If the late Norman Rockwell has needed inspiration for a painting of rural America, he could have visited Glenwood on a crisp, clear, autumn day.

Stately farmhouses, some dating to the last century, crown the gently rolling hills. Picturesque barns watch over green fields where contented cows munch tender grass.

Glenwood lies about 10 miles northeast of Vancouver. Essentially rural, the district has not yet experienced growing pains, although extensive subdivision building has taken place at the southern fringe.

At the center of the Glenwood community sits two schools of the Battle Ground School District – Laurin Middle School, with an enrollment of 486, and Glenwood Heights Elementary, enrollment 509.

Historic Glenwood was situated around the intersection of Northeast 119th Street and Northeast 87th Avenue. The only church remaining in Glenwood – St. John's Catholic Church – sits on the southeast corner of this intersection.

This historic church, originally in the St. John's district just north of Vancouver, was relocated in 1909. The present church building was relocated in 1909. The present church was dedicated in 1950.

It is not known exactly who was the first pioneer to settle in Glenwood, but old maps list the homesteads of Uriah Groat, John McWilliams, James Cody, Gearsham Van Atta, Frederick Dietderich, Gottlieb and John Wagonblast, James Rambo, John Burgy and others.

Many of their descendants still farm the land upon which their ancestors broke the soil.

A.W. Zimmerman lives in a big, white house less than one-half mile from where he was born in 1904. His grandparents, Mr. And Mrs. Gabriel Zimmerman, left Iowa in 1871 and settled on their farm the following year, erecting a log cabin.

The Glenwood School was built on the northwest corner of this farm in 1889. The school was operated until after Glenwood merged with Battle Ground in 1955. The school building now sits vacant at the intersection of Northeast 87th Avenue and Northeast 134th Street.

"My grandparents' farm served as a way station for travelers headed for Marble's sawmill on Salmon Creek," said A.W. Zimmerman. "When grandmother went to bed at night, she never knew how many people she'd be serving breakfast in the morning."

Glenwood is bisected by the Longview, Portland and Northern railroad tracks. Zimmerman recalled that his father used to cut cordwood into two-foot lengths to be burned in the locomotive of the early trains.

"The railroad was originally known as the Portland, Vancouver and Yakima and ended at 119th Street then," Zimmerman said. "There was no turntable, so the train had to back all the way to Vancouver."

Later, this railroad was extended north to Chelatchie Prairie but never reached its intended destination of Yakima.

Now, just one train each day rolls past the Zimmerman farm at 9504 N.E. 119th.

At one time, when the short-line railroad carried passengers, there were two stations in the Glenwood area – Homan and Laurin. Zimmerman said the railroad company gave the stations these names to avoid confusion with Glenwood, a community in Klickitat County.

Gabriel Zimmerman had the second brickyard in Clark County (the Hidden firm in Vancouver was the first) and manufactured bricks sold in Vancouver and elsewhere. The clay for the bricks was dug from the hillside near the old school.

Zimmerman laughs when he talks about Glenwood's famous tree, a massive oak that sat right in the middle of 87th Avenue.

"My father was constructing that road and Bert Blaker (county commissioner) told him not to cut the tree down," Zimmerman said. "Blaker said having a tree in the middle of the street might slow some of those fool drivers down.

"But, Blaker's own son was the first driver to run into the tree."

The county commissioners finally ordered the tree removed in 1956.