Ed DeReu recalls the '50s and beyond, in Columbia Falls

Ed DeReu remembers a much different Columbia Falls.

“When I came here, most roads were dirt and gravel,” he said. That was in 1952.

DeReu grew up on a grain farm in Jasper, Minnesota and was no stranger to hard work.

“I always had at least two jobs, and farm work besides,” he said. When he moved to Coram in 1952, he joined the Steel Construction Company of Oregon and worked on the Hungry Horse Dam project, bending iron for construction.

“It was a chance to work for a little more money, and I wanted different country,” DeReu said. “I liked to hunt and fish, I’m an outsider type. A friend suggested this place.”

DeReu also worked on the Priest River and Idaho Falls dams, again bending the iron and reinforcing the steel for the powerhouse at Priest River and on the dam itself in Idaho Falls.

When he returned to this area, he hauled logs and then went to work for Anaconda Aluminum Co. while the plant was being built. After construction was finished, he worked in the office handling the general ledger.

He and his family — a wife and seven children — moved from Coram to Columbia Falls in 1963, when it became inconvenient to make so many trips back and forth for work and the kids’ school and activities.

“All my kids played baseball,” he said.

He bought 10 acres of land, complete with a house and barn, for $11,000.

“I don’t think you could get an outhouse for that now,” he joked.

DeReu left Anaconda in 1966, after which he owned Rex’s Bar and Motel for three years, until 1968.

He said that over the years he tended bar in every bar from the Blue Moon to the Dew Drop, — the Trapline — 27 bars in total.

“When you tend bar you get to know people,” he said.

It was work.

“When you’re raising seven kids you can’t goof off too much,” he said. He still made time to play golf in West Glacier and he used to do a lot of bowling. He took care of the bowling alleys at the Anaconda clubhouse for a time as well. He’s bowled a 300.

Like his kids, he also played baseball. “I played in Whitefish. I could have went to the big boys back when I was in Minnesota, for a team in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,” he said.

After Rex’s, DeReu worked at Plum Creek as a millwright until he retired in 1983.

“Plum Creek was the last job I had and it served me real well,” he said. “I was sad to see they sold out.”

“I’ve been retired, mostly just tired, for 33 years now,” DeReu said. He still does the odd job every now and then, but “it’s getting easier to sit around.”

DeReu started playing pinochle at the senior citizen’s center 10 or 15 years ago, he estimated, and is an officer there, as well as being an Eagles Club officer.

He thinks things have changed quite a bit in Columbia Falls, but, “it’s a nice little town, a friendly, family situation,” he said. “I enjoy it here.”

At 93, DeReu is still making jokes about his childhood.

“When I was growing up, they hadn’t invented electricity yet. You had to watch TV with a candle!” he laughed.

Looking back on his life, DeReu said, “Time goes on, and it’s amazing how fast it goes.”