Pike County press. (Milford, Pa.) 1895-1925, 1903-07-31
.IHE HERNITS COLLECTION
Remarkable Museum In a Wes-
tern Desert.
BUT HE HAS NO SNAKES
Log Cabin In Washington a Treasure
House Of Relics from All Parts
Of the World Has Taken Over
Forty Years to Gather the curlos.

OF the Wurid-Hae akcn DNef
Forty Years to Gather the curlos.
Fifty miles northwest of Walla
Wana, buried away among the sand
and sage Of the vast semi-arid stretch
Of Eastern Washington is one Of the
finest and rarest collections Of curios
in the United states. amassed by de-
sert dweiler after forty years Of con-
slant gathering. ID. w. owen. Of Ken
newiek. Yakima County. Washington,
is the man whose unhagging energy
and great pains have brought to-
gether this unique collection. After
a lifetime in collecting this grizzled
pioneer sits IN his four-room desert
shack amid his curios, strange spec
tacle to the occasional passer by As
the miser boards his gold and counts
it over day by day, so Mr.. owen re-
vels in the treasures he has gathered
from the Arctic Ocean to the anti
podes.
over 10000 separate pieces are
massed together within the narrow
confines Of Old Man owens cabin So
small is the desert habitation, and so
large the collection, that every avail
bic spot has been utilized for curios.
They line the walls, the floors, the
ceilings and even cluster around the
pantry shelves Picture frames are
covered with them, and the crude ta-
bles of what passes for the sitting
room groan under the weight OF every
thing conceivable that is strange
owen has certainly followed his mania
to the bitter end. AS one sits down to
eat at his rough board table stuffed
tarantulas and centipedes seem to be
coming down the wall to mingle with
the feast, while weird shapes and
forms dragged from Pacific depths or
brought by sailors from the far South
Seas, ontribute to ones appetite. Be
side his bed are things" enough to
make the ghost walk.
Born in the Far East-in Massa-
chusetts-the old man belongs to the
veriest type of Westerner In early
life he came to Iowa, and later pushed
on among the Indians and flying sand
of the Columbia River near Kenne-
wick, half a mile from the banks of
the great Columbia. Owen is seventy
years of age. but spry and active. The
free life of the sparsely settled sage
brush country seems to have endowed
him with lasting yigor, and a six mile
walk over the hot sand of eastern va
kima is nothing to him. His looks be-
lie his age, despite his long white
beard and wrinkled face. Owen might
easily pass for fifty.
For forty years the old bachelor has
been collecting He started when he
was boy and every curious stone or
shell he saw was carefully gathered
up and laid away. Twice in his life
he has amassed museums of great
scope and value, and twice he has Civ
en- them away to friends and rela-
tiyes. The extraordinary gathering
which now graces his sand surrounded
house is the third and last of his
great efforts.
Probably the most interesting and
instructive section of his museum is
that relating to the aborigines. lie
has Indian relics from the north half
Of Greenland to the South Seas. Skulls
of Indians from the Colville reserva-
tion, skulls of Flathead Indians Sc
cured from graves in Oregon after
great difficulty and danger ells' teeth
from the grave of a primeval chief
found far up the tortuous Snake in
Western Idaho. Indian pipes repre-
senting the tribes of America from
Mexico to the Eskimo. relics of the
Indians of the Hudson Bay in Can
ada, pipes of all descriptions from the
primitive peoples of Alaska, and all
kinds Of heads from a score Of tribes
are some of the articles in the Indian
department Perhaps the most valua-
bic part Of this division is the pipes
whose varieties are most interesting.
showing as they do, the development
Of the aborigines from the stone age
down to the present
One feature is lacking in the muse
um Of the desert. There are no
snakes.
"I have seen all kinds Of snakes"
soliloquized this grizzled bachelor, as
he smoked his old wood pipe: "I have
killed the critters by the dozen, but 1
never could bring myself TO put them
IN the collection" Terror had evi-
IDENTIFY no place in this omission as
the presence Of Gfa lizards from
Arizona, thousandlegged creatures
from the rainless deserts Of the South
west, centpedes and tarantulas, horn.
ed toads and other hideous beasts,
viii testify. The snake department
ard the stamp field are the only two
fields the old collector has not broken
into.-N Y. Mail and Express.