A Woman Alone: Mona Bell, Sam Hill and the Mansion on Bonneville Rock by John A Harrison

Author: Harrison, John A. Number Of Pages: 140 Details: Living alone in the woods of northern Minnesota, Mona Bell once amazed a neighbor by shooting a dozen clothes pins off a line at 25 yards, firing revolvers from both hands in rapid succession. You tell the boys theres a woman back here who knows how to shoot, and will shoot, she said, calmly. He did. Eccentric, aggressive, frugal, and friendly to a point, Monas few neighbors sensed she was a woman with a past, perhaps a notorious past, but no one asked. In fact, her reclusive life in Minnesota was stark contrast to her earlier life in Oregon, where she had a brief, public role in Pacific Northwest history, battling the federal government after the Army commandeered her hilltop mansion and surrounding riverfront acreage in the Columbia River Gorge to build Bonneville Dam. Monas impressive mansion 40 miles east of Portland, Oregon, was built in 1928 as a gift from her lover, the flamboyant entrepreneur Sam Hill, whose lasting works