The First Year at the Homestead by Mike Barnhart

In the spring of 1918, my grandparents, Hugh and Mamie Courtney acquired the old William Mcomb homestead at the end of Company Creek road. Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book  “At Home In The Woods – A Stehekin Family History – The Moores and Courtney’s”, along with a photo of the Cronk Cabin.   Article and photo "copyright" by Mike Barnhart. Reprinted from 2010 Guidebook.

 

Old Courtney place 1956

“The first year at the homestead, Dorothy and Harwood went to school at the McGregor Flats School otherwise known as the Cronk cabin, located right across the river from the Courtney homestead. Rather than going down to the bridge and back up the other side, Hugh dropped a large tree across the river allowing the kids a much easier walk to school.  The following year school was moved to an old cabin owned by Fred Bowen near Rainbow Falls. Fred also donated land for a new school at that same site. Since children lived at both ends of the valley it made a lot of sense to have a school more centrally located, especially since most often the kids had to walk to school.  In the winter, when the snow got deep, Hugh went ahead of the kids with his snowshoes to break trail but as we all know, walking in boots on a snowshoe trail doesn’t always work so well. Breaking through the snow down to your knees (we call it post-holing) every few steps turns into a lot of work. At six years old, it was quite a struggle for Laurence.”