KITTITAS VALLEY
From the Cascades to the Columbia | Q4 2017
INSIDE: Living Legends Frank & Charlot Beard
Ellensburg Kidnapping Hiking the Enchantments
See how far trust can take you.
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AROUND the
County
Cornel West November 3
Writer and social rights activist Cornel West will be appearing at Central Washington University on Nov. 3 at McIntyre Music Hall. West’s appearance is part of CWU’s 2017-18 Social Justice and Human Rights Dialogues series. The theme of the year-long series is “Sustainability,” and fall quarter will focus on questions and themes connected with social sustainability. West is a professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University. He also holds the title of professor emeritus at Princeton University. He has written 20 books including “Race Matters” and “Democracy Matters,” as well as a memoir, “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.” Tickets are sold out, but a live feed broadcast of the CWU talk will occur in the Recital Hall adjacent to the live event. Go to www.cwu.edu/tickets for more information.
Red Curtain Revue December 1-3
Central Washington Theatre Ensemble brings a selection of Broadway favorites to life in this popular fall tradition at CWU. The Revue features students in the bachelor of fine arts musical theatre performance program, and spotlights their singing, dancing, and acting skills in a variety of scenes, solos, and excerpts from musical theatre. The show runs at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30 and Dec. 1-2 and at 2 p.m. on Dec. 3 at Milo Smith Tower Theater. Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 seniors/students and $7 for CWU students with ID at www.cwu.edu/tickets. 6
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CWU Symphony Orchestra December 3
Central Washington University’s Symphony Orchestra will perform in concert at 4 p.m. Dec. 3 at the McIntyre Music Hall. The concert will include John Adams’ Lollapalooza (written as a birthday gift to conductor, Sir Simon Rattle) and Ravel’s sumptuous Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2. Also featured: 2017 Concerto Competition winner, Holly Osborne, performing Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer; and, pianist Peter Longworth, performing Tchaikovsky’s grand Piano Concerto No. 1. Tickets are $12 for general admission and $7 for students, seniors and alumni. Other upcoming CWU events: Holiday choral concert on Dec. 1, and an afternoon and evening of jazz on Dec. 2, all in the music building.
Holiday events In addition to Hometown Holidays and Moments to Remember in Ellensburg, each smaller community in Kittitas County organizes a holiday celebration in December. There are lighted parades in Kittitas and Cle Elum, and fun family celebrations in Thorp and Roslyn. Suncadia hosts Winterfest from Nov. 24 through Jan. 2. Meanwhile, Valley Musical Theatre in Ellensburg will present “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” on Dec. 1-3 and 8-9. More information at www.valleymusicaltheatre.com.
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Letter from The
Editor
The first snowfall of the year at Snoqualmie Pass is a harbinger of fall and winter in these parts. It can be a bit of a shock, after all those days of picture perfect haying weather, to see white flakes on your windshield. I got my first taste of what’s to come weatherwise as I traveled to Olympia for a newspaper association meeting earlier this month. The gathering includes many of the state’s smaller publications, including weeklies from the Washington-Idaho border to Blaine in the north. We heard about how to handle big breaking news stories, and what the latest trends are in technology (think local headlines over Amazon devices in your kitchen) and traded circulation strategies. My favorite part of those gatherings is hearing about community journalism. We celebrated amazing photography, talked about wildfire coverage and honored our colleagues for good work. Along those lines, we’re pleased to share an assortment of stories in this edition of Kittitas Valley Living. Mary Swift writes about
KITTITAS VALLEY
local couple Frank and Charlot Beard, who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary over Labor Day weekend. She also touches base with former Daily Record correspondent and Upper County resident Alisa Weis, who recently published a new book called, “Swiftwater” that’s set in Roslyn. Local history columnist Monica Mersinger shares a true crime story about a kidnapping of a prominent Ellensburg resident that had much of the county on edge for several days in 1934. Anyone interested in hiking the Enchantments will enjoy Lee Juillerat’s article. The Central Cascades hold breathtaking beauty and the area is so popular that overnight permits are required. The Jack Creek Fire in August affected parts of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and the Eightmile and Stuart zones will remain closed through the winter, according to the Forest Service. It’s not too early to start thinking about next year’s adventures, though. The Enchantment wilderness permit lottery usually opens in midFebruary.
Over 50 Antique Dealers on 2 floors
Q4 | 2017
Editor: Joanna Markell Writers: Mary Swift, Monica Mersinger, Lee Juillerat Photos by: Brian Myrick, Lee Juillerat, Jack Lambert Designer: Gary Peterson Publication of the Daily Record 401 N. Main St. Ellensburg WA 98926 509-925-1414 To submit a story idea or upcoming event, email newsroom@kvnews.com. For information about advertising, email: advertising@kvnews.com. www.dailyrecordnews.com
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Local legends Frank and Charlot Beard
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Stock contracting, horses and a 70-year marriage
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By MARY SWIFT for the Daily Record
ven before he climbed onto his first mount in the saddle bronc division of the Moses Lake Rodeo in 1947, Frank Beard already knew he was a winner. He was 19 — and in love. A day earlier he’d married Charlot Van Belle, a pretty girl from the Sunnyside area with striking eyes and a captivating smile. Twice a Toppenish Rodeo princess, she was as smitten with him as he was with her. They honeymooned at the rodeo, planning to spend their wedding night in the back of Frank’s pickup under a canopy. But her siblings loaded the back of the pickup with empty pop bottles so friends of Charlot’s parents offered to share their motel room. The newlyweds got the bed; the friends used a pull-out sofa. Frank didn’t win the saddle bronc buckle that weekend. He had to wait another year to do that. But it hardly mattered. He had the girl who owned his heart. Short on cash and long on love, what they lacked in money they made up for in dreams rich with possibility for the life they would build together with grit and hard work. That was their beginning. This is their story.
The early years
Born in a tent in an olive grove in California, Frank grew up in the Toppenish area, the son of traveling horse traders who also ranched and worked crops. He was 5 when he got his first horse, a white one named Chalky. “My cousin bought him on the reservation for five packs of Bull Durham,” he says. “That was the first horse I ever broke.” The first, but hardly the last. Frank left school after eighth grade and went to work. By 16, he was a roughstock rodeo rider. At 19, he was trying out bucking horses and training horses for Charlot’s father, John Van Belle. Van Belle, who did rodeo stock contracting, admired Frank’s way with horses. Charlot had gone on to Central Washington University after high school. On the day she was first introduced to Frank she walked into her parents’ house and found them teasing him about having lipstick on his face. “At least that’s the story,” says Shannon Stewart, the Beards’ only daughter and youngest of the five offspring Frank jokingly calls “five studs and a filly.” Soon an item, Frank and Charlot both loved horses, riding and each other’s company.
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Charlote and Frank Beard watch TV together in the living room of their Naneum Road home.
“We just liked the same things and got along,” Frank says. Charlot left college. On Sept. 3, 1947, they married in the living room of her parents’ home.
The road to Ellensburg
Frank took care of horses and worked as a horseshoer and exercise rider. In the beginning, the couple was “about as migrant as migrant can be,” their daughter says. “They lived in tiny travel trailers, remodeled chicken coops and tents over years.” In 1957, after moving more times than either of them can remember, Shannon says her parents bought their first place — a one-room tar paper shack on five acres in the Outlook area near Sunnyside. It was humble living. There was no indoor plumbing. They hauled water. 12
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But construction of what is now Interstate 82 proved serendipitous. The state bought their property for the highway and, in 1958, they moved to a 14-acre site two miles away, taking their one-room house with them. “It was the first time they had indoor plumbing and water,” says Shannon, recalling that her parents added on, put in a basement, eventually built a nice barn and a lighted arena. Then serendipity smiled on them again. The state bought that second property, affording the Beards enough money to purchase 160 acres in Ellensburg. They arrived in 1977. In the spring of 1978, they moved into a log home they had built out of logs from Montana.
The Beard Rodeo Co.
Frank, who had long supported his family as a horseshoer, was still shoeing horses when they came to Ellensburg. But the seeds of the enterprise that would make the Beard name synonymous with premiere rodeo stock had already been planted. When their youngest son Pat became interested in bronc riding while they were in the Sunnyside area, the Beards began picking up bucking horses for him and other members of the high school rodeo club to practice on. The investment proved a good one. Pat, now director of the Pendleton Convention Center, twice participated in the national high school rodeo finals. He and Shannon, now a librarian in Royal City, both
were on the rodeo team at Central Washington University. Later, Pat was honored by fellow cowboys by being chosen to be the pickup man at the National Rodeo Finals. In 1973, Frank and Charlot launched the Beard Rodeo Co., producing small rodeos as they bred and raised bucking horses to improve the quality of their own stock. Then in 1987, with their reputation for top quality stock gaining increasing attention, they joined the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and became the primary stock contractor for the Ellensburg Rodeo. They and other family members began traveling to top rodeos around the West. Frank may have been the man on the front lines over the years, but Charlot was key behind the scenes. “She drove a one-ton pickup and pulled a huge trailer for years and cooked for the crews and contestants too,” Shannon recalls.
Charlot also served as ironer-inchief, turning out crisp, heavilystarched shirts that had the Beard Rodeo Co. crew looking sharp. “She ironed the wrinkles out of me,” Frank joked in a 2003 interview. “Dad only finished the eighth grade. She handled most of the paperwork,” Shannon says. “He was the brawn. She was the brains.” And together, they made a formidable team.
The years that followed
The Beard Rodeo Co. didn’t disappoint. In the years that followed the Beards’ decision to join the PRCA, Beard Rodeo Co. stock made 17 consecutive appearances at the National Finals Rodeo. Among their prized stock: a bucking horse named Homegrown, four times a National Finals Rodeo qualifier. In 2006, both Homegrown and the Beard Rodeo Co. were
inducted into the Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame. That was also the year the Beards sold of their inventory to Tom Lang of the Flying Diamond stock company in Colorado. Today, Kyler Beard, one of the couple’s grandsons, leases their land and runs cattle on it. Another grandson, Daniel Beard, has his own rodeo stock company. Frank and Charlot, now 89 and with birthdays approaching in early January, are still living in that log cabin home they had built after coming to Ellensburg. Over time it’s become a veritable private museum, packed with rodeo memorabilia, photographs, Western art including bronzes and paintings, antique bits and spurs, intricately detailed saddles, and Indian beadwork and blankets among other items. Upstairs, paintings that Charlot did when she was younger are displayed in one bedroom. Among Charlot’s prize
(Left) Frank Beard checks in on livestock being kept temporarily on his property, (Right) looks through a shipping container filled with some of the custom saddles he’s collected over the years.
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(Left) Artwork done by Charlote Beard. (Right and opposite page) Every room in the log cabin home of Frank and Charlote Beard is filled with memorabilia collected during their 70-year marriage.
possessions is an intricately detailed Indian beadwork purse featuring a hummingbird motif. She was 15 years old when she purchased it at a Sunnyside pawn shop using money she’d made cutting asparagus. “I think it’s my favorite piece,” she says.
Their years together
A “Howdy” sign outside the Beards’ front door proclaims, “One tough cowboy lives here with one feisty woman.” Inside, a large sign hung on a wall near the entry bears a photo of the couple along with handwritten greetings from some of the well over 100 people who showed up in September for an open house marking the couple’s 70th anniversary. If the Beards are proud of their accomplishments in the rodeo industry — and they are — they’re even prouder of their family. Besides Shannon and Pat, the couple’s children include Casey, their oldest, a retired lieutenant in the Army who now is general manager of the Pendleton Roundup and Tim, a retired Marine major who now pastors the Calvary Baptist Church in Toppenish. Son Kelly, who worked as a chef and culinary instructor, passed away in 2013 from cancer. In addition to a dozen grandchildren they also have “a truckload of great grandchildren,” Frank says. The couple’s daughter
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puts the count at 21. Time has taken its toll. Frank’s step is slower, though his enthusiasm for horses, rodeo and the western lifestyle is still unmistakable. Charlot, still gracious and warmly welcoming, is battling Alzheimers and in a wheelchair. On Friday the 13 in November 2015 she fell while going into her doctor’s office and broke both femurs. Not expected to live, she was rushed by ambulance to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she underwent nine hours of surgery. Then came five months at a rehab center in Ellensburg followed by a month-long stay in assisted living. Frank was at her side riding with in the ambulance, visiting her every day in rehab, moving in with her when she was transferred to assisted living until she was able to come home. Sheila and Dan Meiser, who live in an RV next to the Beards’ home, manage the home and the grounds and are the couple’s primary caregivers. “My husband knew them since he was a little boy,” Sheila says. “Char jokes that she didn’t spank him enough.” Because the Sheila isn’t strong enough to move Charlot from her wheelchair to her bed, Dan does the honors each night. “Are you ready to dance?” he’ll say, lifting her up in his arms. Charlot calls it the best part of her day.
What made their marriage work
Asked to characterize the couple, Sheila Meiser says, “Char is the epitome of a good, old-fashioned woman. She never drank, cussed or smoked. Frank was a self-made man who followed his dreams and his passion and he had a woman who supported him through it all.” “She was the nuts and bolts that held it all together,” Dan Meiser says. What made their marriage last? “When we got married the minister said ‘til death do us part. We took him at his word so that was it,” Frank says. “She was a good woman and I didn’t want to lose her.” “They really do love each other and they have common goals,” their daughter says. Not that always see eye-to-eye. Frank has told some family members he wants to be buried on his property along with some of his favorite horses. “Which drove Mom crazy,” Shannon says. Even now there are skirmishes. “They get to squabbling sometimes,” Sheila says. About what? “Everything,” Dan says. “They call it the Dutch and Irish war.” Frank, the Irish half of the equation, grins at Charlot and laughs. “That’s true,” he says. “And the Dutch always win.”
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BO OK
By MARY SWIFT for the Daily Record
In Roslyn, a writer finds inspiration from the past Long before she first visited the tiny town of Roslyn, Alisa Weis knew she was going to be a writer. What she didn’t know back then was that the former coal mining town nestled in the Cascade foothills would become the site of her first published novel. Swiftwater, published last May by InkBlots Press, tells the story of a young switchboard operator in Roslyn in 1934 who overhears confidential information related to the local union, passes it on to her fiance’ and in the process sets in motion a murder plot that changes her life and the lives of those around her. Trying to rectify her wrongdoing leaves her struggling with both her conscience and her faith. It’s a tale born in Roslyn, Weis says, after she inadvertently fell in love with the town where her husband’s family owns a business. “I was there a few times and it has these wonderful buildings and this old charm and some of the people are like characters out of a book,” Weis says. “I started talking with a local historian, Nick Henderson (Kittitas County coroner) and thinking about the story.” Three years of writing later, the book was done but not so Weis’ love of Roslyn as the setting for novels. This coming spring, Weis expects to publish her second Roslyn-based 16
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novel, this one dubbed “Emblem.” The 225-page book is a historical fiction “that talks about the 1888 coal miners strike when African Americans were brought to the region from outside the area and they didn’t know they would be strike breakers,” Weis says. Last summer as part of her research, she attended the Black Pioneer Picnic in Cle Elum to talk with descendants of some of the area’s early black residents. Among those she interviewed: daughters of the late Sam and Ethel Craven. Sam came to the area in 1922 and cemented a place in Roslyn history saving other miners from cave-ins. Ethel, whose mother arrived in Roslyn the same year as the strike, was born in Roslyn. “They were some of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever had,” Weis says of the event.
A calling
If Weis hadn’t found writing, writing would have found her. “I was born to write. I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. I was one of those kids who drew letters in the air after the lights were out since I had more to say,” says Weis, who grew up in Gig Harbor, the oldest of five siblings. “I had pages and pages. I would fill journals with my stories.” The bedtime stories her father
read aloud at night fueled her passion for words and as a young girl, she wrote so much she developed a callous on her hand. Quiet by nature and a selfdescribed introvert, there was nothing introverted about her when it came to the role she played in the family from a young age — selfappointed writer and director of family theater performances. “My siblings suffered through many a Thanksgiving play that I wrote for us to perform,” she says. By the time she was 17 she’d written her first book, a still unpublished novel about a girl “who was a little bit of a rebel, maybe modeled after Scarlett O’Hara and my sister, fiery and different than me,” she says. “It’s about how she was misunderstood but ends up making a sacrifice. She’s not entirely likable. There’s rough edges but you start seeing the humanity in her. It’s kind of a character study.”
Guiding words help sustain a passion
At Covenant High School in Tacoma, a private Presbyterian
school, Weis encountered one of the most influential people in her writing life, teacher Douglas Bond. A published author specializing in Christian historical fiction, Bond has 25 books to his name. He also owns InkBlots Press. Bond gave her advice that still sustains her. “He was the one who reminded me to ‘write for an audience of one,’” Weis says. “We always have critics, people who don’t recognize our gifts, but we need to let those voices fall by the wayside.” Weis went on to Whitworth University, earning a degree in writing/English literature in 2003. She was volunteering with a street ministry program in college when she met her future husband Justin Weis, a Roslyn area native then a student at Moody Bible Institute. Personality wise, Justin is her opposite, she says. “We’re different people. He’s an extrovert. But we have the same values,” says Weis. The couple, now parents of two young children, married in the University of Puget Sound chapel and settled in Moses Lake, later moving to Ellensburg for several years before moving to Port Orchard where they now
make their home. She honed her writing skills doing freelance work for the Columbia Basin Herald in Moses Lake and the Ellensburg Daily Record.
Real life and the pursuit of writing
At 36, Weis learned long ago that the writing life is a journey, not a destination. A fit-looking brunette who enjoys running, she has a masters degree in secondary education and juggles motherhood, marriage and work as a substitute teacher in the North Kitsap School District with writing. Not, she says, that she always manages that balancing act with ease. “I’ve written more than seven books,” she says. “They’re in different stages. I keep re-writing. Some people seem to be able to do it all but I’m not one of them, especially with young children. I usually write in three-hour blocks and I usually have to leave the house to write because I get distracted by laundry or dishes.” Her favorite spot to work? Whiskey Dick’s coffee shop in Port Orchard, overlooking Puget Sound. “There’s a view of the water. They
play jazz and I love jazz,” she says. “And of course I love coffee.”
The road ahead
Weis says if she had not become a writer she would have worked as an educator or as a social worker with a social services organization like those her parents work for. Her father is executive director of the Pierce County YMCA and her mother is executive director of CareNet of Pierce County and King County. Once her own children are older, she says that in addition to continuing to write she hopes to return to the classroom on a regular basis to teach writing, either at the high school or community college level. “I want to show students that I’m not only teaching theory. Writing is a skill I’ve practiced my whole life,” she says. “I think that’s important.” The book Swiftwater is available at are Basecamp Books and Bites in Roslyn, the Roslyn Historical Museum, Jerrol’s and the Clymer Museum in Ellensburg and from both Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Paperback is $13.95. A Kindle version is $9.99. K V Li v i ng
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Kidnapped
14 days of intense drama grip Central Washington following jail break in 1934 By MONICA MERSINGER for the Daily Record
From the archives of the Daily Record and the resources of the Kittitas County History Museum
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llensburg movie theater owner Clarence Farrell was leaving work on a winter evening in 1934 when his life took a turn that would change things forever. Later he would recount, “If I could write of my experiences, emotions and fears, or even vividly picture them, it would be a thriller that would make Zane Grey look tame.” That date — Sunday, Dec. 9, 1934 — was a cold wintery day which marked the beginning of 14 days of intense drama, including prison breaks, manhunts, kidnappings, high-speed chases, a car crash, robberies and more across Kittitas, Klickitat and Yakima counties. “My wife was in (the theater) counting the cash (and I was waiting for her).” Farrell described. He waited in his 1934 Oldsmobile Six, which only a few thousand miles on it. It was filled with gas and capable of high speeds.
Clarence Farrell outside one of his theaters. (Inset) As he appeared in 1934. 18
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“I turned on the heater in the car and was asleep when I heard a tap on the window and saw the gun,” said Farrell. The Farrell family was in the theater business in pioneer Ellensburg, and was well-known and liked in the community. James E. Farrell owned and operated both the Isis and Colonial theaters on Third Avenue. After his passing in 1920, his wife, Thilda, ran the business and later their son, Clarence, took over and expanded the business. Clarence modernized the theaters, renaming the Colonial to the Audion. He also later owned and operated the Mid-State Theater as well.
Jail break
Across town, Gus Lindeman, deputy sheriff and night jailer, was getting ready for bed at the county jail, which was then on the east side of Main Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. There was a knocking at outside door of the jail. He recognized Ernest Wallace who held up his hand. The hand was heavily bandaged and he explained he wanted to make an accident report. When Lindeman opened the door, Wallace’s bandages flew off and a gun was poked into Lindeman’s stomach. Wallace asked Lindeman to take him to Martin Hogan. Wallace and Hogan then locked Lindeman in the cell after demanding that he first release another inmate, Jim Mitchell. Lindeman told them that Mitchell had been released earlier in the week. Hogan and Wallace were not convinced but left after warning Lindeman that if he yelled or called attention, they would come back and shoot him. They also took
Lindeman’s revolver and an old felt hat and coat.
Second jail break
The city police headquarters and jail was located on Pine Street, just around the corner from Farrell’s theaters. After leaving the county jail on Main Street, Wallace and Hogan went to city police headquarters hoping to find Jim Mitchell. He wasn’t there. Mitchell had been Hogan’s accomplice and was arrested in Cle Elum along with Hogan. He had a long criminal record, involving narcotics, and had been jailed in
Farrell was awakened by a tap. A gun was pointed at him through the car window. “Open up or I’ll plug you” was the frosty statement he got. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Idaho. He had also served time in Alcatraz and San Quentin in California. Hogan was 28, medium build, dark complexion. He had a record of arrests in Idaho, and was in solitary confinement in the county jail, having been sentenced the week earlier for 15 to 20 years on the charges of attempted holdup and second degree assault, having shot Thomas Stoves, Cle Elum druggist. Hogan was awaiting transfer to the State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Wallace, between the ages of 21 and 24, had been in jail on charges of vagrancy and dope in the past, and had been released from the state reformatory that November. Despite
his criminal past, he would be the more humane of the criminals in the events that transpired.
KIDNAPPED!
After breaking the window at the city police headquarters and jail, Hogan and Wallace then went across the street where they found Clarence Farrell, asleep in his car. Farrell was awakened by a tap. A gun was pointed at him through the car window. “Open up or I’ll plug you” was the frosty statement he got. Farrell quickly opened the rear door and Wallace and Hogan got in. Hogan then got in the front seat with Farrell and searched him for a gun. “He took some cigarettes from me,” Farrell later said. Night Patrolman Charles Love saw Farrell’s car run through a stop signal at Third and Main. He went for his patrol car, but before he pursued, he noticed the city police station window broken. He immediately called the sheriff’s office and got no answer. Concerned, Patrolman Love went to the county jail, found the outside doors and corridor door open. He then located Lindeman and released him. It was soon after this that Farrell and his car were discovered missing. Meanwhile, Hogan and Wallace ordered Farrell to first go west on Fifth Avenue and then south, before heading north back into Ellensburg. They traveled back by the city jail on Pine Street, calling out for “Jim.” Some other prisoners called back that Jim Mitchell had been released two days earlier. After heading back into town and by the jail, the bandits in Farrell’s car then drove to Camozzy & Williams service station at Sixth K V Li v i ng
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and Main. The service station was also directly across the street from the county jail where officers were gathering for a manhunt, unaware that the criminals were just across the street. Farrell tried to get out of the car, but was ordered back by the bandit who probably had a gun in his back. The night attendant at the service station was topping off the car with gasoline. He reported he saw one man in the rear seat. After driving away from the service station, the Farrell car apparently turned west on Fifth and again south starting out over the old Shuskin Road. It was 11:30 p.m. Sunday night.
Manhunt begins
The alarm went out all over the state about the escape of the convicts and the kidnapping of
Farrell. Posses with cars started for North Bend, Vantage and Yakima. Yakima officers met the local posse at the tunnel and westbound officers met King county officers at the pass. Ferry boats on the Columbia River were searched. Volunteer posses were also quickly organized, concerned for their missing good citizen, Clarence Farrell. Highway patrolmen were put on alert. The Evening Record newspaper, a precursor of the Daily Record, wired the story to the Associated Press at midnight. Information contained descriptions of the suspects’, the kidnap victim and his automobile. The Ellensburg story had the right-of-way on the press wires all over the Pacific Northwest. Tips were sent back and forth over the wires, and the press cooperated with police agencies in trying to
locate the kidnappers and Farrell. It is unclear how Mrs. Farrell found out her husband and car were missing, but once notified of the kidnapping, she got a taxi and started over the Shuskin Road followed by friends in posse cars but they quickly changed direction. They followed tracks through fresh fallen snow in the Wenas area, over the Naches City road, and then toward Yakima. At one time they saw the lights of Farrell’s Oldsmobile ahead. Ben Clerf, a family friend, said he was traveling at 70 miles per hour, but the Oldsmobile just pulled away. It was now early morning Monday, Dec. 10, 1934.
High speed chase
Farrell recounted later that he drove for five hours with a gun in his ribs and the constant fear
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that Hogan would pull the trigger. Farrell drove 70 miles an hour over icy roads, through snow, country lanes, and even over cow trails, with Hogan cursing and saying he was going to “’bump off” Farrell. Wallace pleaded not to “get us in much worse.” Farrell described the wild ride down the Wenas, over to the Naches, and then toward Yakima at the pavement. They went over the hills to Wiley City in the Ahtanum and over the hills again on nothing more than a trail before hitting the Simcoe Road to Toppenish. They then started out the Satus road toward Goldendale.
Car crash
Farrell obeyed orders, because he was afraid to do otherwise. Road conditions were so bad that Farrell drove only five or six miles an hour. He drove through a lane of willows for what seemed like miles with the road deeply rutted. Angry, Hogan took over driving the car, but the road and speed were too much for him. They crashed. “When we took that skid on the icy road, that preceded the crash, I thought we were all done.” Farrell said, “As the bluff loomed up before the crash I threw both arms over my face to protect me from the glass. I was unconscious for a time and so was Wallace. Hogan was out of the car when I came to.” Clarence Farrell’s Oldsmobile sedan was found Monday, Dec. 10, beside the Satus highway near the Yakima County line by Klickitat county officers. Kittitas County officers were immediately concentrated on making a search of the wooded area for the criminals and Farrell. Carloads of friends of the Farrell’s
started over Wenas road, searching beyond Toppenish toward Goldendale as the news of the car crash circulated.
Another kidnapping
Mr. and Mrs. George A. Wasson of Sunnyside came along the wreck in the early morning of Monday, Dec. 10, 1934, and were stopped by the criminals. At a gunpoint, the men made George Wasson Martin Hogan above, was the object of a state-wide search turn his truck around conducted by officers with orders to “shoot to kill,” following his escape from the Kittitas county jail here on Sunday and his and bring them to subsequent disappearance around Sunnyside after the wreck his ranch outside of Clarence Farrell’s car near there. — Daily Record of Sunnyside. The bandits and Farrell way to get the kidnappers to leave remained at the ranch house for was to make the bandits fear that that full day. The escapees left the Farrell was dying. Farrell’s left eye following day in Wasson’s auto. was closed and black. There was a For the Wassons and Farrell, the deep cut in his forehead, his hand day seemed like an eternity. was cut and bleeding, and his back After the car crash, Farrell was badly injured from being thrown recalled that he was piled in the truck bed in manure and dirty straw. against the steering wheel. Farrell smeared some of his blood across his The sides were slats and it was lips to look even worse. freezing. Wallace, also unconscious, “Mr. and Mrs. Wasson were was put in the truck bed too. Hogan was in the driver’s seat with Wasson. wonderful people and they sure The truck drove over rough roads so used their heads,” Farrell explained fast that at times Farrell was thrown at the Record newspaper office later. “At one time Mrs. Wasson said two feet off of the floor. Farrell said to Hogan, ‘Kill me if you must see the ride bruised and injured him further. At the Wasson home, Farrell someone die, but I am going to get a doctor for Farrell. He is not going was put to bed at once while Mrs. to die in this house, without having Wasson cooked a meal for the men. medical care.’” Hostages Hogan went in to check on The three hostages agreed that Farrell and also concluded Farrell the escapees were determined to was dying. Mrs. Wasson put two stay in the Wasson house for many lunches and a blanket together, days. They also agreed that the only and about an hour after dark, the K V Li v i ng
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escapees left the Wasson ranch. Hogan left a threat that if the Wassons left the house except to do necessary chores, Hogan and Wallace would kill all three. Wasson and Farrell waited before seeking help because they feared they were being watched. Farrell had overheard the criminals talking about holing up in a sheep shack or ranch for at least three weeks until the manhunt cooled. Some officers thought that Hogan was an ex-sheepherder and knew the area more than he ever let on. They believe he was familiar with the Wenas district and also the country around the Ahtanum in Yakima Valley.
Tuesday, Dec. 11. The community gave a collective sigh of relief at the news of the safe return of their community member.
Another robbery
The next day, Tuesday night, December 11, the bandits made another attack. They double-backed into Kittitas County to rob the Tony Grubersich ranch on Thorp Prairie. The two men took a revolver and $65 in cash. The escapees surprised Mr. and Mrs. Tony Grubersich while they were doing chores in their barn. Although threatened at gunpoint, Tony Grubersich managed to escape by rolling out a barn feed chute and hiking a mile to a house further uphill owned by Leo Cross. FOUND! Word of the robbery was then Mr. and Mrs. George A. Wasson sent from the nearby Cascade camp stumbled into the Sunnyside police in the Taneum over a Forest Service office assisting an alive but bloodied, phone line to a forest ranger’s home, black-eyed, and wrenched-back and was then relayed onto the Clarence Farrell. They reported the sheriff. It all took time. The sheriff kidnapping and sought medical aid rallied the posses and tracking dogs, for Farrell. Soon after, the phones but it was too late and the winter at the Record office and sheriff’s weather spoiled hopes of tracking office rang constantly as the report the convicts. Wallace and Hogan had circulated in Ellensburg — Farrell left the ranch. Mrs. Grubersich was was safe. not harmed. “Farrell Found!” was the large Sheriff Arthur Byars and point headline in the Extra edition of Ellensburg Police Officer Marion The Evening Record newspaper on Salley left immediately for Thorp Prairie to investigate, while Cle Elum Head stone for Clarence Farrell and his wife, Edna. In spite of the officers closed the teriffying kidnapping, Farrell lived to have a long life. road out of Cle Elum. The description of the robbers given by Mr. and Mrs. Grubersich matched that of Hogan and Wallace. The search moved to the wooded Blewett Pass area on Thursday, Dec. 13, after an attempted 22
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highway robbery on the pass of R. C. Mills, a Seattle salesman. Mills identified the two men that tried to hold him up as Hogan and Wallace through descriptions broadcast by the Associated Press and sheriff offices. Mills said that they had stepped out in front of his car and waved for him to stop. As one man raised his arms, it opened his jacket revealing a gun holster. “So I stepped on the gas!” Mills said. Looking back, he saw them hurry into the woods. It was near Lookout Point on the Kittitas County side of the pass. It was the last time anyone would see Martin Hogan and Ernest Wallace alive.
The ending
J. C. Kaynor, editor of the Evening Record, was in Sunnyside at the Planters Hotel meeting with a group of Central Washington newspaper publishers on Friday, Dec. 14, 1934. The proprietor of the hotel came to announce, “Gentlemen of the Press, Hogan’s body has been found two miles out of town.” A melee of newsmen broke for the lobby phone booths. Kaynor grabbed the first phone he could find to notify the Record office and the Associated Press. Al Gerritz of the Ellensburg Record circulation department and Kaynor drove out to see the body. When they arrived, officers were crossing the field toward it. After the initial investigation, officers could not determine whether Hogan had committed suicide or had died in a gun fight with his accomplice who had accompanied him on the wild night and days which followed. There were no powder burns around the wound.
A mystery
On Monday, Dec. 24, 1934, a plain pine coffin with Hogan’s body was lowered into a grave in the Sunnyside cemetery. He had no family or friends attending. The county paid the cost of Hogan’s funeral; Ball Undertaking Co. was in charge of the funeral. There was a large crowd with most going to the services out of curiosity. In the group were Mr. and Mrs. George Wasson. Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Farrell did not attend and instead, concentrated on their family and the holiday. At the Farrell’s Colonial Theater, the movie “One Night of Love” was playing. Hogan’s accomplice, Ernest Wallace, remained at large. Both
Wallace and Jim Mitchell, who the bandits had sought in their escape, were not mentioned again. The Ellensburg Record newspaper online archives for January through July in 1935 do not exist. If events happened regarding the manhunt during those months, they may be lost to history and the mystery remains. Monica Mersinger is a historic preservationist documenting Washington and Oregon history and photography and a local history columnist for the Daily Record. Annotations: Daily Record Newspaper Archives, Dec. 9-27, 1934; Kittitas County History Museum, Theater exhibit, summer 2016.
Thank you from family On Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1934, the Evening Record had a front page thank-you notice from the Farrell family for all the citizens who searched for the kidnapped Clarence Farrell. Mrs. Farrell wrote that these last days would always be remembered as those filled with bad memories. Her children were concerned for their father, and she had had to comfort them. She thanked the community, saying “I know so many people took cars and joined in the pursuit although they realized they might jeopardize their own lives. Officers and friends did all they knew how to do to help and that is the one comforting thing about the whole ordeal.”
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Beside Hogan’s body were burned matches and two packets of cigarette papers, indicating he had been there for some time. It had rained during the night and his clothing was wet, but the soles of his shoes were dry. This was another indication that he was there before nightfall. Rigor mortis had set in; death came at least 12 hours before the body was found. Also beside the body was a piece of bread wrapping like that in which Mrs. Wasson had wrapped the sandwiches she had given the bandits. Twenty feet away, across a wire fence, lay a bottle of oil of mustard from the Elwood Drug Store. Mr. Elwood was later interviewed by the Record. Elwood remembered the order but had not served the man who asked for oil. Elwood explained that oil of mustard had a strong scent and was one of the best methods of preventing bloodhounds from following a trail. Criminals would rub it on the sole of their shoes in an effort to avoid detection.
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High on
Adventure
From below, Aasgard Pass is steep, but it doesn’t look daunting in Washington state’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
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Searching for mountain goats in the Enchantments By LEE JUILLERAT special to the Daily Record
I
t was a place that really got my goat. It wasn’t hard to get my goat — in the most positive way — during a five-day backpack in the amazing area of Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness known as the Enchantments. Mountain goats, along with the incredibly wild alpine landscape, succession of one-after-another beautiful lakes and rugged billy goat terrain, are part of what make the area enchanting. There was much to enjoy, including those omnipresent mountain goats. We didn’t seek them — they were everywhere. Wandering through our camps, posing on ledges, grazing on grass as we grazed on freeze-dried dinners, or just staring at us as we clicked googolplex photographs. They seemed gentle enough, but all of us knew better than to try to sidle close enough to try to pet them or take look-at-me-and-my-goat-buddy selfies. Confession: I’m a Capricorn, which is possibly why I have an affinity for mountain goats. It’s something that goes back to my childhood.
Gravity defying
Like them, I climb mountains, but I have no illusions about climbing like the critters in the central Cascades’ Enchantments. Mountain goats are 100- to 300-pound herbivores that
seemingly defy gravity while scampering up impossibly steep cliffs. They don’t need boots, hiking poles or crampons — they’re built for mountains. Their feet are cloven hooves, each with two toes that spread wide and help them with their balance. Rough pads under their toes provide the traction better than any climbing shoe. Our first Enchantments goat encounter was at Colchuck Lake. Before reaching our first night’s campsite, we detoured around a grazing goat who literally butted in, hogging the trail. The next day, climbing tortuous Aasgard Pass — a nearly 2,000-foot elevation gain in threequarters-of-a mile over shale, loose rocks and boulders — an adult and its kid casually strolled past us. Jim Johnson, who has made previous Enchantments backpacks, quietly chuckled as we — Steve Underwood, Allan Wiegman and I — madly snapped photos. He knew we’d see many more. We didn’t have to wait long. During two nights and portions of three days at our Upper Enchantments campsite, individuals and groups of hillbillies variously wandered about, sometimes standing proudly atop rocky slopes, drinking from nearby streams or nonchalantly cruising past or through our camp.
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Hikers cross a snowfield in the Upper Enchantments in Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
Silly billy
Their distinctive white coats make them easy to spot. Some looked cleanly shaven while others were still shedding. We dubbed one silly billy that frequently visited our camp “Shaggy Mane.” Other bearded visitors had beards, or, more fittingly, goatees. One goat — maybe seeing me as a Capricorn buddy or an old goat buddy from another time — repeatedly and quizzically studied me. He and others made themselves at home. And, indeed, the high elevations in the Upper, Middle and Lower Enchantments, a series of glacier carved lakes at elevations ranging from 6,000 to 7,500 feet — are their home. 26
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To avoid encounters, we cooked and ate away from camp. More importantly, when not using primitive privies, we followed mountain goat etiquette learned the hard way on a years ago trip in the North Cascades. Don’t piddle on the ground, piddle on rocks. Why? Because goats crave salt, which is found in urine but is a rare nutrient in mountain environments. Peeing on rocks prevents them from tearing up the ground.
Challenges
Goats were only one attraction of the Enchantments, an area that’s challenging in more than one way. The first challenge is getting a permit. Jim, who hadn’t seen Steve in 30 years, won a coveted permit for
access to the tightly controlled core zone and needed folks to join him. Steve had a much more restricted permit. Through chance they were reunited, first by telephone, then in Leavenworth where we met. Reaching the Core Zone — the three Upper, Middle and Lower Enchantment lakes — is equally challenging. There are two choices: either a 10-mile one-way, 5,830foot elevation gain by the Snow Lakes Trail, or a more direct trek via Colchuck Lake, a shorter one-way distance that climbs 4,320-feet from the trailhead to Aasgard Pass and the core zone. We took the Aasgard route, taking two days to reach the Upper Enchantment lakes. On our “rest” day we climbed Little Annapurna. Instead of mountain
goats, we were treated to eye-popping views of Glacier Peak, Mount Adams and, more breathtaking, Mount Rainier. Our hike through and down the Enchantment lakes to Nada Lake included encounters with more mountain goats. Some breezily strolled past us or, again, posed on ledges. From Nada the trail is a steep, persistent downhill to the Snow Lakes trailhead. As we lost elevation, we also lost mountain goat encounters. I enjoyed our goat encounters. Steve said it’s because I’m aging, like an old goat. Sometimes I figure because of my Capricorn heritage. But as I mentioned, it’s not a new feeling. My kinship with mountain goats is something I’ve had since I was a kid.
Lifestyle
Kittitas County
is a
For a different perspective about backpacking in the Enchantments, view a photo-story at the High on Adventure travel/outdoor website at www.highonadventure.com.
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