Battle Ground . . . In and Around

A pictorial drama of early Northwest pioneer life

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Credits Given

A list of those who loaned their precious photos is included in the book. In addition, if the reader looks closely along the edges of the image, will be seen in fine print the name of the lender.

Chaos Into Order

As the requests for photos brought in a wide variety of scenes and activities, photos of all shapes, sizes and condition were sorted into subjects. Eventually these topics were narrowed down to "piles on the dining room table" that became the book's 7 parts broken down into 24 chapters.

Table of Contents and Chapters

Part I - The County's Settlement

     Chapters 1 - 5

     A general historical sketch of medical beginnings, economic trials, the fabric of development by people and pioneer homes

Part II - Transportation

     Chapters 6 - 9

     Foot trails to horse and buggy, rivers as highways, building the railroad to Yacolt, autos arriving

Part III - Community Growth

     Chapters 10-14

     Small school districts, area churches, Town of Battle Ground, dairy farmers' cooperatives, Meadow Glade

Part IV - Income Sources

     Chapters 15-17

     Farming, logging, sawmills, other businesses

Part V - Battling the Elements

     Chapters 18 - 19

     Forest fires, Nature's way

Part VI - Just for Fun

     Chapters 20 - 23

     Battle Ground Lake at its peak, sports, outdoors, the finer things in life

Part VII - Pioneer Spirit

     Chapter 24

     Patriotism, a way of life

Fully Indexed

After the work was organized into pages, the work of indexing began. GFWC clubmember Bonnie J. Walden painstakingly noted each place named and person mentioned and alphbetized the list into an index.

Share old photos

If you have old snapshots or other photos of historical significance, please consider lending them to your favorite historical museum. Most museums have the ability to digitize them and return the originals to their owners. Often, after touchups, the copies are better quality than the originals.

The Clark County Historical Museum and WSU-Vancouver are collaborating to build a vast assortment of photos which are searchable by the public.

Other Resources

     • Early community school mini-maps

     • Mini index of schools and communities

What this book is NOT!

This book was written to purposely not be a book of family histories. It is meant to share the ways of life of  typical Northwest pioneer families. It is hoped that all will enjoy the content whether or not their roots are in Clark County.