The old mural was painted July, 1996, by Ron McGaughey.
‘And this mankind over matter worked to overcome
the obstacles nature threw down in their pathway.’
Watch the video below to see the transformation!
The aerial tram was operated from late 1902 until 1910.
Thirty-two buckets held five sacks of grain each for the trip down.
Coal, lumber, and merchandise were hauled up.
Apparently, this was not satisfactory because an engine and drum were installed at the top of the terminus.
W.E. Stevens was the operator.
Before the tramway, Homesteaders near Waterville found it nearly impossible to get their crops to market, mainly the large amount of dryland wheat produced.
Imagine growing a 23-pound cabbage?
How about thick, tall wheat with heavy heads bowing in the inter-mountain winds?
Douglas County Pioneers were doing this in the early days of staking land claims.
The volcanic soil, rich with the microbes of untamed land, produced so much wheat that getting that wheat to market proved an unforgiving task.
The Domrese family wrote in their journal how they drove heavy wagon loads of wheat 40 miles to the Coulee City rail head.
A four-day trip to Coulee City and a two, or three-day trip back. Getting the rich crops of grain off the Waterville Plateau was a difficult and time-consuming task.
For a brief time a flume was tried to take the wheat down to Columbia River docks on the west side of the Plateau. It seemed like a solid, workable plan, but the tube overheated and caught fire.
Thus, the birth of Waterville’s “Aerial Tramway” came out of the huge demand to get the Homesteader’s wheat to market via the Columbia River in 1902.
Death to the short-lived ingenious tramway system of transportation came in 1910 with the arrival of the railroad.
Lots of work getting the high-quality wheat of Douglas County to the world at the turn of the 20th Century.
