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The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., December 1, 1911, page 1

HEWED WAY TO SUCCESS
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Starts With Ax, Fifteen Cents and $500 Debt

George Pyatt's experiences as a rancher in the White Salmon country is a story of grit, muscle and faith in the land.

He came from Grundy county, Illinois, in December, 1896, his wife having preceded him some months to visit her parents, Mr. and Mrs. N.M. Wood. The following spring he became involved in debt, borrowing money to defray hospital expenses on account of his wife's illness. For over two years he worked out, on the Mt. Hood irrigating ditch, as section hand on the railroad, and in logging camps. In 1898 filed on a homestead in what became known as the Pine Flat district and the following spring and built a small house, again putting in the summer in a logging camp.
About the first of December he had to move onto the homestead, but had no team and only one $1.25 to hire with. A.B. Groshong hitched up his rig, piled in Mr. Pyatt's few household goods, his invalid wife and took him up over the trail to the homestead. There in the midst of the forest with only a small shacks, a few household goods, a yearling calf, an invalid wife, 15 cents in cash, $500 indebtedness, and the screech of an owl and yelp of coyotes indicating his neighbors, he started development of his place.
Every acre had to be cleared of big trees, but Pyatt was not afraid of that, long, tedious job tho it seemed. That winter he made a clearing big enough for a garden and to turn around in comfortably,. He went back to the logging camp for the summer, and in early winter went to S.C. Ziegler located below the White Salmon bluff and suggested tat we come up on the mountain and file on the quarter section next to him so he could clear for him, offering to work for a $1.25 a day. He did not belong to the Union, neither was he of the kind to loaf around kicking, complaining, cussing things in general sooner than go to work at anything less than a "regular pay." He needed the money to live on during the winter. Ziegler acted on the suggestion and paid him a $1.50 a day. It enabled him to clear more of his own ground. In the meantime the Hedleys had begun development of adjoining land and in the fall Pyatt, Ziegler and the Hadleys had 60 acres into trees, all in one block. Two years ago Pyatt sold twenty acres of the homestead for $1,600, a few weeks later selling forty acres for $100 per acre, and the remainder of the quarter a year ago last spring, a total of $24,600 which the White Salmon Fruit Co. paid through Kennedy and Glavis, promoter of the deal.
Pyatt's first returns on the homestead were $50 from potatoes, which have always been a good crop with him. Two years ago he sold a $800 worth of fruit off three acres of 7-year old trees, and this year the company who bought him out took first premium on Spitzenburgs at the National Apple Show.
Not far from the old homestead Mr. Pyatt bought sixty acres of timbered land, cleared twenty acres and set two trees last spring. By utilizing the ground between the rows one acre of potatoes bought him a $100; he grew four tons of field peas and valued at $15 per ton; seven tons of corn fodder at $6 per ton; 140 sacks of carrots at $1 per sack; killed $150 worth of pork, and erected buildings valued at $2,000.