Uncle Earl and Myrtle Creek (OR)

Horse Creek Covered Bridge.

Work took me to Klamath Falls, OR, in mid-March, 2012, so I flew out early for a chance to visit the town of Myrtle Creek west of the mountains, where my great uncle Earl Wilcox ran a sawmill in the 1940s.  Regrettably, Uncle Earl suffered a horrendous accident at the mill in mid-December, 1947.  He forbade anyone at the mill from getting near the belt and pulley that ran the saw and made it his own job to keep things adjusted and maintained.  That fateful day, something went terribly wrong while he was replacing the belt.  Perhaps a shirt or an arm was caught.  In seconds his whole body was spun around like a soft pretzel.  His left arm, right leg, several ribs and his back were broken.  Internal injuries were extensive.  He was rushed to the hospital, held on for a week then died on Christmas Day.

The local Douglas County history museum is in Roseburg, 20 miles north of Myrtle Creek, so I stopped there on the way down from Eugene to see if I might learn something about Earl’s old sawmill or any of our clan.  The research library was closed but the lady was kind enough to let me rifle through the card catalogue and the bookshelves.  I could not find anything specific about the mill or about Earl, except that he was buried in the Myrtle Creek cemetery.  However, the museum exhibits were outstanding.  I got a look at some of the two-man power saws and other equipment that were beginning to revolutionize the timber and lumber industries in the 1940s.  The museum also has a fine collection of stuffed native wildlife.  The mountain lion and black bear were so real they almost gave me the creepies.  Innate respect might be the more correct term.

I continued on to Myrtle Creek, a picturesque city of 3,400 settled in 1851.  I drove around town trying to imagine life for Earl in this placid community 65 years ago.  It was apparent that logging and lumbering are still major pillars of the local economy.  I stumbled on the Horse Creek Covered Bridge, where a bronze plaque informed me that it had been rebuilt in the 1990s, originally constructed in 1930.  Uncle Earl surely would have crossed the bridge many times.  I stood in the middle of it to wonder about him.  He was in his late fifties when he died.  My grandfather, Hugh, was Earl’s bookkeeper.  The loss was too great to keep the mill going, so they shut it down and moved to California.  Knowing Earl was buried in the local cemetery, I located it up on a hill and strolled past the long rows of headstones.  After half an hour, I found Earl’s.  I noticed someone had left flowers nearby that had gotten blown around in the winter wind, so I borrowed a couple for my great uncle and sent him good wishes.

Mountain lion, Douglas County museum.

Uncle Earl's grave.