Historic Hood River
Posts of Post Canyon
Notes
Tomorrow evening I’ll be giving a short talk entitled “The Posts of Post Canyon” as part of the fourth annual “Rooted” storytelling event. My brief story will give you a little insight into what was going on up in Post Canyon over a hundred years ago. Logging, fires, and the passage of time have left virtually no physical trace of the people who called Post Canyon “home” in that era. Fortunately we have plenty of photographs, newspaper accounts and property records to fill in some details.
Advance tickets are recommended as this event usually sells out. Also, a reminder some of the storytellers will be addressing adult themes, so this is not recommended for children. Details and tickets can be found at the Columbia Center For the Arts website.
That’s Jack Binns in the middle holding the monkey wrench. He’s one of the denizens of Post Canyon I’ll be talking about. His name lives on with “Binns Hill” a popular location within the county forest.
Nellie
John Embly Binns was an Englishman by birth, born 3 February 1850. After his arrival in America he married Cora Mary Rouget and they eventually arrived in Hood River, which was in Wasco County, at the time. They had three children, Grace, Robert and Roy. Beings he died in 1908 very little shows up about him personally.
L.E.
His obituary says he died at age 58 after a long illness of rheumatism. We don't hear that expression any more.
Kyle
That's a great photo.
nels
From the looks of their pants, they were just waiting for Levi Strauss to come along and solve a lot of clothing problems with tough fabrics and metal buttons and double sewn seams and pockets.
nels
L.E., are you thinking he died of some currently unknown joint problem such as MS or rheumatic fever, or many other consuming illnesses? I didn't think rheumatism killed as such, just severely limited movement.
kmb
This makes me wonder when belts on men's trousers were first invented. Or at least when they started putting belt loops on men's pants.