224 Cedar Street

Some houses are iconic for a family.  Often they are houses that aren’t grand necessarily, but are places where life has been interestingly lived.  There is such a house for the Hull family.  It’s in Wallace, Idaho, a place totally unlike anyplace I’ve been…a place out of the big box-internet-fast food-stream of modern life.

It was a mining camp to start, rough and tumble.  It grew with mining commerce, supplies, services (it still had 5 houses of prostitution on my first visit…cozily called “rooms”).  It was decimated by the 1910 forest fire called “The Big Burn” (DO consider reading Timothy Egan’s terrific book called “The Big Burn”…just a mile or two up King Street from the Hull house was the famous Pulaski Tunnel).  The fire roared over Moon pass from Avery, blasted into Wallace from the east and destroyed about one third of the town.

Here’s Ed Pulaski outside the tunnel where he and his crew took the shelter that saved their lives…

 

…and here is Wallace after the fire.  The movie “The Big Burn will show on OPB channel 10 in Oregon this Tuesday, February 3, at 9:00 p.m. with lots of photos and details.

Luckily, though, it didn’t destroy this house, built in 1890.  These two photos were taken in 1894…

We know from left to right in this picture are Helen Campbell (Powell), Mrs. Henry White, Mrs. George Trask, Mrs. A.B. Campbell, Mrs. Slawson, and Mrs. Mason…(if I had to guess I think I’d say it was Mrs. Campbell’s house…)

and here’s the house a decade later with cement sidewalks and mature plantings.

In the late 1920’s or early 1930’s the house was purchased by R’s grandparents Elizabeth Piatt Hull and Harold J. Hull…

and the family story goes that Grandmother wanted to make a few changes which included the front roof line in order to add a much bigger wrap around porch, and the finishing of the third floor and adding windows there…

The grandparents lived in the house until 1963 and it was the scene of many gatherings of the young grandchildren…

in 1963 the grandparents moved to an apartment, and R’s parents bought the house.  Here’s Christmas of 1963 or 1964…(Carolyn, Jonathan, R, Melissa, Jennifer and Chris.)

I arrived on the scene in 1970 and we went up to Wallace twice a year for a couple of decades.  R, Z and I always stayed on the third floor…

and I somewhat shyly roamed the house with my camera only once…

(Here’s Jo Darling who used to come help R’s Mom…)

After R’s parents died in 1994 the house was eventually sold…we all went back a time or two, but in the summer of 1995 we had to say goodbye…

and by 2009 it was still a nice house, but lacked the Hull touch…(and that great red roof)