Hazel Denton
February 7, 1995As told to Denison Thomas
(Note: Hazel Denton is the daughter of pioneers Alonzo and Sylvia (Moore) Smith. Alonzo was associated with his brother, Tom, in logging and running threshing machines during the harvest season. The year following Alonzo's marriage to Sylvia on Demcember 3, 1916, he and Tom purchased the W.F.King sawmill on Mill Creek. It became known as "Smith Brothers Sawmill.")
The Smith Family
I was born on Mill Creek March 25, 1918.
We lived on Mill Creek a year or two and then moved to Grizzly. We had to walk to the Grizzly school which was quite a little ways from the mill. We were only able to go to school during the nice months and when the weather got bad we would just quit going to school. So I never actually finished a complete grade during the time we lived at Grizzly.
I was ten years old when we moved to Ochoco Creek in 1928 and I started going to Howard School. My teacher, Mrs. Ontko, could see that I was old for my years in school. She helped me and I completed two grades a year until I finished the eighth grade.
My father, Lon Smith, and his brother Tom grew up in the Grizzly and Madras areas. They were loggers, and they did custom threshing during the harvest season. In 1917 they bought a circle mill on Mill Creek. It became Smith Brother's Sawmill. Some of the lumber that was used in the construction of the Ochoco Dam came from the mill.
About 1920 the Smith Brothers Sawmill was moved from Mill Creek to the Grizzly area on property owned by Joe and Lizzie Smith, Alonzo's parents and my grandparents. The mill was operated on that site for two or three years before being destroyed by fire. It was reestablished at another location on the home place and operated until 1928.
The lumber from the sawmill was hauled into Prineville by team and wagon. It was taken to a railroad siding called "the switch" at the site of the future Pine Products mill. Some of the people who worked at the mill during those times were Herb Farghuson, Rube Teeter, Roy Joslin, Lee Jones and my uncles, Raymond, Lain and Lance Smith.
Smith Brothers Sawmill on Mill Creek, 1917 (first mill)
In 1928 the mill was dismantled and moved to the Ochoco Valley on Ochoco Creek on property belonging to Henry Koch. The mill was shut down permanently in 1935 during the Depression. A big order that had been delivered was never paid for. Some time before closing there was another fire that destroyed the planing mill.
Art Champain, Herm Meder, Hallie Clark, Billy King, Raymond, Lain, and Lance Smith all worked at the last mill site at one time or another. After closing all of the employees went to various other jobs. My uncle Tom went to work for Pine Products and worked there the rest of his life. Dad worked at Pine Products, too, cruising timber. He also did some work for the Forest Service. In 1940 he was accidentally killed while working in the woods.
Note: In an old ledger from Smith Brothers Sawmill and an old bill dated October 29, 1923 there was an order for:
50 2x6"s, 16' long $8.00
50 2x4"s, 12' long $4.00
Total of $12.00