I and my family lived in my uncle’s logging camp near Drew until I started my first grade at Tiller. For that year, we lived in a log house where Tison Road turns off the highway. No electricity either place, but we no longer got our water in buckets from Elk Creek.
At least a couple times a month, we drove down the mountain to Medford for supplies at the Big Y or for equipment parts. We also went to Ashland to help my widowed, crippled grandmother. (Later, when I was seven, we left the mountains for good — to be with her.)
Every time we drove down the mountain, I always kept watch for my favorite sights. First came the guard station. It was neat as a pin; nothing like the mess of a working logging camp. Next we stopped for our mail from the tiny Trail Post Office. Then I kept my eye out for the huge boulder that is still in the middle of the river, upstream from Shady Cove. Finally, before Camp White, it was the old, old, old house. It was so mysterious. Who had once lived in it? Did they have water? Did they have kids? Where did they go? Why?
It has stood in the circle of my family’s life. My mother was born at nearby Table Rock. My father was a drill sergeant from Texas at Camp White. They now lie in the national cemetery nearby. I took a girl to see it. She was from California. We moved away, but we still stop off to see the house more than 50 years later. To my mind, it is still a mystery.

~ C. D.