t Hews Cetter.
Twenty-five Cents a Year. JULY, 1908. Vol. IX. No. 4
RELICS OF OTHER DAYS
Curtis Pkarre Coe.
The view shown in the cut printed
this month is a familiar one to all
who know Wood Island. The large
er building is the office, dining hall,
and kitchen; and the other the Sup
erintendent’s cottage of tne North
American Commercial Company’s
reign.
From before the establishment of
the Orphange until seven years ago,
this was a scene of considerable
business activity.
For five years the office building
has been used for the public school,
but now that the new school house is
occupied, its usefulness is past, at
least for the present.
Uur readers will notice in the fore
ground some timbers laid in rectan
gular form half buried in the sand.
These are the foundations of the old
ice houses of the Russian American
Ice Company which formerly before
the days of artificial ice—supplied
the San Francisco market.
This view is taken from the west
ern side, the beach side,—and the
trees seen to the right of the office
building are across the lower lake
on the Orphanage property and stand
in front of the Winch Dormitory.
A week of fine weather has follow
ogr “rainy May”, and great has been
ihe gratitude of the people of this
vicinity for some sunshiny days.
WOOD ISLAND PAST
AND PRESENT
By Mr. N. W. Pavxoff.
As it may appear to the person
living on Wood Island, a great dif
ference is there between the past
and the present appearance of its
settlment.
We would take just only fifty years
back aud describe tile place as it was
then.
Hefore 1855 or 1856 the present lo
cation of the village was fi bare spot
ami the natives lived in several places
around this island where streams of
running water were found, and a
good sandy beach. They lived in
families of two or three barabaras.
A barabara is a native hut; the frame
is built of stout poles, oval roof with
a square hole in the middle, to let
the smoke out of the fire which is
built in the center of the hut for cook
ing and etc., the sides are built of
split wood, the roof is covered with
dead grass and there are no windows,
the light comes through the smoke
hole, no floor, for the carpet, the)
use dry long beach grass and there
are always two or three sleeping
compartments (orjapans) built out
side, seven or eight feet square and
about six feet high, made the same
as a barabara only it is covered with
sod ail over about a foot thick with
a small hole a foot square which is