End of a Pioneer Trail
A pioneer of the 1850s who helped build the wheat industry of the Pacific Northwest passes away in Colfax.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
M. Stevens, a pioneer of the Pacific coast who crossed the plains with an ox team and settled in the Willamette Valley in the 1850s, died in St. Ignatius hospital today of typhoid fever at the age of 75. Mr. Stevens was a wealthy and extensive wheat grower on Eureka Flat 20 years ago, but lost most of his fortune during the economic panic. He leaves one son, C. D. Stevens, formerly deputy auditor of Whitman county, and one daughter, Mrs. John L. Canutt, both living in Whitman county.
“A pioneer of the Pacific coast, who crossed the plains with an ox team, settling in the Willamette valley in the '50s.”
The 'panics' that wiped out the wealth of 19th-century wheat barons remind us that the cyclical instability of the Inland Northwest’s agricultural economy is as old as the industry itself. Stevens' story tracks the rapid shift from the heroic era of wagon trains to the volatile, capital-intensive landscape of modern commercial farming.
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