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SATURDAY March 27 , 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels February 9, 2004 A quarry past its prime Blair's granite business gets foreclosed on after bills pile By Tommie Smith For the Tidings This is the third installment of a three-part memoir recalling early days at the Blair granite quarry, the remains of which can be found up Neil Creek south of Ashland. Yearning for yesteryear As Stan recalls those early days of youth spent with his grandmother and Mr. Blair on Neil Creek, I somehow get the feeling that we both are wishing we could step back in time; back to the days when all the breads and pastries were prepared on the old wood cookstove and our biggest concern when a stranger approaches is that he's the game warden. It seems that one of Stan's fondest memories of those days on Neil Creek was when the morning dishes were washed, the tables set in the cookhouse and things made ready for supper. It was then that he and his grandmother could take their fishing poles (telescoping steel rods), catch some grass hoppers, put them in a Prince Albert tobacco tin and hike down to the creek where they would fish their way up to the old sawmill and just have a wonderful grandma-grandson day fishing and exploring. There were no buildings standing by then, only scattered bits of what used to be, but the log dam for the mill pond was still plainly visible. In ravines around the mill-site there still were "shoots" made of three logs in the shape of a V. The logs were rolled into these shoots and would slide into the mill pond. After sawing, the lumber was then floated down Neil Creek, by way of a flume, to be loaded onto the railroad cars at the Mistletoe siding, some going north and some going south. We saw remnants of this flume as late as the 1960's. Mr. Blair was of Scotch ancestry. Always standing tall straight and proud, he had a great sense of humor and with a twinkle in his eye, loved to tell Swedish and Irish jokes. We don't recall or perhaps never knew of him having a great deal of formal education but do know he read blue prints and designed various projects to be built of granite. He was very intelligent and knowledgeable of the world around him and the walls of his private room at the bunkhouse were lined with National Geographic magazines. Mr. Blair had rented the big house down on the creek to Gran's son and daughter-in-law, Ray and Maybelle Offenbacher and their two children, Lorraine and Charles. Ray worked with teams of horses, pulling fresnos and scrapers and using an abundance of dynamite, to build a new road around the side of the mountain to the quarry. Most of this road is still in use today by private landowners for access to their mountain homes. With the purchase of the home property on Neil Creek by Stan's grandmother in 1932, we never knew or even asked what brought it about. It is our assumption that with the decline in the use of granite in the building industry and problems associated with running such a business, Mr. Blair found it increasingly difficult to meet his financial obligations and possibly it was his way of reimbursing her for pay she had not received while at the cookhouse. Eventually his creditors foreclosed (we know not what year) but he stayed on as caretaker. We do know that his daily trips to the quarry continued, either by pickup or a walk up the trail, probably a very lonely walk for this dear old man who had put in all of his money, time and expertise on an endeavor that maybe had passed its time. Clues to the past Recently, while pouring through volumes of records at the Jackson County Courthouse, I discovered an agreement and option to purchase the Blair Granite Quarries between Mr. Blair and a Mr. P.R. Hardy. We don't have any knowledge of why this didn't come about but Stan does remember something about a mess-up of some kind with the sale of stock. At the close of WW II, Stan was discharged from the Naval Air Corps only to find a scarcity of available jobs. After trying several with no future advancement in sight, Mr. Blair, who by then had married his grandmother, suggested we move into their little cabin located just across the creek from them and he would train Stan in the granite cutting business. Certainly willing to try anything, we moved up Neil Creek with our little daughter, Dana, and were extremely happy to be given this opportunity. Stan learned a lot about the granite business from Mr. Blair and found it very interesting but we soon decided a college education would better fulfill our needs. I have many times since, jokingly added that his love of football and the opportunity to again participate may have been the driving factor, a factor that certainly gave our future much more security. It was at that time that I became well acquainted with "Great Gran" and "Wally" and I have never regretted those few months spent near them. Even though we were without the pleasure of electricity, we learned how useful a desert cooler can be, and also learned why early-to-bed hours were kept; dark did come very early in that canyon up Neil Creek. My days were usually spent up at the house with Great Gran and from her l learned how to master the art of cooking on the old wood range. This became very helpful to me later at our little "home" in Vet's Village on the Southern Oregon College campus. l also learned from her the benefits of canning fruits, vegetables, venison; any food products you could gather cheaply. My first stitches on a sewing machine came from Great Gran's old treadle sewing machine and that very same machine has been passed down to our daughter, Dana. While working at the quarry with Mr. Blair, Stan soon discovered why this old gentleman, so admired and respected by him, walked the slopes of that mountain with his toes pointed straight out. A normal walk on that steep, almost straight up and down trail, otherwise could have ended up like a run-a-way truck without the aid of the big chunk of granite that was used to hold it back. l might add here that, even though "Wally" became my nickname for him, Stan to this day refers to him as Mr. Blair. In the late '40s, when Great Gran and Wally came to visit us in Vet's Village, we found it so amusing. They would pull up to our house on a very flat surface. Mr. Blair would get out of his 1937 International Harvester "Corn-Binder" pickup, reach in the bed of the pickup, retrieve the two granite stones he always carried with him, then carefully place one under the front tire and one under the rear tire. This precautionary method stayed with him throughout his driving days. In 1955, Mr. Blair retired. They eventually moved back to Great Gran's home in Jacksonville then out to the Venable ranch on the Applegate. By that time our three children, Dana, Sandy and Dane, enjoyed our frequent visits to the ranch; Dana to ride the horses, Sandy to putter in the kitchen with Great Gran, and Dane to climb into the old 1937 pickup, making noises like he was really going somewhere, but going nowhere. By nightfall we would hustle the children up the stairs to put them in the same bed their father had slept in so many years before, then stoke and re-stoke the old fireplace while talking into the wee hours of the next day. Lost forever The story has come to a close except l just recalled the day back in the '50s that we spent a whoppin' big $40 on a used TV set, which we surprised them with, and how cute it was to come in on later visits, unexpectedly, to find them sitting about one foot in front of the T.V. watching a "soap". A sad side of this story comes with remembrances (after their death) of the day we had to burn the old home down on Neil Creek for safety purposes - vandals were breaking in and there was the possibility of an uncontrolled fire starting. It truly hurt as we stood by and watched the old homestead go up in smoke. As I finish this narrative of Mr. Blair's Granite Quarry and the fun days spent on Neil Creek and at the Venable ranch, I become more saddened, realizing that with that fire also went Mr. Blair's old typewriter, his corporate seal, and many of his papers, blueprints, his cherished National Geographics, and etc. that had been tossed about on the upstairs floor. How I wish I had realized that we were destroying pieces of history that should have been saved and eventually been presented to our Southern Oregon Historical Society for safe keeping. A bright note to this part of my story is the fact that we do have in our possession, a small polished stone from the quarry, while it was still active, a pair of colored glasses worn by Mr. Blair, and also the leather bound case complete with his mechanical drawing tools; his name, W.M. Blair, inscribed on top. In Great Gran and Wally's declining years, when they no longer could care for themselves, Stan's mother and stepfather, "Grandpa Jack" Johnston, who had just retired after serving thirty years in the military, moved to the ranch and cared for them. Mr. Blair died in April of 1960 and Great Gran in June of 1962, the day of Dana's graduation from Ashland High School. Thanks to the Southern Oregon Historical Society for research assistance. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: The new search is here! Click here for more information. .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - ODOT Road Cams