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November 22, 2102
TIMES FACT BOOK
23
University of Oregon Library, scouring
newspapers on microfilm in order to piece
together the area’s history.
She filled several large notebooks with
the information she’s culled over the years
as well.
In fact, Reynolds’ “eureka” moment
came when she came across the Feb. 13,
1914, edition of the Sherwood News Sheet
at the University of Oregon’s Knight Li-
brary. In it was a story of early Sherwood
resident M.M. Fitch, a not-so-surprising
find in itself except for the fact that it con-
tained a photo of the man (many of the
early area papers had no photos).
“I knew M.M. Fitch had built the Mor-
back House, and that’s pretty significant,”
said Reynolds. “He was a very interesting
person in my book.”
Other interesting facts Reynolds un-
earthed for her book include:
■
The contributions of the Stein family,
early settlers whose homestead is near
Kruger and Elwert roads.
“They were big hop growers before pro-
hibition,” said Reynolds, who noted that
patriarch Samuel Stein farmed the area
for years before his death in 1908 and
eventually became a salon keeper. Samuel
Stein’s son Alfred would later become a
successful farmer as well but eventually
turned from raising hops to raising Bel-
gian horses.
■
The life of Solomon Weckert, the so-
called “Onion King” who once owned a
spacious home in the area where Home
Depot is today. (Sherwood farmers in the
1920s raised more onions than any other
single location in the Northwest.) The
Weckert family also owned a feed story in
Sherwood and the building next store to
Clancy’s in Old Town. That building once
contained a noted confection shop.
“The whole Weckert story is incredi-
ble,” said Reynolds. In fact, Reynolds’ re-
search of the family was instrumental in
the family hosting a reunion in town sev-
eral years back.
■
That local historian and former mayor
Clyde List’s grandparents, who emigrated
from Germany, were part of a land-deal
swindle. Reynolds said the couple had put
a $250 down payment on some land that
the swindler had also sold to other people.
Unfortunately, they missed the day they
were expected to appear in court to testify
against the man because “they didn’t the
summons, newspaper or notices.”
Meanwhile, Reynolds had a tougher
time getting information about early
Sherwood’s less-than-honorable activities
including making moonshine and the
presence of the Ku Klux Klan, saying she
asked some of the hard questions but
didn’t get very many answers. Neverthe-
less, she discovered information about a
civic group known as the KKK, who met
in the Weckert Building in Old Town in
the 1920s. In the 1930s, a closet containing
the outfits and robes of that group was
mysteriously torched. A newspaper arti-
cle from the time reported on the incident,
simply stating that, “the material t hat
was i not be resupplied due to lack of
funds.”
Reynolds currently has no plans to slow
down. Her next volume on Sherwood his-
tory will cover Sherwood in the 1920s and
1930s. From there, she hopes to come out
with books covering Sherwood spanning
two decades until she reaches the 1980s.
■
From page 21
Book:
She filled several large notebooks
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