HowWileyWagner’s wagerspaidoff

By KATHY HEDBERG FOR GOLDEN TIMES

Around 1900, a young man from Tennessee, Wiley T. Wagner, and his cousin Stacy, left their home and traveled west.

Wiley — known as “W.T.” Wagner — had recently graduated from high school but got into a fight with another man.

“His folks got him out of town, and he got as far as Portland,” said W.T.’s grandson, Jack Wagner, of Lewiston.

Once in Portland, W.T. got back in touch with his family, who tried to persuade him to come back to Tennessee. But he’d heard about some homesteading in Idaho and wanted to check it out.

According to the 1984 Highlands of Craig Mountain local history, W.T. and Stacy stayed in Moscow “and continued on to Spalding by train. They then walked to Fletcher (on the Camas Prairie a few miles east of present-day Craigmont) by the old grade.”

When they arrived, W.T. discovered there were no homesteads left to claim. There were, however, properties for sale. The cousins farmed for about a year and after Stacy returned to Tennessee to get married, W.T. bought two parcels from some Nez Perces.

Jack Wagner still retains the deeds to those original pieces of ground (shown below).

“One of them was signed by (President Calvin) Coolidge and was done March 26, 1925, and the other one was signed by (President William H.) Taft on Sept. 8, 1910,” Jack Wagner said.

W.T. Wagner eventually did return to Tennessee and married Margaret Rominger of South Carolina. The couple returned to Fletcher and lived in a small house. At the time, according to records, there were several stores in Fletcher, a hotel, a pool hall and a dance hall. People would come from all around to the dances and literaries, where they would engage in hot debates on various subjects. The community hosted box socials, and every now and then a fight would break out, just to keep things stirred up.

In 1913 the Wagners moved to Clarkston and eventually had seven children.

“Their home was always open to everyone,” the history reported. “This accounts for several Tennessee immigrants making their headquarters there while looking for a place to live.

See WAGNER, Page 10

RIGHT: This 1909 photo shows W.T. Wagner, far right, as he and fellow homesteaders Press Romeger and Fred Liedon drive a combine pulled by 27 horses across the plains near what is now Craigmont.

BELOW: Jack, right, and Andy Wagner display a painting based on the photo at their home in Lewiston. W.T. was Jack’s grandfather.

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Mrs. Wagner always enjoyed telling stories about their dog, named Jack. They had a treadmill which ran the washer. It was old Jack’s job to run the treadmill. When he would see (Mrs. Wagner) getting ready to wash, he would disappear.”

The Wagners raised wheat on their Camas Prairie farm.

“I have a picture of the first combine in 1909,” Jack Wagner said. “It has 27 head of horses pulling the combine.”

He remembers his grandfather as “kind of a gruff guy but he invested in a lot of things.”

That includes American Trust Bank, which later sold to First Security. W.T. also was an investor in Em- pire Airlines, later bought out by Hughes Air West.

He was an original investor in the Mark Means fertilizer company on the Camas Prairie and also one of the first people to put money into Tri-State Memorial Hospital in Clarkston.

Eventually the family moved to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, where Jack graduated from Lewiston High School. He helped care for his grandfather until he died in 1976. The farm has been taken over by Jack’s nephew and nephew’s son — the fifth generation farming the family ground.

That lineage back to the earliest days of farming in the area “is neat,” Jack Wagner said. “I brag about it quite a bit.”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.

>Continued from PAGE 6 danced around the fountain. The “Apple Pickers Barn Dance” performance was a hit with the crowd. The Davenport Quartet and eight Lewiston ladies performed “When Shall We Meet Again” for the finale. It was a great live entertainment in a time before radio and television.

Anyone who drank an alcoholic cocktail during the festivities was breaking the law, since Prohibition made alcoholic drinks illegal. Those wanting to catch a ride to East Lewiston or Clarkston from the hotel could take the streetcar.

You might recognize the names of a few Lewiston businessmen who served on various committees for the grand opening: Eugene Cox (lawyer with the firm of Cox, Ware, and Stellmon), R.S. Erb (of Erb’s Hardware), R.C. Beach (merchant), E.A. White (fruit packing), Lloyd Harris (Owl Drug and baseball), Mark Means (seed company), E.L. Alford (Tribune), H.L. Talkington (Normal School), and Dr. E.L. White (White Hospital).

The look has changed over the years, but the basic structure of the has stayed the same.

As to the world and the nation in 1922, here are some names and events of that year. Warren G.

Harding was our president. Men named Adolph