Things that are gone, things that are new

Oct. 29, 2012.

A view from inside the McCleary Post Office. Through the windows on the left you see the now extinct old Rhodes Grocery and McCleary Stimulator office, where the new clinic now sits. Through the door windows on the left you see the vacant lot where a drive-thru coffee place called The Coffee Shop now exists.

Pony circle

July 21, 2016. The circle left by pony ride for the kids from the McCleary Bear Festival.

In the background, where Simpson's fence now exists, there was a two story structure a century ago known as "The Old Oaken Bucket." In the first floor were business enterprises, such as the newspaper The McCleary Stimulator, founded by the Craft twins, Ray and Roy, with their friend Bob Cooper.  On the 2nd floor was another sort of business enterprise employing some of the "soiled doves" of the town. Another such place was on the now vacant SW corner of Main and Maple, once home to The Pines.

Preparing the bear stew

Preparing bear stew, July 13, 2012

In 1959 the town celebrated the first annual Second Growth Festival, an event that stemmed from the University of Washington sponsored Operation Second Growth, 1955-1956, a program designed to help small communities help themselves.

The local editor of the McCleary Stimulator, Norman Porter, got into an editorial war with Roy Craft, the editor of the Skamania County Pioneer over which county had the better tasting bears. I suspect alcohol was involved in this debate.

Craft, who had actually started the Stimulator back in the 1920s with his twin brother Ray, and was a childhood pal of Porter's had briefly been Marilyn Monroe's publicist. He was the guy who convinced her to stand over a grate in downtown NYC in order to promote the Seven Year Itch motion picture. Leave it to a McCleary guy to think of that. 

Anyway, in the first year the bear was served in steak form, but in short order the Festival planners figured out it was easier to make stew so more people could enjoy it.

The Festival soon became known as the McCleary Second Growth and Bear Festival, but now the "Second Growth" portion of the name has been discarded. 

The Pig Lot

July 4, 2011

This body of water behind the Simpson Plant has been known as the "Pig Lot" for decades. The water itself is created by a dam and for years some locals used the large pond as a fishing hole. Today the area has a "No Trespassing" sign.

The name "Pig Lot" originated back in the 1920s when John Wesley Porter, the operator of the Porter Hotel, used the area for keeping his pigs before the animals were converted to bacon and ham for the guests. The Porter Hotel stood in the the little strip mall across from City Hall, where the pizza place recently closed. The hotel, which was intended for working people, grew so big it expanded into an annex across 3rd street. When the annex was demolished in the 1950s, much of the recycled lumber went into building the present VFW Hall.

Porter's son, Norman, later became the editor of The McCleary Stimulator in the 1950s and one of the people who started the tradition of serving bear meat on an annual basis since 1959 in McCleary.

Clearing the way for the new clinic

Clearing the way for the new clinic, Jan. 5, 2016

The last glimpse of a James Abbot mural in McCleary

Jan. 2, 2016

The last glimpse of a James Abbot mural in McCleary, shortly before the remaining wall of the former Rhodes Grocery was destroyed. The little building on the corner, also destined to be cleared, was the office of Norman Porter's newspaper, The McCleary Stimulator, in the 1950s.

A website devoted to James Abbott's murals can be found at this link:

http://jamesabbottmurals.blogspot.com/