PROFILES IN AGRICULTURE

DAYTON–Four generations of the Eslick family have been farming in Columbia County–this year Eslick Farms, Inc. is marking its fiftieth year in business–and each of the preceding generations have witnessed major shifts of one form or another, be it farming practices or other aspects of life in southeastern Washington.

According to family lore, Eslick forbears (the earliest being England-born Samuel Eslick nine generations back) rushed with other Oklahoma Sooners in the Oklahoma Land Rush in the hunt for opportunities to farm. William Frederick "Jim" Eslick, great grandfather of current farm operator Jason Eslick, and grandfather of Jim Eslick, who is semi-retired from the day-to-day production operations, eventually landed in Milton-Freewater, Ore. In the late 1880s, the Eslick family made the migration across the Great Plains to the Umatilla County, Ore., area.

Jim, a 1973 graduate of Dayton High School, and wife Chris are involved in managing the family business and are implementing a succession plan with son Jason and his wife Gretchen (Huwe) Eslick. Forth-generation Cash Eslick recently walked in June as a Bulldog grad.

William "Jim" Eslick arrived in the area in the early decades of the 1900s, proficient in farming practices that used teams of horses and mules. He was known around Columbia County by the nickname "Jim," says grandson Jim, as the story goes, a name given to him by his hired men because his lead mule's name was "Jim."

"I guess I was named after my granddad's lead mule," smiles Jim Eslick.

After first settling in the Milton-Freewater area, William "Jim" Eslick eventually gravitated to Columbia County, residing in Smith Hollow and leasing the Romaine Place. He had a son, Robert Freeman "Bob" Eslick with wife Cora (Freeman) Eslick, who tragically passed away at age 23 in 1918. He married Gladys Ackerman in 1920 and in 1921, twins Paul Frederick and Roy William were born on the Fourth of July.

Farming with horses and mules was the name of the game in the Roaring Twenties, and Jim relates stories his dad Roy would tell about riding horseback to school, attending first and second grades in the Smith Hollow Schoolhouse, now carefully preserved by the Blue Mountain Heritage Society, located on Front Street in Dayton.

The family moved to the Moore Place in 1929 where eight-year-old twins Roy (Jim's father) and Paul were up early to feed and harness the horses and mules before being called in to have breakfast. Jim remembers his dad mentioning the stock numbered about 30 head at one time.

The Moore Place is the present location of Eslick Farms, Inc. , along State Route 12 and Pie Plant Road, southerly up Payne Hollow and Bowman Hill.

The property in and of itself has historical significance. The ground was among that homesteaded by Jesse N. Day, founder of Dayton, who received a patent for the land on September 15, 1866, according to a 1960s piece in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin by Dayton Correspondent Fred M. Norris. Day sold to early Dayton merchants Dusenberry and Stencil, then the Richardson family took ownership in September, 1889.

The Richardsons built a grand home, a landmark believed to be the largest single dwelling in Columbia County for some time, an imposing three-story home of 18 rooms. It was embellished with French stained glass bordering the windows and doors, plenty of Victorian "Gingerbread" trim and a gable roof. When Highway 410 was constructed in 1923, the residence's back side faced the new highway. At the time the house was built, the country road passed by the front of the house.

It went through a number of owners, the U-B article indicates, when in 1910, Miles C. Moore of Walla Walla, who was the last Territorial Governor of the state, bought the property from Frank Hoskins. In spite of the numerous owners' names over the years, the ground is still known as the Moore Place.

At one point in the 1930s, the ranch mechanized, though the details of that transition are lost in the mists of time.

The twins, Roy and Paul, worked on the family ranch through high school, graduating in the Class of 1939. When World War II broke out, the War Department approached Jim, asking him to choose which of his twin sons should go into the service. Family legend has it that Jim put the decision back on the War Department and Roy was drafted, having attended Washington State College for two years.

Roy went into the Army and served as a medic on a hospital ship in the South Pacific, says son Jim, treating and transporting injured soldiers, sailors and Marines. The ship was hit by a kamikaze, but Roy survived without injury because he was off duty and in his bunk at the time, Jim recalls his father's story.

The ship sailed into San Francisco Bay for a respite and young Eslick was on liberty. On a visit to a local Methodist Church, he met a sparkling Midwestern girl, Elizabeth (Betty) Strunk, who was employed assembling ship-to-shore radios, doing her part of the war effort. Roy's ship again deployed but the couple kept in touch by letter. Upon his discharge, Roy brought her home to Dayton and they married in 1945.

As peace broke out and Roy returned to Dayton, he was received back into the family farming operation. Unbeknownst to Roy, while he was in the service, his father had meticulously kept track of twin brother Paul's hours on the family farm, and he received the same amount his brother had been paid over the years of the war.

"It's not fair that they take one and not the other," Jim's grandfather was known to have said about the situation. "It's what my grandpa did for him for serving his country," Jim says of the gesture. Jim believes the money was Roy's "grubstake" in getting established in farming following World War II.

The Eslick Brothers, Roy and Paul, took on the neighboring Thompson Place, land along the top of Rock Hill directly south of town, when it came up for sale.

Roy's and Betty's family flourished with the births of son William "Bill", daughters Carol, Marjorie and Mary Lou, son Jim and, finally, daughter Virginia joining the family.

"Dad and Paul bought the Thompson Place, which we still farm, and which connected nicely to the Moore Place," Jim remembers. In 1974, the Moore Place also came up for sale, and Roy established Eslick Farms, Inc. to accomplish that, with Jim and his parents as principals in the family farm–Jim had recently graduated in Dayton High's Class of 1973.

In 1975, the Eslicks were named Columbia County Cattlemen of the Year. Livestock was part and parcel to the operation for many years, Eslicks pasturing the cattle on their fenced farm fields. When farm program changes disallowed pasturing livestock, Eslicks sold the herd.

Also that year, son Bill returned to Dayton after his military service and joined the family operation.

About ten years later, in the mid 1980s, the farm economy was on the ropes and Bill opted to leave the farm to fly for the airlines. Interest rates were high and commodity prices low, putting pressure on family farms of all sizes, Jim remembers, and the difficult decision to sell the Moore Place was made.

When the dust settled a few years hence, Eslick Farms regained about 300 acres of the Moore Place to complement the Thompson Place land they continued to farm, Jim said. There's about 2,500 acres under cultivation in a three-year rotation of winter wheat and peas, with an occasional spring wheat planting when circumstances dictate.

Eslick Farms Inc. manages year after year, through the ups and downs of the agricultural economy, challenges attributed to Mother Nature and other pressures, Jim says. Rainfall averages 18 to 20 inches, and for the past 100 years, has not varied remarkably, he added, noting that rainfall timing has more effect on yields than quantity, more often than not.

Jim is proud to continue the Eslick family legacy of farming in this corner of God's Country. "It's probably the fact that, from a young age, I was taken to the field," he says. "I was outdoors. I was in a hay field, rolling bales or pitching vines. I was taken out to the field with a pitch fork and lunch box...walking the field of a 100 acres-throwing dirt clods, watching the birds, rolling a bale over and finding a snake. I couldn't imagine working in an office-it would be depressing not to be able to do that.

"My kids grew up getting to do that," he continued. "I started Jason in the tractor and combine, and he actually did go out into the world-then he gravitated back to the farm."

Eslick is keeping the family tradition going with his young grandchildren: daughter Lindsay Lockard's Caulder 11, and Piper, 10, and daughter Racheal Fletcher's Kylee, 12.

The first Eslick to set foot on American soil was Samuel, born in Cornwall, England, in 1717 and died in Carteret County, North Caroline in 1778. His son was Isaac Eslick, born in North Carolina in 1747 and died in 1831 in Champ, Tenn.

William Jackson Eslick was Isaac's son, born in Carteret County, N.C., and died in 1833 in Champ, Tenn. Harvey Eslick was his son, born May 7, 1848 in Lawrence County, Missouri, and passing on June 22, 1918 in Umatilla County, Oregon-the family unit which ventured across the North American continent in search of a better life.