(FROM WASHINGTON, The Evergreen State Magazine. Vol Two. Number Six May/June 1986, pp. 100, 105+, Article, THE T0WN THAT DROWNED BY Stephen Maher....FOLLOWING is last half of article. QUOTE; In the 1920s, the automobile began to change the town of Riffe. Most were Fords, or, as they called them then, Tin Lizzies. The tight kinship still held fast in Riffe, but people became more mobile and less dependent on one another. The improvement in transportton also allowed another Appalachian tradition--moonshining--to flourish and the liquor to be easily transported across county lines as far afield as Tacoma. "On most of the creeks you'd run into stills," says Marsha Bartley of Mossyrock, who settled in Riffe in 1924. "They'd sell it to whoever wanted to buy it. Even a stage line used to haul it." The moonshining helped supplement meager incomes during the Great Depression, when some families were threatened with the loss of their homes and land. "During the Depression people lived on fish and game," says GlenSchwartz. "If you had a few old cows, you had to trade them for sugar and salt. You couldn't eat them." As the 1930s came to a close and the ecoomy improved, railroad-tie mills run by independent loggers sprang up everywhere and became the main source of employment until the 1960s. At one time during the mid-1940s, 22 tie mills were operating in the immediate vicinity, and the town of Morton, eight miles east of Riffe, was dubbed the railroad-tie capital of the world. In 1946, the City of Tacoma purchased the rights to the Cowlitz River, and shortly thereafter announced plans to build two dams in the Slver Creek-Riffe area. But a court battle developed and 10 years passed before Tacoma was finally given the go-ahead. The people of Riffe were naturally fearful of what a dam downstream might mean to them and their land. When their fears became a reality, a cloud of doom settled over the town. By 1963, the year the first dam 15 miles downstream was completed, most residents of Riffe had sold their property and moved to nearby communities. The dam was 606 feet high, l,648 feet long and 115 feet wide at the base when it was finally completed. Many former residents of the town climbed the hills overlooking Riffe's former site and watched as familir physical features vanished. Before long, an 11,830-acre lake with 53 miles of shoreline engulfed the area where Riffe had been. Today, Riffe Lake is peaceful. During winter months, when the water is lowered slightly and rotting tree stumps stick out, visions of some far-off, eerie land come to mind. In the summer, when boaters take to the water and sunbathers gather at Mossyrock Park, it's easy to forget that the site of Riffe lies 225 feet below the surface. On the north side of the lake next to the dam, there is a turnoff from US Highway 12 frequented by tourists and travelers. A wooden sign with orange letters stands next to the parking lot and remnds readers that the name of the lake "honors the founders and early settlers of the community of Riffe." No mention is made of the crude ferry boat that used to cross the Cowlitz, loggers living in unpainted shacks of clapboard or broad fields of foxglove and clover. And perhaps that is wise, for it adds to the mystery and intrigue one feels when gazing at Riffe Lake and thnking of the town that once was. (The End) QUESTION: DOES A LIST OF THESE SIXTY PEOPLE WHO CAME WEST WITH FLOYD AND ARMEDIA RIFFE EXIST? Nola Payne in Wenatchee, WA Surnames: PAYNE,DYER,DEAN,BELCHER,WISER, COTTON;RANKIN,NEFF,LOPER,DEWITT, WOLFE,BUSER,CLOMAN,CULBERT, EDMUNDSON,RIDLEY,DAY,CONGER, POND,FAIRBANKS,ROBINSON,BOWIE, WEBBER,SMALLEY,STROUT, HENDERSON, NORTON,MADDISON,(PTL) Alternate Email Addresses: NLPfromWA@webtv.net, NLP-COLONIES2WA@webtv.net, mompayne2@hotmail.com