Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church

Saint Paul’s Lutheran “kirche,” as its cornerstone reads, has not been used for many years, but that may change.  Though the process is slow going, a dozen or so Douglas residents have formed the Douglas Community Historical Association, or D.C.H.A.  The president of the non-profit group is none other than Douglas General Store owner, Lee Nelson.  The white church, which is by far the tallest building in town, has been on the “National Register of Historic Buildings” since the 1980s, but the D.C.H.A. hopes to have it fully restored in 2006.  Once it is structurally sound, the church will be opened for self-guided tours and available to rent for weddings, church services, and anything “not political,” as Mrs. Nelson puts it.

Any farmer that would like to donate is more than welcome:

The Douglas Community Historical Association would appreciate any donations of old farm equipment, to be used in the construction of a water fountain/feature dedicated to the pioneers of Douglas County. 

The Douglas General Store has long been thought of as a historical landmark by many locals and passersby.  For many traveling between Waterville and Coulee City along Highway 2, the fully stocked general store is a ritual stop.  Friday through Sunday, and Monday holidays, Lee Nelson and family are on hand to serve old-fashioned cones and shakes and to talk about the day’s news.  The laid back atmosphere in the store is an ambiance the small community thrives on and is a surefire way to relax on a long drive.

 Lee Nelson and Arlen Rankin with customers inside Douglas General Store

Since the “population explosion in April,” as one Douglas resident said jokingly, the headcount in Douglas has gone up from 26 to 31.  The people of Douglas, though many of them did not grow up there, love the small town atmosphere in which they live.  The community’s only annual event, called the Douglas Days Harvest Festival, is held the weekend after Labor Day and for now is a simple barbeque lunch to raise funds for the local historical association.  Douglas never boomed the way its pioneering founders wanted it to.  Yet for this reason, it has retained the same charming and relaxed way of life that continues to draw new residents, customers, and enthusiasts.  The rich history of Douglas is forged by some of the founding fathers of Douglas County, for whom a historical account of the county would not be complete without.

Faces Around Town

(School Livin’ is Easy)

Near the end of the nineteenth century, one and two-room schools dotted the countryside.  The teacher was often a female graduate of the eighth grade and was commonly younger than many of her male students.  After riding horseback in a full dress to school, the teacher was responsible for lighting the school’s stove and ringing the school’s boisterous bell.  Douglas’s schoolhouse, built in 1887, is like many others of the era.  No one would know that better than Douglas’s own Jim Danielson. 

Jim, who is the vice president of the Douglas Community Historical Association, has lived in the Douglas schoolhouse for nearly 19 years.  The school was the third school in Douglas County and was used from 1887 to 1959, when Douglas’s school merged with Waterville’s.  The school sat deserted until 1975 when a Mr. Gilda began changing it into a home and running an electrical repair shop out of his garage.  Gilda sold the school/home/shop to Danielson in 1986, nearly 100 years after it had been built.  The two-room school is still divided into two main sections.  A door in Jim’s living room leads to a gym occupying nearly half his antique house.  “It’s been an ongoing project,” said Danielson enthusiastically about his home. 

   Original Douglas school built in 1887

Jim’s most memorable moments of the house are around the time he moved in.  When he bought the house, Danielson says the sagebrush was “eight feet high in the front yard.”  He remembers going outside with a chainsaw and trying to hack through the thick brush.  But the most exciting moment for Jim was finding three farmer’s almanacs stuck in the school’s mortar that were from 1887 and earlier.  “I didn’t even know they had farmer’s almanacs back then,” said Danielson laughing. 

The school bell that once rang out through the community in Douglas no longer sits atop the school.  On a silent morning in 1975, as Mr. Gilda brought the last of his things to his new home, he found his schoolhouse missing a bell and in need of extensive roof repairs.  The frame that held the bell had been sawed from and drug down the roof¾stolen in the night.  Though Danielson has had his eyes out for a replacement bell, he is in no hurry, and is confident that someday the Douglas schoolhouse bell will be rightfully restored.

Carroll Gray on life in his hometown during the depression:

“Mom was an expert at cutting out cardboard insoles for shoes that were worn through.  We were not the only ones.  Dad half-soled our shoes with rubber from old tires.” 

“There was no inside plumbing.  We used Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogues.”

“Everyone had the measles, mumps and whooping cough.  Flies abounded.” 

“Everyone dumped their garbage in the ditch.  Abandoned machinery and junk littered the vacant lot east of the MacDonalds.  We had a pile of boards from a building my dad tore down.  Cats overpopulated the town.”

“My dad believed in the Golden Rule and had the idea that might be superior to organized religion.”