FRANK W. SCHUNEMANN
Return to Biographies and Oral Histories Index
Among the earliest workmen to come to Ainsworth to work as a blacksmith on the Northern Pacific railroad bridge across the Snake River in 1878 was Frank W. Schunemann, who arrived via horseback from California. Two years later his wife and their six children, ranging from 17 to two years of age, came all the way from Los Angeles, California in two horse-drawn wagons. Mrs. Schunemann broke her leg early in the journey, so the duty of driving the two teams fell on Frank Jr., the 17-year-old son, and daughter Julia, only 13 years old.
The family resided at Ainsworth for a year or so, and then Schunemann took out a homestead claim on the Columbia River two or three miles west of Pasco. He irrigated his farm by pumping water out of the river with a windmill. His son Fred said: “When we took up the homestead in the early 1880’s, there wasn’t much in Pasco but a few houses and a lot of jackrabbits and sagebrush.” He recalled how the Yakima and Nez Perce Indians roamed here.
“Man, it seemed like there was nothing but Indians here when they fished for salmon at the mouth of the Yakima. I’ve seen the time when my mother laid out as many as ten guns on the kitchen table when Indians were riding and whooping around our house all night,” Fred said. “But they never did us any harm… just tried to scare us, I guess,” he concluded.
Schunemann’s holding along the Columbia River was about two miles long and a mile wide, which he used to raise livestock, as well as a vegetable garden. He lost part of his land due to mortgage foreclosures when bad times befell the stock business. Fred remembers that he helped his father raise vegetables which they peddled to people in Pasco.
