The Last of the Trail Blazers
Ezra Meeker, the pioneer who spanned the era from ox-carts to airplanes, faces a final struggle as he fights for his health.
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.
Ezra Meeker, famous Northwest pioneer in his 93rd year, had a final ambition to successfully produce an historically correct motion picture of the West. He went to New York City last spring and organized a film producing company. Last month, on his return from his brother’s funeral at Bellingham, he was stricken with influenza, which doctors agree is usually fatal to one nearing the century mark in life. More than 70 years ago, Ezra Meeker, the 'trail blazer,' crossed the plains to try his fortune in this Northwestern country. He reached the Oregon country safely after many hardships, built his first cabin in 1853 on the spot where Kalama is now situated, and witnessed the transformation of the wilderness into a civilized nation. He has seen the state develop from a struggling territory with few citizens to a flourishing state, witnessing the arrival of the railroad, the motor vehicle, and the growth of the University of Washington. Known for his work in placing stone monuments along the old Oregon Trail, his current condition brings to mind a life history that has been active in Washington for many years.
“He has seen the state develop from a struggling territory, where there were scarcely citizens enough to fill all the offices, to the present flourishing state.”
Ezra Meeker's life perfectly mirrors the rapid, sometimes violent, transformation of the Pacific Northwest from a landscape of Indigenous territories and pioneer outposts into a modernized state. His obsession with marking the trail reflects the perpetual struggle of the region to reconcile its explosive development with the memory of what came before.
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