Elsie Schell Cowan and Thomas Cowan, mid-60s? Gramma and Grampa, as I called them, my grandparents, lived a short walk away from my childhood home. Thomas Cowan and Elsie Schell Cowan were my daddy's parents, I came to understand. My mother called them Mom and Dad too, so it took my child's mind awhile to figure out that they could not be Mom's mother and father! Maybe this was why I was interested in the family history early on - I wanted to understand why I only knew one set of grandparents. Thomas Cowan My grandfather, Tom Cowan, immigrated here from Canada in 1924. He was born in Puslinch township, Wellington County, Ontario, on his family's farm, Juniper Hill Farm. His great-grandfather established the farm in 1832, when he and his family and some neighbors (perhaps relatives) emigrated from Yarrow Feus, Selkirkshire, Scotland to Puslinch in Upper Canada. The house they built still is lived in. Grandpa's parents sold the Century Farm between 1911 and 1921 and...

Part I—The Rest of the Story By MaryLynn Strickland A couple of miles east of Black Diamond is the town of Franklin, now a ghost town but once the site of the Oregon Improvement Company’s mine.  Inhabitants were made up of immigrants mostly Welsh, English, Irish, Italian and Scots.  Other European immigrants included Swedes, Poles and Austrians.  When the Seattle to Walla Walla Railroad was extended to Franklin, coal was shipped to San Francisco and the operations grew. Picture property of Black Diamond Museum, permission granted for use in this purpose. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 18, 1891, described Franklin thus: Franklin is blessed with one of the most beautiful sites in Washington, though it is the last place a real estate man would choose for a townsite.  It clings to the steep side of a mountain which rises precipitously from the right bank of the raging, roaring, tumbling Green river (sic).  The main part of the town is so high up t...