My grandfather, Simpson Forbes Rodgers, was sweet-talked into coming out of retirement in his middle 70s by C.R. Blair to build the historic Blair home, just east of the 164th Avenue and Mill Plain Boulevard intersection.
This house was mentioned in the recent article about Chick-fil-A and a real estate agent having a dispute over parking availability (“Chick-fil-A may expand drive-thru,” May 27). The Blair house is at one end of the parking lot where Chick-fil-A now resides.
Simpson Forbes Rodgers was a journeyman carpenter who arrived in the Mill Plain area from Nova Scotia in the mid-1880s at age 42. He married Emma Wiley in Vancouver in 1886 and homesteaded 20 acres a few hundred yards east of where Chick-fil-A is now.
He was hired to build a two-room schoolhouse next door, west of Chick-fil-A, in the late 1800s. Records obtained later show that the school board paid him $200, plus he got to keep excess material. He and my grandmother had six children who attended this school, as did I.
C.R. Blair had Granddad build a home for the Blair family, just east of where Chick-fil-A is now, adjacent to the Blair feed and grocery store. After C.R. died his widow, Laura, ran this business for years.
Granddad died at age 90 in 1932, and he and my grandmother are buried in the Fisher Cemetery (along with his daughter, Elda, and her husband, David Strunk).
My parents bought all 20 acres from the other five siblings in 1933 for the grand total of $900. “Progress” took the grade school as well as C.R. Blair’s store and feed business. That’s where Chick-fil-A now resides.
Mill Plain farmers were stripped of their sons and daughters as a workforce due to drafts and enlistments in World War II. My parents ended up selling our farm as all three of their sons enlisted in the Navy. As the youngest, I enlisted at age 17 in 1944. We all three served in the South Pacific. I was in an invasion fleet at Okinawa that was being formed up to invade Japan, when President Harry Truman authorized the two atomic bombs on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, that ended the war.
It is sad to read that Granddad’s last house will be torn down for restaurant parking. It has withstood over 100 years of service and still looks modern for having been built around 1916-1917. Sad, but “progress.”
Our farm was directly across the street from what’s now Bed Bath & Beyond. Our farm is now a wall-to-wall gated community.
In 1943, the 20 acres across the road just south of our farm was a dead prune tree orchard, and it went on the market for $6,000. I told my folks I wanted to buy this 20 acres. I was 16 and had acquired a summer job in the paper mill in Camas. Wages were 60 cents an hour and I thought I was rich! Move over, Bill Gates.
My dad said, “Are you crazy?” He reminded me they had only paid $900 for 20 acres in 1933. Good thinking, Dad.
That $6,000, 20-acre parcel is part of Vancouver Mall now, where it’s worth millions. The Olive Garden sits on the northwest corner.
One of Dad’s brothers and one of Mom’s sisters ended up the parents of Camas pop singer Jimmie Rodgers (of ‘“Honeycomb” fame) plus numerous other gold records. We lost Jimmie in January 2021 at age 87.
Granddad always worked alone. When driving through that 164th and Mill Plain intersection, I always look a few hundred feet east and imagine my grandfather packing a rafter up to the roof of the old house.
Your hands touched every board, Grandpa.
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