Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/179

Rh Stockman has failed to find any narration of this incident. Walla Walla, then composed of some half dozen buildings, was becoming very much in need of a hostelry. Dr. LaDow, a member of the Stockman party, responsive to the opportunity, set about building one, and Mr. Stockman was given the job of hauling the logs and other materials for its construction from the mountains, there being at that time no saw mill in the country and all the lumber obtained was made by the whipsaw process. This first hotel, built in the fall of 1859, was quite imposing in appearance and for some time served the purpose well.

Mr. Stockman was offered a lot in the town, free, provided he would build a house thereon. Accepting the offer, he hauled all the material for the house from the mountains at one load.

Late in the fall of 1859 he traded two yoke of oxen for the Hudson Bay farm of 320 acres about ten miles from Walla Walla on a tributary of the Walla Walla river, in Oregon. He and his partner made this their headquarters during most of the winter. They had brought with them across the plains an old-fashioned coffee mill of rather large size, which proved to be quite a rare machine in this section of the wild West. They fastened the mill on the outside of the house and men came as far as eight miles to use it. Not only was it used for grinding coffee, but a great deal of wheat was ground for making bread.

Having a desire to acquire a fortune quickly so that he might return East to his aged mother, Mr. Stockman was strongly inclined to the occupation of mining. The farm was therefore disposed of for a trifle during the next year. It is now the nucleus of a ranch worth, perhaps, one hundred thousand dollars.

About that time reports of the placer mining on the Similkameen river, B. C, became rife and in February, 1860, Mr. Stockman with a party of ten went into that region to investigate the new diggings. The wealth of the camp failing to meet his expectations, he returned to Walla Walla.