Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/372



344 C. A. BARRETT

Beginning with these dates I have traced the development of grain-growing with facts secured from living witnesses.

In the fall of 1862 one Tom Lieuallen settled at the point where Weston now stands, followed by the settlement at that place in 1863 by Andrew Kilgore, who, from my research, leads me to believe that to him was due the honor of raising the first grain for a livelihood and from a money standpoint. At the time Mr. Kilgore settled at Weston he bought a claim from Robert Warren (who later settled near Adams), trading him a yoke of oxen for his cabin and garden patch, which was situated at the spring near where the dwelling of G. W. Proeb- stel now stands.

STAGE ROUTE RECALLED.

Prior to 1865 the stage route between Walla Walla and Cayuse station had been along the old Dalles trail, crossing Dry Creek at the same point, the road now below Weston, by the Richards crossing of Wildhorse Creek (now Athena) to Cayuse station.

In the fall of 1865 the settlers at Weston, Lieuallen and Kilgore, decided to have the road changed and William Kil- gore, now living at Athena, plowed the furrow marking the road from where Milton is now located, by Blue Mountain station and Weston, ending on Wildhorse Creek at the John Harris place. This placed the stage route through Weston and from this time on farming slowly developed in the Weston country.

In 1864 Andrew Kilgore planted and harvested a small crop of wheat at the point where Weston now stands. This grain was cut by hand with a cradle, and threshed by being tramped out with horses, cleaned with a fanning mill, taken to Walla Walla and ground into flour at the Isaacs mill, then located at Walla Walla.

In 1868 several of the settlers in the vicinity of Weston and living on Wildhorse above the present town of Athena raised small fields of grain. That year the first threshing was done