A history of Pickford Area Pioneer Families Daniel Morrison

There were three ways to get to the Soo in the early days. One was by going north four miles, then west to the Mackinaw Trail, then north to the Soo. Another way was to go straight north, but on this route you could not take a load. An empty wagon might make it in good weather. The third way was by boat from Jolly's Landing at what is now Stirlingville (The Northern Belle).

Dr. Webster had one of the hardest jobs in the early days and this was to pull Mr. Isaac Watson's tooth. He couldn't get it out, so he had Mr. Watson lie on the floor and Webster put his knee on him and finally landed it.

In 1909 Dave Beacom was the first to carry passengers in a car back and forth to the Soo. Mt. Dunes was one of the first to deliver mail to the Soo. Some other men who carried mail to the Soo in the early days were S. G. Wilson, Tabor, and J. H. Crawford.

Harry Draper had the first gas station in Pickford. It was located where the Lipsett storage garage on Main Street is now.

Mr. James Clegg was the first township highway commissioner in Pickford Township.

Some of the first settlers were C. W. Pickford and his family, James Clegg and his family, and Henry Gough and his family.

Richard Rye was the first man to have a threshing machine in this area. It was run by horsepower. Mr. Pickford had a sloop by which he brought supplies from the Soo. Later he bought a larger boat from some Indians who agreed to bring it to the mouth of the Munuscong River. On the appointed day Mr. Pickford, Tom Morrison and William Best started down the river in a rowboat. After looking over the boat, they began to feel hungry, for they had not brought any dinner. The Indians had brought some barrels of flour and a barrel of molasses for Mr. Pickford, so when they found a frying pan and a little stove in the John Auger (the boat), they mixed the flour with water and made pancakes and bored a hole in the molasses barrel to get some molasses for them.

First Cars

Some of the first cars in Pickford were owned by George Wilson, Ed Taylor, Tom Best, Dave Beacom, and Fred Taylor. Some of these cars were truck type and others were passenger cars. They were Dodges and Studebakers.

Black Gold

Most of us are familiar with the term, "Black Gold." For the benefit of those who have never heard the term before, it means oil and is generally connected with a new well which has just been blown.

This could, and almost did, happen in our small community of Pickford some sixty or seventy years ago. There are no concrete records as to when this episode in our history took place that your reporter could dig up, so the following has been gathered from hither and yon, part by part. If you will fill in the gaps with your imagination, between the two of us, we will get a brief look into one of the interesting events in this village history.

Let's go back to the turn of the century. The first inkling that anything out of the ordinary was taking place was evidenced by some strangers in town, who were contacting local businessmen to interest them in a venture into the realm of oil. To show that their interest was more than curiosity, the Pickford group was asked to invest in stocks which would finance the drilling of the first well at Pickford. In no time at all, the stock was disposed of. The drilling equipment was quickly erected just at the northeast fringe of town. Boring was soon underway. Interest ran high. From early in the morning until dusk local and rural spectators could be found at the site. Day after day, week after week, the drilling progressed. Deeper and deeper went the hole. The village and surrounding population was aquiver with expectation. Down and down they went, one hundred feet, two hundred, then five hundred, then a thousand feet. Suspense was building up to enormous proportions. Then at fourteen hundred feet, they hit it. OIL! No! Water. But what water and what quantities! Literally thousands of gallons of beautiful crystal liquid came booming forth. A sad ending? Quite the contrary. For you see, to this day almost half the population of Pickford is dependent on this never interrupted supply. Though the pressure has decreased somewhat over the years, our OLD FAITHFUL still pours out a beautiful flow and a small geyser can still be seen pouring from the pressure cap, from as far away as two city blocks.

Fire Of 1932

In November 1932, a fire starting from a coal furnace explosion in the telephone office destroyed the Pickford Roller Mill, Pickford Post Office, Pickford Telephone Company office and building of the John Kay estate on Main Street at an estimated loss of $34,000.

The four buildings were located between the brick building of the Pickford Bank and the Munuscong River Bridge on the north side of the street. The loss, covered by about $6,000 was as follows: Pickford Roller Mill, including Post Office annex: $25,000, Pickford Telephone Company: $5,000; John Kay Estate: $4,000.

Contents of the mill, owned by Fred J. Smith, who was also the Postmaster, went up in smoke. They included 1,800 bushels of peas, feed grain flour, machinery and equipment. Mail in the Post Office building which adjoined the mill on the west was saved, as was the equipment. The telephone company loss was complete, including switchboard, electrical stock, storage telephones and cables. The Kay building, two stories, was unoccupied, but used for storage by the telephone company and the Central Grocery. Nothing was saved.

Herman Gough, 25, of Pickford, was taken to the War Memorial Hospital with a broken leg. Gough was carrying a sack of grain from the third floor of the mill when he slipped and fell downstairs.

Frank H. Taylor, president and night operator of the telephone company, was the first to discover the fire at 6:00 a.m. He went to stoke the furnace. "I returned to the switchboard," Mr. Taylor said, "and started to handle the usual calls. I just got through putting in a call for a doctor wanted in the country when I heard an explosion in the basement." Rushing downstairs with a fire extinguisher, Mr. Taylor was met by a black column of smoke that almost overcame him.

Describing the fire, Mr. Taylor said, "I ran back upstairs to the switchboard and placed a call to my son, Percy, the manager, and then ran into the street to call for help. I had to leave without my hat, coat, or shoes because the fire broke right through the floor."

Percy answered the call at his home and finding no one on the line, returned to bed. But realizing that a long ring might mean a robbery or other emergency he went to the window to look at the building already breaking into flames. The day was clear and calm.

Burning of the exchange cut off lines to DeTour, Cedarville, Hessel, and Rudyard, where branch offices of the Pickford Telephone Company were located. A temporary office was set up in the Fred H. Taylor hardware and one of the hand-operated switchboards at Cedarville was set up for operation.

"The telephone exchange was to have been moved soon," Mr. Taylor said "We had been contemplating a move for the last year."

The building was rebuilt at once and the telephone office was in a building by itself. One of the biggest losses in equipment was a new Western Union teletype machine which was connected directly with the Sault office and which had been recently installed.

"It. was useless to put water on the mill," Mr. Smith, owner, said. "We had time to get 35 or 40 sacks of mail and other equipment out of the building and a little grain was carried out. The big loss in the mill was two bins of materials. The peas, beans, grain and feed were all placed in huge bins and it was almost impossible to get them out."

Besides the two and one-half carloads of peas, there were electrical motors for grinding. The big machine was near the door, but volunteers were unable to move it.