Pioneer of West Called By Death

From the "Spokane Chronicle."

December 24, 1936

Daniel Devine, age 94, resident of the Down River section more than 40 years, and sometimes known as the "hermit," died Wednesday at a local hospital of the infirmities of old age.

Born January 10, 1842, in Kansas City, he started roving the west at an early age, but not before he had been captured and pressed into the Condeferate army for six months in Arkansas. Following the war he drove wagon trains on the plains and was working with the Union Pacific tracklaying crew when the golden spoke was driven at Promontory Point, Utah, and later was foreman of a hard rock crew when the Canadian Pacific drove tunnels through the Rockies and the Selkirks.

He came to Spokane in the late '80s and foreman on a construction crew when the Seattle and Lake Shore railroad was pushed from Spokane to a point near Coulee City before being abandoned.

During the war he was watchman for several Great Northern bridges near the city and has made his livelihood up to several years ago by salvaging junk from the gravel bars along the Spokane river.

Always a student of current events, he had a keen insight to pioneer history of the northwest and was personally acquainted with the late William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody when that plainsman was furnishing buffalo beef to the construction crews on the Central Pacific railroad. He had but few close friends.

The body is at Hazen & Jaeger's awaiting funeral arrangements.