In the summer of 1886 a strip of land fifteen miles in width, bounded on the north by British Columbia was neatly sliced from the Columbia Indian Reservation. This bit of rocky land, long fought over for its purported mineral wealth, was taken from Chief Moses and returned to public domain. With Fifteen Mile Strip a reality, droves of footloose miners came by all manner of means, into the rugged hills. During the Eighties and Nineties, family travel into the new land was aparse, due chiefly to the hazardous road conditions. Revelries, settlements, little shanty and cabin towns were formed.

Among the new arrivals were five men of the same family. They were Prussian by racial extraction and had the gloom of Napoleonic wars in their heritage. Their grandfather was a drum major in the battle of Waterloo. The oldest member coming here was Frederick, who was dubbed "Major" Wehe, a distinction he earned in the Civil War. A snow-white beard covered his chest, he was gentle and well liked in the pioneer community. He came in 1891, bringing a son, Eugene, but in irregular patterns showed up with others, who were George, Albert and August. The most imperative act for all came, was to make a shelter, and the pine covered hills nearby were, in time sort of like an ant hill. Some few had tents, while others threw up brief log cabins, even restoring to scratching out holes in the mountain side.

The Wehe’s built a great mining mill in this location and called it, Wehe Consolidated Mining and Milling Company. It was to be a town named Wehesville, their was a boarding house, which represented activity and men coming and going. The land was not altogether given up to mining. It also grew as a farming community, and here and there on the benches and draws where springs existed there were scattered ranches upon which good crops were grown. This was all dry hill ranching, chiefly oats and wheat. A poor crop occurred round about 1917 and with alarming persistence, the same failure happened next year, and the next.

The end had come and though one or two stayed, the end was near. Unheralded the mining excitement succumbed first and miners moved on. But it all must have failed, for the buildings were left, the lights of Wehesville never shone again and it was a deserted town to which arriving ranchers used the lumber for their own use. Only one building is left today, and that is the company office. A hundred years later, hikers enjoying the nice trails and vistas, find little traces of early habitations. Even where the great mining mill once roared, their is no traces, only old memories.