{"id":6909,"date":"2018-04-15T04:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=6909"},"modified":"2018-04-12T11:49:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:49:19","slug":"day-trip-to-a-historic-little-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/travel\/day-trip-to-a-historic-little-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Day Trip to a Historic Little Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong>I enjoy sun-and-surf vacations. (See Images from the Bahamas<\/a>.) And I like travel that includes hiking and scenery. (See The Wet and the Dry of It.<\/a>) But I also like back-roads travel and little bits of ordinary history.<\/p>\n

During Holy Week, my daughter and I took one of those day trips. We drove from her house to the little town of Dayton, WA, population: 2427. Our first stop was the Old Manila Caf\u00e9. Since the Filipino population in Dayton is small, most of the menu items were typically American. They did have pancit bijon<\/em>, though, and I ordered it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dayton is a quiet little town surrounded by farmland. Driving through it, we concluded that its most imposing structure was the Columbia County Courthouse. The courthouse, which serves a county of less than 4000 people, was built in 1886 when the town was just getting started.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Justice was important in those days. If you watched any of those old cowboy stories on TV, you would have noticed the central place of “the law” in every episode. There were farmers and the farmer’s daughter, gunslingers, and cattle rustlers, but the hero of every story was the \u201claw man.\u201d My dad was a big fan of tales of the Old West, both on TV and in print, especially the books of Louis L\u2019Amour.<\/p>\n

In 1886 Dayton County built their courthouse strong and under budget. The voters approved a $40,000 bond, but this lovely Italianate-style courthouse was completed for only $38,069.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you know your tales of the Old West, you\u2019ll remember that the other significant establishment in town was the saloon. And sure enough, a couple of years after the courthouse was finished, a young German immigrant, Jacob Weinhard, the nephew of Henry Weinhard, built a beautiful big saloon and lodge house on Main Street. It\u2019s still there, but now it\u2019s called the Weinhard Hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The hotel maintains the Victorian look in the lobby and in the rooms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Even the pictures on the walls conjure up an earlier time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lewis and Clark Expedition and Sacajawea passed through Dayton in 1806. This life-size bronze of the Native-American guide was sculpted by Carol Grende. She named it \u201cArduous Journey.\u201d Notice the baby carrier on Sacajawea’s back.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Was education less important in the Old West than justice and beer? Looking at the Smith Hollow Schoolhouse, you might think so. Built in 1900, it provided for children in grades 1-8. It served a small area, though, so that explains its less than imposing size.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One more bit of small town history that I found fascinating: The Dodge Quarantine Cabin.<\/p>\n

While Jacob Weinhard was building the Weinhard Saloon and Lodge House, Wesley Dodge, another Dayton resident, was abroad fighting in the Spanish-American War. America fought the Spanish in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, all tropical countries. Many of the soldiers who weren\u2019t killed in action, suffered from heat exhaustion and tropical diseases like yellow fever.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When Wesley Dodge returned to Dayton, he was required to remain in quarantine for a time in a cabin built by his parents. The cabin wasn’t open to visitors the day we were there, but I took this picture through the window.<\/p>\n

Have you taken a day trip to a small, out-of-the-way spot lately?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I enjoy sun-and-surf vacations. (See Images from the Bahamas.) And I like travel that includes hiking and scenery. (See The Wet and the Dry of It.) But I also like back-roads travel and little bits of ordinary history. During Holy Week, my daughter and I took one of those day trips. We drove from her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318,253,1659,1050],"tags":[1715,1722,1717,1713,1714,1721,956,1716,1719,1720,1718],"class_list":["post-6909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-travel","category-vacations","category-washington-state","tag-back-roads-travel","tag-car-trips-in-eastern-washington","tag-columbia-county-courthouse","tag-day-trips","tag-dayton-wa","tag-dodge-quarantine-cabin","tag-hiking","tag-historic-house","tag-sacajawea-statue-arduous-journey","tag-smith-hollow-schoolhouse","tag-weinhard-hotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1Nr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6881,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/travel\/the-wet-and-the-dry-of-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":6909,"position":0},"title":"The Wet and the Dry of It","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"April 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I grew up on the west side of Washington State, so I think of our state as being green and wet, ringed with mountains, snug up against the Pacific Ocean. But once you cross the mountains, things are different. The mountains on the east side aren\u2019t as steep, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "photography"","block_context":{"text":"photography","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_0540-e1522699983997.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1124,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/family\/a-winters-tale-of-rebirth\/","url_meta":{"origin":6909,"position":1},"title":"A Winter’s Tale of Rebirth","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Spring is the conventional time for stories of rebirth--the time of bunnies and baby chicks, tulips and daffodils and cherry blossoms. This story of a town reborn, however, came to me in the winter. A Sleigh Ride. 'Twas the week after Christmas, and my family was in Leavenworth in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "family"","block_context":{"text":"family","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"photo courtesy of Sue Cromarty","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Leavenworth1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Leavenworth1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Leavenworth1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10631,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/vanuatu\/vanuatu-vanuatu\/the-other-story\/","url_meta":{"origin":6909,"position":2},"title":"The Other Story","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"April 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pool at Piula Photo by Rahul Pandit on Pexels.com In a previous post, \u201cFinding Support in a Lonely Endeavor,\u201d I wrote about submitting two stories to a journal at the local college. I\u2019d recently moved to a new town, and I thought that would be a good way to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "expatriate life"","block_context":{"text":"expatriate life","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/expatriate-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"closeup photography of ocean","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/pexels-photo-2260649.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3703,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/travel\/a-fresh-look-at-george\/","url_meta":{"origin":6909,"position":3},"title":"A FRESH LOOK AT GEORGE","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"June 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Father of Our Country I was introduced to George Washington when I was a child. 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Driving to my daughter's house takes my sister and me away from the greener, more populated west side of Washington State, across the Cascade Mountains, and into a totally different landscape. We cross the pass, and suddenly the dense underbrush is gone, the Douglas firs,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "family"","block_context":{"text":"family","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"rhododendron, cedar and maple","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_0215-e1401320694460.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7432,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/travel\/books-and-other-kinds-of-travel\/","url_meta":{"origin":6909,"position":5},"title":"Books and Other Kinds of Travel","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"December 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 That\u2019s the thing about books. 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Actual Travel Thinking about the quote and looking back at some of the trips I\u2019ve taken this year, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_0320-e1514858664748.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6909"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6939,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6909\/revisions\/6939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}