Frozen River
(This was) taken on Christmas Day in 1924. It had been cold for several weeks before. And then conditions: the river was down real low so there was very little current. It froze hard enough for us to get out and skate on the river. Pete Tauchman, the ferryman's son, had a Model T Ford and he got out and make a few donuts on the ice. Here on the left side was the ferry. They pulled it up out of the river. They was afraid the ice would crush it and make the barge leak and then as it thawed out, they would slip it back in and pulled it up onto the ferry landing. Today, on the left side is the Interstate 5 bridge. In the summertime was our swimming hole. There was a steep road that came down [to the river bank]. Farmers would come there in the fall with a team and wagon and haul gravel out of the river. The County would send up a steam digger and dig gravel and bring it to the bank and put it in bunkers and the farmers would come in with their wagon and fill it up with gravel...about a ton... and they had an extra team of horses to pull the wagon up hill and they would drive up until they came to a bad mud place. They'd stop over that and they had the bed of the truck...of the wagons...fixed so there was narrow pieces of 2 x 4's and they would lift those up and let the gravel sift through and wouldn't have to shovel the gravel and fill up the holes as they went along. The County paid the farmers $3 a day for the team, and wagon, and driver. The farmers used that money to pay their property taxes. Emery Aden This is #16 on the Wilsonville historic map |