DEAD TOWN'S MEMORIES ALIVE.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

WENDLING - This once-bustling mill town four miles northwest of Marcola died 57 years ago, but it still has a one-lane covered bridge, a few homes, a concrete vault left over from the general store and a newsletter that circulates across the country.

It also has a flag with 126 stars and 126 names.

One of those names is Gib Wilson.

Now 76, Wilson was just 17 when he headed off to join the Navy in San Diego in 1945. He was later stationed on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. World War II ended less than three months after he left Wendling, where he spent his summers working at the steam-powered Booth-Kelly Lumber Co. mill.

The large red-and-beige flag used to hang in the Wendling General Store and lists the names of the men and women from Wendling who served in the two world wars, including four who lost their lives.

"I know a lot of the guys who had their name on it," Wilson said. "Pretty near all of them."

The Wendling Preservation Association has decided that it's time to do something with the flag to honor all those men and women. It will be displayed at the association's monthly luncheon Oct. 7 at the Springfield Elks Club.

A photograph will be taken of the flag and the 40 or so people with Wendling ties who attend the meetings, and then it probably will be donated to either the Lane County Historical Museum in Eugene or the Springfield Museum.

"The flag is getting so fragile, this is probably the last time we'll do anything with it," said Marjorie Johnson, 75, of Eugene, who grew up in Wendling and is organizing the effort. She graduated from Mohawk High School in 1945 in the same class as Wilson.

About 10 of the men whose names are on the flag are still alive, Johnson said.

The flag had disappeared after the mill closed and Georgia-Pacific Corp. bought the land. It was discovered four decades later in a storage area of Georgia-Pacific's Springfield mill and given to Loyal Swofford - a Wendling resident who once worked for Georgia-Pacific - in 1989.

Swofford, 74, still lives on Wendling Road, just west of where the general store once stood. The spot is marked only by the moss-covered cement vault that sits on a turn in the road.

He got the flag because one of the names on it was that of his aunt, Julia Swofford, who served with the Women's Auxiliary Corps during World War II.

He's also the keeper of a book of old black-and-white photographs that shows an aerial view of the town in the 1920s. The "loop" is there - that's what locals call the logging road that winds its way from the end of Wendling Road around what is now Weyerhaeuser property and back to Wendling Road.

In the middle of the photograph is a massive mill operation, stacks of lumber and tracts of row houses.

Today, there's nothing left of the mill to see. The town is overgrown with trees and brush. And though the mill and the men and women who worked there may be long gone, the service flag remains.

The young men, boys really, who went off to war around the world were just 17 and 18 years old when they left Wendling, Johnson said. "I think it needs to be (recognized) one more time," she said. "We're the old-timers. When we're gone, no one will probably care about it. That's why I want to preserve it."

WENDLING HISTORY

Company town: The Booth-Kelly Lumber Co. purchased land and a sawmill northeast of Marcola in 1896, and a new steam-powered mill was up and running by 1900.

Name: The town is named after George X. Wendling, one of the owners of the old mill who became a stockholder in the new corporation when Booth-Kelly came aboard. Wendling wanted the town named for Robert Booth, owner of the new mill, and Booth wanted it named for Wendling. A coin toss settled the issue.

Population: Wendling had between 900 and 1,000 people at its peak in the 1920s.

Row houses: Families lived in four sections of row houses called Silk Stocking Row, Battle Row, Oklahoma Heights and Poverty Flats.

Closed: The town died in 1946 when the mill closed after old growth timber had been depleted. A fire destroyed the mill seven months later.

Wendling Preservation Association: The town lives on in the hearts and minds of former residents and the few people who still live there. About 215 members across the country receive the Wendling Conveyor, a quarterly newsletter.

CAPTION(S):

The flag features brown stars for Wendling's World War I veterans and blue stars for those who served in World War II. An old flag honoring those who served in wars to be displayed again