The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-05-06
AN OREGON oIoUDBURsT.
For That Section, a Mere Incident,
Hardly Worth Mentioning.

when you talk of rain said Maj.
Wharton, who built most of the snow
sheds on the Union Pacific road. and who
runs half a dozen saw mills on the Falls
river in Oregon when you talk OF ram
in the east you simply never saw any
thing more than sprinkle. I've been out
all day in what you probably call a
downpour, but if a drop or two hadn't
hit my sore ear I shouldn't have known
it was raining"
Whats your idea of a rain storm.
MAJOR" asked the interviewer as the
two got seated after the usual prelimi-
nary.
why, water, of courser' he. answered.
This drizzle can't be called real wa
ter, you know It's just fog and smoke
and evaporation from mud puddles which
went up to come down again. Say, young
man, you ought to have been out TO mill
No. one night last August and wit
messed what we call a genuine rain
STORM 1t wasn't the biggest and latest
ever saw, but it would have given you
a pretty fair idea of what we can do out
there on short notice"
Was it cloudburst?"
Some folks call 'em by that name,
but it's defamation of character. A
cloudburst is simply an effort on the part
of the weather to get about half a million
particular locality and then knock in all
the heads of the barrels at once. The
object is to clear the driftwood off the
banks of streams and discourage the UNI
usually browns about half a tribe of
Indians and starts the tops of three
or four mountains to sliding down hill
to fill up some valley"
About this particular rain storm, ma
jor?''
''Oh, yes Well. about o'clock one af-
ternoon the barrels began to gather over
the Cascade range to the west of US.
They Struggled together between two
peaks, and l judged there was water
enough up there to wet down half the
water in it that afternoon, and the
ground for fifteen miles to the west was
valley-land on which lot of cattle and
horses were grazing 1 had four build
er and around the mill were 5000 saw
logs. When l saw that it was going to
rain-that we were in for genuine rain
Stornl-I called all hands and we made
for a hill half a mile away.
"And the rain descended, did it?" quer-
led the interviewer, as the major seemed
The raini on certainly Yes. sir.
the rain descended in due time When
everything was all ready the heads of
the barrels were bursted in and down
deep and two miles long poured into
Falls river. In about three jerks of a
deer's tail the mill, buildings and logs
went on a voyage, and haven't seen
a splinter of EN- since. The flood brought
along about 100 head of horses and cat
tie, and the bones of some of them are
in the tree tops around there today
And what did you dor
Began getting out timber for a new
mill next morning, OF course. We don't
let a little cloudburst knock the sand out
of US in Oregon, you know. Had a new
mill hummipg away inside of thirty days.
Don't write it up in a sensational way,
or our people will give me the laugh. 1t
was simply one of our summer show
ers. reporter from Portland happened
to be down that way, and how much
space do you suppose he gave it? Just
five lines! A hundred thousand tons of
mountain slid into the valley, dozen
people were drowned, and everything on
the river swept clear for a distance of
thirty miles, but five lines covered it all
Sorry that I can't make big thing for
you, but see me again-see me next win
ter-and I'll tell you about some of our
snowdrifts which have been bored a dis
lance of 420 feet without striking bot
tom Detroit Free Press.