The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1917-09-21
A TRIP WORTH TAKING.

'iie tllne-and time should he M chico,
~ 'he owner of a car, or why such
iuAury!--and yet have not made a
urlVe to Greenwood have missed a do.
iieh'iul experience, if, as an ante
owner, you have any taste for natural
scenery. The drive from Molson IN the
one tine famous mining and smeltino q
town presents a continuous panorama
Vi scenic beauty that can hardly be
surpassed in this northland, where ma.
ture mas been liberal with its artistic
outlines. Then. to add TO the view is
the personal comfort while absorbing
'he surrounding features, for drivine
over the well kept British Columbia
ROADS Is like spinning along n paved
boulevard. There is not much satisfac
lioh 10 be derived from scenery. no
matter what may be its novelty or
l'cturesqueness if all your muscles be
Kept on tense strain in order to save
your mead from going through the ton
OF the car, which is too often the case
on TINS side of the line where road con-
struction and repairs are an unlearned
art. But on the other side of the boun.
uary' where one can loll back on the
cushlons In luxuriant abandon and
concentrate attention upon what is
Hitting past as the old car hits a gait
prohibited within the ken of an officer
oil the law. sightseeing is a continuous
round of joy.
But that trip to Greenwood, and
Greenwood itself. On the way there
the road winds up and down and over
the hills, through primeval forests, and
then slides down into the valley of the
Kettle River. The car glides under
spreading branches, in cool shade
where the rays of the sun filters
through only in patches. Sometimes
the vision ends in wall of boles and
dense underground, sombre in it's
dense shadow even at midday. Again,
1t skirts the hillside. with a declivity
on the one hand apparently fathomless
where a break or a misguiding hand
would instantly throw the travellers to
destruction. Shooting down into can
yons, where the silence is only broken
by the rancorous notes of some un-
molodious bird, or the moaning of the
wind through the high, overhead
branches, the car slips across some
small and gurgling mountain brook,
the clear waters of which are suggest
i've of trout and an anglers paradise
Travelling that lonely, silent stretch
of road, creates an impression that
one is travelling in a new and unex-
plored country, far from the haunts of
man.
Soon after sighting Kettle river the
road passes through Rock Creek, now
a small, struggling village. yet at one
time it possessed large and exceed
ingly active population, and was the
objective point of about every chaser
after elusive wealth in the northwest
In those days placer miners tore up
the earth and worked with feverish
energy for the hidden particles of gold
at the mouth of Rock Creek. The evil
dence of the exertions of the obsessed
gold seekers is still present in vast
mounds of wash gravel, decayed and
decrepit fumes and extensive excava-
tions. Much gold is said to have been
extracted from the gravel in this To-
cality, but for a number of years the
field has been abandoned, the village
almost deserted and the flush days of
of the placer excitement are now only
a tradition.
From Rock Creek to Midway the
road skirts the river through wide
valley hedged in with ranges of
mountains. Frequent and charming
vistas of water along the route are
constantly opened up. The road for
miles is almost as level as floor, and
the car slips through the miles with
the speed of an express train. From
Midway there is another considerable
climb to Greenwood. Greenwood has
been and is a regular mountain mining
camp, but more substantially built in
the original making than the ordinary
run of mining camps. 1t is very pret-
tily situated. A few years ago Green
wood was thriving, bustling, pros
porous, pushing little city, the center
O fone of the greatest fields of mining
activity along the international boun-
dary. 1t was a veritable hive of in
dustry. where many mine workers
found ready and steady employment,
every line of business flourished, for
tunes were taken from the earth and
times so flush that everybody had
money. Two smelters were construct
ed and operated at Greenwood, and
acres of Stag that surrounds the piles
of masonery is silent evidence that
mountains of mineralized rock have
passed through the fiery furnaces
leaving the blackened residue to litter
the earth while the values therefrom
have brought happiness or unhappi-
ness to many men, as the case may
be. We would have enjoyed seeing the
place in its palmy day, for here must
have been life in its most strenuous
features. There was much that was
good, much that was bad to be seen
and heard and experienced in the
place when the full blush of prosperity
was on the town They may have been
hanging something on us, but we were
told that when prosperity was at its
flood there were stores where the pro-
prietor considered it a dead day wher
a thousand dollars did not slide across
the counter in exchange for goods
Hotels were taxed beyond their capac
itv to accommodate the transien
travel. and of hotels there were many
That the bucket brigade was number
ed by the hundreds. the extraction ant
treatment of ore going on without
halt throughout the "a hours. Tha
money was cast about with reckles!
abandon. That only seal skins and thu