By Jessica Sylvanus
Okanogan Centennial
Planning Committee

     On a sultry afternoon in May 13, 1906, a young Dakotan, Harry Kerr, disembarked from the steamship Enterprise, and after inquiring about accommodations, walked to the nearby Okanogan Hotel.
     After securing a room, he went for a stroll around the new town of Pogue to appraise the place.
     He had in his possession a letter from Dr. Joseph I. Pogue, who was the state senator from the district. Dr. Pogue had invited Kerr to start a bank at the new town.
     Kerr had only been in Washington state for two weeks, and his heart remained with the level green fields of the Dakota prairies.
     He thought Pogue was crude looking. He noticed that there was not one drop of paint on the buildings, and that they were made of rough lumber.
     His mood worsened as he further explored Pogue. The streets were mere trails in the rocky, sagebrush-covered land.
     The first person he met to visit with was the colorful Capt. Charles Bureau, who tried to sell him a piece of property, 25 by 25 feet, on the corner of P Street and Second Avenue for $25.
     Kerr did buy it later, but he was not favorably impressed with Capt. Bureau, and thought the captain was garrulous and nosey.
     Kerr looked at the businesses: A general store was run by Davidson-Richard; B.H. Richards was the postmaster, Capt. Bureau was working on his hotel, a three-story building that resembled a steamship.
     "Dad" Harris conducted a saloon, Hub Carlton had a harness shop and Mrs. H.L. Owens ran an eatery in a frame shack. H.L. Owens had a livery stable, Riste and Stansbury ran the Alma Mercantile Co., Chris Pein was proprietor of the City Meat Market, H.S. Irwin and A.M. Storch ran a real estate office.
     "Old Man" Kahlow had his Kahlow livery barn and Charles Lindsay had a barber shop in Hub Carlton's building. That was Pogue.
     To the south, Alma consisted of the Alma Hotel, run by W.H. Van Duyn, and a general store conducted by W.S. Shumway.
     The next day Kerr hired a team from William Kahlow and headed for the Pogue ranch. When he arrived there, he and Dr. Pogue rode on horseback to look over the ranch and the flat.
     Dr. Pogue didn't seem much interested in Pogue any more. Kerr wondered about this and was puzzled.
     When he returned to Pogue he discovered that both the Alma and Pogue factions, when they weren't pulling each other apart, preferred the name Okanogan for the town. But they weren't ready to settle the problem yet.
     Partisans tried to involve him by saying that " 'If certain things were permitted the town would go that way. I always said, 'I do not care which way it goes, just so it goes.' "
     Harry Kerr decided to start his bank and resolved the problem of the town name at least as far as the bank was concerned: Checks and stationery were headed "Alma (Pogue post office)."
     To help it go, he rented a building and opened up the Okanogan Valley Bank in temporary quarters June 18, 1906.
     Meanwhile, he purchased the lot and hired a builder to erect the new bank building, which was completed by mid-summer.
     In November 1906, Frank Read invited Kerr to a meeting where the town's name was changed to Okanogan, amid cheers and applause.
     In October 1907, Okanogan was incorporated as a town, and Kerr was elected the first mayor.
     He and his family used the bank building for their home until 1908.
     You could certainly say that Harry Kerr succeeded in whatever he did. But one activity that he pushed fell quite flat.
     He and about 20 newcomers decided to sponsor a dance, which was to be held in Keen Hall. Most of the people had come from the Midwest, where "proper" dances that were fit for respectable people were by invitation only.
     No one would dream of going to a public dance. Saloon proprietors, bartenders and the floating population were not invited! Some perfectly respectable people were omitted through an oversight.
     The time arrived for the dance. Word got out to the respectable folks that the lowlife and saloon crowd planned to crash the dance and shoot it up.
     Kerr and two of his friends hired armed guards to protect the invitees. Everyone was in the hall before dark and they did not leave it until daylight.
     Kerr decided that Okanogan was not the place for an invitation dance.
     Editor's note: The information for this article comes from Harry Kerr's little book, "A History of the Town of Okanogan; Souvenir of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of The First National Bank of Okanogan, June Eighteenth, 1931." The bank's name was changed in 1908.
 

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