The Pine Grove: Oil on Canvas --20x40. In Columbia County's heyday, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many homesteaders tried their luck in the the rolling meadows of the highlands. Sometimes, the only evidence remaining of their lives here is a grove of trees, planted to surround and protect the home cabin, now long gone. I never come up here without thinking about these people, about their hopes and their plans for the future, about their lives and the time they invested into building their dreams. Original oil painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Lombardy Homestead: Oil on Canvas -- 14x18. You'd never know it now, but in the 19th century Dayton, WA was a growing, up-and-coming, thoroughly modern budding metropolis, in the running to be considered as capitol for the newly formed state of Washington. There were two major railroad depots, people were flooding the area, and homesteads emerged everywhere.

Today, Dayton is the larger of two cities in the most economically challenged county in the state (the other town is Starbuck, population 150, and no, it doesn't have a Starbucks), incidentally boasting the only traffic light in the county, on the corner of Main and Second Streets.

I never drive by this old homestead without marveling at its incredible view, as well as mourning that it is, indeed, abandoned. I always nurture the hope that the family that built it, no doubt with so much hope and excitement for the future, was able to pick up the pieces of their lives and put them together successfully wherever it was they later had to move. There are many, many such old homesteads in this area, representing many, many hopes for the future.

Original oil painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.