B: 03/1884    D: 10/12/1905

Amanda Duncan was born in March, 1884, in Butler Township, Ohio. After marrying Courtland C. Burgar and giving birth to two children, Amanda and her son, William, moved from Wisconsin to the town of Silver, Washington. It is unclear what happened to Courtland, but it appears he died in Wisconsin or en route to Washington. While living in Washington, Amanda moved from Silver to a homestead near the already-platted town of Gloversville. Amanda then platted the town of Twisp in 1899, which eventually merged with Gloversville to become the Town of Twisp that exists today.

B: 08/1893   D: 1958

Gladys Lula Price may have been the only black person living in the Methow Valley before the 1970s. She was born in Berthoud, Colorado to James Price and Maggie (Archer) Price. Both her parents were born in South Carolina towards the end of the Civil War. 

The Homestead Act of 1862 opened land ownership to male citizens, widows, single women, and immigrants pledging to become citizens. The 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed that African Americans were eligible as well. Black homesteaders used it to build new lives in which they owned the land they worked, provided for their families, and educated their children. 

No doubt, these same opportunities drew the Prices first to Colorado, then to the plains of Washington state. While James and Maggie farmed their 320-acre land patent (#705692) near Delrio in Douglas County, Gladys was sent to Twisp to attend high school. She worked as a farmhand in exchange for room and board. In 1926 at age 33, she graduated from the Twisp school. Shortly thereafter, she returned home to Delrio where she became a sheep farmer and remained unmarried until her death. 

After graduating from Pateros High School, Carlene Anders, 18, trained as a wildland firefighter. Early in her career, she served on the elite smoke jumpers team based out of Winthrop, Washington, one of the first two women to do so. After the 2014 Carlton Complex fire, Carlene stepped up as a volunteer to organize the Carlton Complex Long Term Recovery Group (CCLTRG), which was created to collaborate with and provide coordination and recovery services to those individuals, families, businesses, and communities that were adversely impacted by the 2014 wildfires and resulting mudslides across Okanogan County. In 2014, Anders was appointed to the Pateros City Council and in November 2015, she was elected mayor. 

In 1871, Ella May Frisbee and her family moved to Ellensburg in the Washington Territory. In 1889, Ella, 19, met and married William C. Maxey, 26. At that time, he ran freight by horse and wagon out of Ellensburg. While living there, Ella gave birth to one baby girl, Marie, but the baby died less than two years later. 

In 1900, Ella's brother, Walter, applied for and was issued a 160-acre land patent near Winthrop. William moved Ella out to Winthrop with the high hope that he and Walter could establish and run a successful freight hauling business.

Ella had just given birth to their second child when William had to make a freight run to Ellensburg and back. It was late fall 1893. Before he could return, a blizzard closed the road and stranded him in Ellensburg for the winter. When he finally got home, his infant son had died and his wife was quickly losing her battle with tuberculosis. 

Ella died June 15, 1894 at the age of 24. She and her baby boy were laid to rest together in a single grave in the Old Winthrop cemetery. Ella's funeral was the first funeral to be held in the Winthrop area.

During Washington's Centenniel Celebration in 1989, Gwendolyn Creveling, now Grendolyn Yockey, was honored for her work with the U.S. Forest Service as one of the first women in the United States to occupy and operate a U.S. Forest Service lookout. For four years, from 1920-24, Gwendolyn's job was located in a log cabin on North 20-Mile. 

In 1925, when Gwendolyn and her husband were married, he worked the back country for the U.S. Forest Service as a government packer. From their home at Eight Mile Station, Gwendolyn operated the telephone exchange for all the ranger stations.

In 1947, Fred Yockey, age 45,  was killed in an accident while working at a mine in Holden, on Lake Chelan.  Gwendolyn continued to live for another 52 years in her comfortable log home in Winthrop, WA. She died December 11, 2000, just two months shy of her 99th birthday. 

Jennie Miller's story is a 1930s tangled knot of human trafficking, rescue and redemption in Carlton.

B:     D: 08/20/14

In 1984, after returning to school at the University of Washington, former insurance executive, Mortee Banasky, took a summer job as a firespotter for the U.S. Forest Service on First Butte summit near Winthrop. She spent 24 summers at First Butte, manning the lookout and supporting the firefighters before being transferred to the Leecher Mountain lookout near Twisp. Mortee was working the First Butte lookout the day the Thirtymile firestorm exploded in 2001, taking the lives of four young firefighters, two of them women.