HORSESHOE BEND
January 24, 1953 by George Wright
In early days before the wagon road was made along the Klamath River between Hornbrook and Fall Creek, the old road went out across the hills by Little Good Water to Hornbrook. Near the east fork of Brush Creek there was a steep hill, so the road made a short of half circle, or horseshoe shaped turn to get up the hill, hence the name, Horseshoe Bend, for that area.
I remember going over that road for the first time around fifty years ago with my father, with the team of horses and the big wagon, on our way to Hornbrook after our supplies. Traces of the old road can hardly be seen now. In earlier years Horseshoe Bend was mentioned quite often by stockmen, but seldom heard anymore. Some of the old names seem to have gone with the old times, and this one has almost faded away also.
THE LOWOOD SCHOOLHOUSE
January 24, 1953 by George Wright
There is not anything left of the Lowood Schoolhouse anymore at the mouth of Camp Creek, where the neighboring youngsters gathered to be taught this and that.
The first schoolhouse was a small one, made of rough boards. There were holes and cracks in the old building, but in those days people didn't seem to care about that. The teacher stuffed them full of waste paper when the cold weather came along.
One day, around 1907, the old schoolhouse burned. That made some of the youngsters happy, because we thought we wouldn't have to go to school anymore for quite a while. But we were soon made unhappy, for they soon stretched a large tent, made some desks from rough lumber, and we had to go to school again. They hired a new teacher to finish the term, Miss Louise Freitag, her first teaching experience, and in a tent! She was a lovely teacher, too. Probably not many teachers began their teaching career in a tent.
When the next school term began the following spring, they had a new schoolhouse, much larger than the old one, but still I didn't like to go to school. David C. Earhart of Hornbrook built the new schoolhouse.
Times and conditions changed during the years that followed, and the time came when the schoolhouse was no longer needed; and it was sold and moved away in about 1943. Thus ended the building where I was taught to write these words.
The old school yard fence that Jim Gardner built to keep us youngsters in is gone too. The old well is all caved in, but some of the trees where the youngsters tied their horses are still there, and they look about the same as they did forty-five years ago. The old hitch-rack went long ago.
