An Unusual Town Produces an Unusual Egg

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library: This item was found in The Chesaw News, July 5, 1912:

A FREAK EGG

An Egg Within An Egg, Both Perfect, At Baker Ranch.

"Mrs. Stanton Baker is among the many who have turned their attention to poultry raising on a little larger scale than usual this season, having invested in blooded stock from a well known outside breeder of leghorns. While the season is yet too young for anyone to come forward with a claim for honors in producing something unusual or phenomenal in the bird line, Mrs. Baker is entitled to the 'bun' as the possessor of the greatest freak of an egg this country has produced, and one which would hardly be found in a decade anywhere, although one such specimen was reported found." "The egg measured 8 inches around the long way, 7 1/2 inches the shortest place, and weighed very little less than a half pound. Had there been any geese around the farm it would have been credited up to them, but it was laid by a hen and handled with care as its importance was fully realized. After a few days curiosity prompted the breaking of the egg and here the real surprise was sprung. It contained the full ingredients that customarily accompany a slice of ham to the farm table, but it also contained another perfectly formed and normal sized egg with hard shell. The inner egg was also broken and was found to be perfect as a normal product." As it turns out, finding an egg within an egg is highly unusual, but more common than you might think. In fact, as I was compiling this random news piece, WSL's National Digital Newspaper Program Coordinator Shawn Schollmeyer pointed out a new egg within an egg story in the news out of Abilene, Texas on June 5, 2012.

It is the town of Chesaw itself that is just as unusual as the egg within the egg. Although you can still see a very small place called Chesaw on a map in the highlands of Okanogan County, most of the information to be found on this settlement are in books about ghost towns and former boom towns in Washington State. Norman D. Weis provides an unflattering and unvarnished summary of the history of the place in his Ghost Towns of the Northwest (1971): "Chesaw was named after 'Chee-Saw,' early Chinese settler who took an Indian wife and settled near a commonly traveled ford on Meyer's Creek. In the 1800's visitors to Chee-Saw's Ford spotted some traces of gold in the creek. Word of the gold spread, but since the area was in the Colville Indian Reservation, no prospecting was allowed. In 1896, with morals adjusted to fit the pocketbook, the white man opened half the reservation to mineral claims. Promptly, most of the good pastures and fields were taken by whites as placer claims. The townsite of Chesaw was laid out on land obtained by filing a half-dozen false claims side by side. Some honest mineral claims were made, however, on outcrops that looked promising ... By 1900 Chesaw was a sizeable log community of two hundred population. It grew rapidly into a full-blown town with two three-story frame hotels, and a population (on a Saturday night, and counting dogs) that neared the one-thousand mark." Maybe the egg within an egg was an omen. By 1920 the town was declining rapidly. The Greenwood Saloon, one of many such establishments in Chesaw, added a steeple and bell on the roof, converting the structure's use to serving as local Methodist Church-- perhaps as a sign of belatedly making up for the method of founding the settlement. But apparently the effort was too little too late. For further reading see Okanogan Highland Album (1987) and Okanogan Highland Echoes (1962 and 1986 editions)