Oscar and Arlen McCoy and sons, Allan and Kenneth, arrived in Wilson Creek in 1945. Oscar worked for the AAA. Read on.

Wilson Creek area history

The Rev. David H. Crawford compiled and published a history of families in and surrounding Wilson Creek titled, "Family Memories of Wilson Creek Area." The book was printed in 1978, which was the 75th anniversary of the town. David's son, John Crawford, has given permission for those memories to be a part of this column.

Today we feature the story of the Oscar McCoy Family:

Oscar and Arlen McCoy and sons, Allan and Kenneth, arrived in the Wilson Creek community on Easter Sunday of 1945, moving to the Howard Hirschel Ranch three miles north of the Timm School house.

Oscar and Arlene were married in November of 1938. While Oscar was employed by the Agriculture Adjustment Agency (A.A.A.) in Ephrata, as a field man, measuring wheat land in Grant County. After six and a half years it was their desire to get a wheat ranch and so he resigned from the A.A.A. and rented a ranch north west of Coulee City and agreed to purchase the farm machinery.

He was to sign a lease and pay for the outfit on the following Monday, but to his surprise, on Saturday the prospective landlord called to say he had sold the outfit for $2,000 more than he had agreed to sell it to them.

The same afternoon Oscar met Howard Hirschel in Ephrata and found he was looking for a man to operate his ranch, while he moved to Rockford, Wash., where he had purchased a wheat and pea farm.

Mr. Harry Hirschel, father of Howard, owned a ranch eight miles north of Wilson Creek, which he was renting to Marvin Knopp, his Nephew. In July of that year Marvin told Oscar that he was going to sell his outfit and a half section of summer fallow, to be seeded to winter wheat that fail and had several buyers for it, but Harry Hirschel insisted he offer Oscar first chance to buy it. It didn't take Oscar and Arlene long to decide that this was just what they had been looking for and so in September of 1945, they moved to the farm that they were to rent for the next 28 years.

They regard it a pleasure to have a landlord who, for all those years was as pleasant and cooperative to work with as Harry Hirschel was.

In 1973 the McCoys moved to a new home in the city of Wilson Creek to retire and enjoy life.

Allan McCoy now resides in Soap Lake, while Kenneth, Pam and their two daughters live in San Diego, California.

E-mail from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:

From the Columbia Basin Herald on April 21, 1950:

Tainter elected to head Eagles Lodge for year

Ray Tainter will head the Columbia Basin Aerie of Eagles after June 1, members decided at elections heal April 13.

Loren Lambert, who has served as president for the last year, will become junior past president at the June 1 installation rites. Preceding him in that post have been Harold Schwab and Clint Sincleir.

Exams to be held for state jobs

Typists and stenographers interested in working for the state in a merit system position should apply for examinations to be held soon, Kenneth K. Riste of Ephrata, manager of the Grant County office of the Employment Security Department, announced this week.

The beginning salary for junior clerk-typists is $160 while junior clerk-stenographers starts at $170. The examination will be held May 13 in Wenatchee.

Grant County history

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column. Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we begin the story of Coulee City by Verne Adams, recorded March 8, 1977:

I want to say a little about old Coulee City. I moved in there in 1912. We moved off of our old homestead west of Coulee City. Coulee City hasn't anything doing up there now, but in 1912-24 there was a lot doing, all horses and all wheat haulers, two livery barns, about 50 businesses at that time, now about five. So that's the difference.

Coulee is the end of the railroad and the train used to come in at 7 o'clock at night. The entertainment we had was to go see the train come in at 7 o'clock at night and then it went to Adrian and came back at 7 o'clock the next morning and on back to Spokane.

The train was a big deal, everyone got down on the platform and watched the passengers come and go. Everybody traveled by train then.

At that time we had two doctors, a dentist, an undertaker, plus three attorneys; Guy Walters, Nat Washington and Dan Evans. Now Nat Washington was the father of our representative Nat Washington. That's where he got his start.

We had one drug store run by Charlie Neihart. His son still runs that drug store. Of course, there were no lights in town. Old gas lanterns were what we used for lights, and then I think there were five or six street lights that the marshal went around every night and lit. I think they were carbide lights.

In 1915 C. J. Weller came in there with a light plant. He was an electrician and he installed the first street lights we had there.

He had an oil burning engine that he started every night about dark and it chugged away until the stars went down I guess, and then they shut off the lights.

We had four grocery stores, but I'll say this before I go any farther, those people in Coulee City were the finest guys in the world. I was kind a nosey kid and I really got acquainted with all of them, too.

There were two hotels with a restaurant in each one, and a lodging house, too. Bill Adair had a restaurant without a hotel. He was a character I'll tell you. I can remember his menu yet, and everything he'd have to say, "I say, huh what..." before he could say anything.

"Roast Beef, roast pork, wieners and horseradish and I say, huh what, a little soup to start with."

Oh, he was a character. He opened that thing at about 4 o'clock in the morning, and I think I was there every time he opened it. Then he went off at about 2 o'clock and he went someplace and got good and drunk for the rest of the afternoon, but he was always ready to start the next morning. He just dropped over dead right behind that counter when he was about 70 years old. He lasted quite a while at that.

There were three pool halls, cleaning and pressing, and a harness shop and shoe repair, and two barber shops with two men in each shop.