MORA BLOG ITEM THREE

Life at the Paradise Mining & Milling Co. Millsite
by Doug Evans

You can’t tell it today, but directly across the Paradise Road from the Cougar Rock Campground three cabins existed for most of the first half of the twentieth century on the mill site of the Paradise Mining & Milling Company. This is where I grew up.

Until 1908 mineral claims were allowed in Mount Rainier National Park. The PM&MCo. was established about 1906 by my granddad, Ike Evans, and his brother Sherman. The cabins were built to accommodate workers employed at the mine. They were primitive but comfortable; each had a kitchen, living room, and one or two bedrooms. They had minimal electrical service, enough for a few lights, but no indoor plumbing. Two outdoor pit privies served the three cabins. A one inch iron pipeline brought water to the site from the spring that now serves the Cougar Rock Campground. The water merely poured out the end of the pipe into a pool and was carried into the cabins in galvanized buckets.

My dad, Henry “Heinie” Evans, continued working part time for the mine even though he was employed as a heavy equipment operator for the National Park Service. The cabin we occupied was two stories with three tiny bedroom spaces upstairs. A large woodshed held the winter’s supply of firewood, which was amply supplied by dead and downed trees from the mill site property. Our cabin had a small kitchen cooking stove and a circulating heater in the living room. I learned at a very young age to wield a six-foot crosscut saw and help bring in the winter’s wood.

Our nearest neighbors were the people who operated the hydroelectric plant on the Paradise River for the Rainier National Park Company and the Park Headquarters community at Longmire. I ran the mile and a half trail to Longmire to play with the kids there until I had every inch of that trail memorized. Adding to the excitement of this run was the NPS garbage incinerator along the way that attracted large numbers of bears rummaging through the piles of garbage awaiting incineration. I had learned to make noise so as not to surprise them; other than that we simply ignored each other. The bears were much too interested in their garbage to pay any attention to me.

PHOTO: Our cabin on the millsite of the Paradise Mining & Milling Co., ca 1934-35.

MORA BLOG ITEM TWO:
How we got here.
by Doug Evans

Among the greatest joys of my life was the privilege of growing up in a National Park Service family in Mount Rainier National Park. As I reflect back on those years now I can see so clearly how my character, personality, and attitudes were molded by the experiences and the many wonderful people with whom I was associated during those times. I have always heard the National Park Service referred to as a family: the National Park Service Family. This seemed perfectly natural to me. I never could have thought of it otherwise. My dad and granddad were living and working in Mount Rainier National Park before there was a National Park Service. So, when the Service was born in 1916 it simply became a new aspect of the family. I grew up regarding members of the Longmire community as extended family. Even now, decades later, I still feel the same: once Park Service Family, always Park Service Family.

My granddad, Ike Evans, and his brother Sherman, were among the founders of the Paradise Mining and Milling Company in about 1906. They staked a copper claim on the lower slopes of Eagle Peak, with a level millsite across the Nisqually River, directly across the Paradise Road from today’s Cougar Rock Campground. The Evans family lived in the Roy-Spanaway area during those early years. But, they built three residential cabins on the millsite where they lived part time while working the mine. When school let out in spring, my dad, Henry, would accompany his dad to the mine millsite for the summer. As I was growing up there, many years later, he told me stories of running down the trail to “the Springs”, as Longmire was called then, to play with the Longmire boys. The Longmires had horses and burros that the boys rode around the meadows.

Decades later it was my great fortune and pleasure to live at the millsite, too, and run the same trail down to Longmire to play with the kids of my generation. More about that later.

PHOTO: Henry Evans (left) with his two younger sisters and an unidentified man on the Paradise Road below the snout of the Nisqually Glacier, about 1914-15.

MORA BLOG ITEM NO. 1 Self introduction

Dear friends of Mike Gauthier’s Mount Rainier Climbers Blog,

Following some brief correspondence with Mike about my “good ol’ days” at Mount Rainier, he invited me to share some of my ol’ timer tales with you. Every generation has its own “good ol’ days”, and I am so glad to have the ones that I do. I was privileged and honored to live through very historic and exciting times, not only at Mount Rainier, but throughout the world. It will be a pleasure to share some of these memories with you.

My name is Doug Evans. I’m retired from the National Park Service. My official career ended when I retired as Regional Chief of Interpretation, Southwest Regional Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1980. My official career began with many years of seasonal and part time work with NPS at Mount Rainier beginning April 15, 1944 as a Junior Laborer at $0.675 per hour.

I feel, however, that my career actually began, unofficially, much earlier, as a child growing up in Mount Rainier National Park, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, first on the mill site of the Paradise Mining and Milling Company, located directly across the Paradise Road from the present day Cougar Rock Campground, and later, at Longmire during World War II. I am one ol’ grandpa who can tell my own grandkids honestly that I grew up in a cabin with no indoor plumbing and that I did actually walk two miles (occasionally) through a foot of snow to catch the school bus at Longmire.

I am third generation NPS at Mount Rainier. My granddad, Ike Evans, worked in temporary positions for many years. Both of my parents, Henry “Heinie” Evans and Florence Evans, retired from NPS.

Following a hitch in the US Navy, and four years at the University of Washington, and three years with Washington State Parks, I finally received my first permanent appointment with NPS as the Paradise area ranger in 1956, thus launching my permanent career. Through the subsequent years, that career resulted in rewarding assignments at Mammoth Cave, Grand Canyon, Big Bend, Lake Mead, and ultimately at SWRO in Santa Fe.

But, my Mount Rainier years will be the focus of this column. I will try to impart some of the feelings, attitudes, and conditions that we old timers experienced many years ago. I invite your questions, comments, suggestions, or criticisms. It is my wish that some other Mount Rainier old timers will be inspired to contribute also. I hope to have my first old timer’s tale off to you very soon.

Doug Evans, now of sunny, warm, and dry Tucson, Arizona




PHOTO: My parents, Florence and Heinie Evans on top of Paradise Lodge, April 1932

Here we go!

Doug can create his own post and play with the tools in the "Layout" section to manipulate this site. Have fun and explore.

Mike