Year by year the acreage was increased, new fences were run, and in an amazingly short time, the vast herds of horses and cattle that had grazed peacefully there or wandered in long wavering lines, along the deep old trails to the nearby water holes, gave place to the wide fields of waving grain and passed on to the wilder regions.
And so we grew, the old log cabins with their mud and rock chimneys were replaced by more pretentious dwellings, better farm buildings began to appear, more machinery was purchased, the cayuses and the gaunt range cattle were weeded out to make room for better livestock. Along all lines we sought to improve the general equipment and thus add to the farm's efficiency. Each year brought much progress and some failure. There were hard winters and years of drought. There were good times and hard times, but these were just the incidents common to the life of every community. We weathered them all—and today are proud that our little corner is a worthy part of the "Great Northwest."
In passing along any one of the numerous fine highways of which our county boasts today, one meets occasionally an old pioneer slipping smoothly along in his high powered motor, and there comes to mind a picture of that same traveller, thirty or forty years ago, toiling along that same highway, over a rough rutted course, that could only by the greatest courtesy be called a road, with his jaded cayuse team and lumber wagon, creeping along with the summer sun blazing down upon him or the howling blizzard of winter buffetting, beating him pitilessly, and the biting cold freezing him to the very bone. Picture the contrast, dear reader, and rejoice in the progress of forty years.
In all the years to come we will be found working together for all that makes for development and betterment along all lines, for in such unity alone, can there be real progress. We know that each coming year is better than the last, and all unite in the wish that good old Asotin County may see many of them.
Another of the most prominent of the early families of Asotin County is the Clemans family. A daughter of that family, now well known in Asotin city as Mrs. Lillian Clemans Merchant, was for some years a teacher, and then the superintendent of schools. We are glad to present here a valuable and entertaining account of the early schools of Asotin County from Mrs. Merchant:
BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOLS IN ASOTIN COUNTY
By Mrs. Lillian Clemens Merchant
The writer was not among the earliest settlers of this portion of Washington, having reached the county in the autumn of 1885, although the schools and school systems of the county were still in the embryonic stage, we having enjoyed the privilege of attending school in the first schoolhouse in the county, a little log building 12 by 14 situated about one-half mile from Anatone.
This seat of learning had one window on either side and was furnished as follows: A few rude desks of varying sizes fashioned from rough lumber but soon worn smooth by the activity of the children by whom they were occupied, a long bench made of a hewed log with eight upright pieces driven into it for legs, being used as recitation bench, a small crude table constructed from native wood served for the teacher, a few planed boards painted black in the rear of the room sufficed for a board, a piece of sheep-skin tacked on a block of wood served as an eraser, while a small box heater occupied the center of the room.