No need to draw, pardners — this town’s plenty big enough for all of us. Why don’t you holster them irons and saddle up, and we’ll lope on down to Shobert’s Landing for some local history and Wild West heritage?
That’s the theme of Ridgefield’s First Saturday celebration for September, offering fun and games for families, as well as some serious historical perspective and information for homeowners and anyone else who’s curious about this storied little city. Take a historical downtown walking tour or take in a homemade documentary of longtime citizens’ historical memories at the Old Liberty Theater; learn how to research the history of your vintage property from the curator of the Clark County Historical Museum.
And, enjoy some free, live country music, try some line dancing, taste some local wine and wind up at a Western Swing concert featuring Brian Oberlin, one of the nation’s top mandolin wizards.
Don’t forget your zucchini. If you do forget, a zucchini shall be provided for you.
Lots to learn, not far to walk
Ridgefield’s history begins with a Chinook village on the banks of what’s now Lake River; Europeans started showing up in the late 1700s and early 1800s and relations were perfectly friendly — but, tragically, the Cathlapotle people were nonetheless decimated within decades of this first contact by diseases against which they had no natural resistance.
Their village was pretty much abandoned by the time an Irishman named James Carty settled north of what’s now downtown in 1839; Carty seems to have led a pretty solitary existence for about a decade, when other settlers started arriving — including three more unmarried men who built cabins on what’s still known as Bachelor Island, and Frederick Shobert, who created a busy steamboat landing on his property and almost gave the growing town a permanent name. But Shobert’s Landing came to be called Union Ridge after the return of patriotic soldiers from the Civil War; Union Ridge became Ridgefield a few years later, when a citizen (and postmaster) who hailed from the South suggested letting bygones be bygones.
Dairy and fruit farms, rock quarries and railroads, stores and schools and saloons (pouring whiskey made from prunes) — all arrived in due time, and Ridgefield incorporated in 1909 by a landslide vote of 62-12. After that, growth came slow and steady — but so did setbacks including the Great Depression and some devastating downtown fires. Fortunately, downtown Ridgefield survived and rebuilt.
If you think you’re familiar with that scene, try seeing it all through historical eyes via the noon walking tour, guided by an expert from the Clark County Historical Museum. There’s so much history packed into the downtown core, museum curator Brad Richardson said, the tour only needs to cover a handful of blocks.
Did you know that today’s bakery on South Main used to be the Priscilla Study Club and Library, organized by the town’s most upstanding ladies in 1914 order to bring nothing but clean, improving literature to local readers? Did you know that the charming private home at 112 S. Third Ave. used to be the local hospital, where bones got set and babies got born?
Did you know that the current Ridgefield City Hall used to be Ridgefield State Bank, where the late Ed Firstenburg started out as an assistant cashier and wound up the owner, self-made millionaire, beloved philanthropist and Clark County First Citizen?
About that zucchini
You’ve already missed out on our coast-to-coast jubilee of stealthy surplus squash redistribution, otherwise known as “National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.” That’s every Aug. 8, and reportedly consists of waiting until dark to dump some lovable-yet-unloved green logs onto the property of some innocent and unsuspecting acquaintance. Or, any stranger will do. Porch not required.
Somehow, our ever-gridlocked Congress has not seen fit to do the people’s business and endorse this occasion as an actual federal holiday; into that breach stepped the resourcefully funky Pacific Northwest. It was reportedly Bainbridge Island farmer Betsey Wittick, decades ago, who first envisioned excess zucchinis as racing vehicles and even generated serious-sounding press releases that drew reporters who didn’t want to miss the NASCAR-style excitement. Since then, zucchini races have sprouted all over the West Coast and elsewhere.
Ridgefield will host its own 9 a.m. “Zucchini 500” as a kickoff for the day’s festivities. Bring your own championship zucchini, or event organizers will provide you with one (while sneaking several more into your pockets and bags and whatever else you’ve got). Also provided will be the Lego chassis with wheels.
If there are rules regarding zucchini doping or zucchini “cupping,” a la Olympian Michael Phelps, we suggest you ignore them. After all, this is the Wild Wild West.