Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
600 of 700 total Free Home Page Stories & Photos
(Also see our Subscribers Magazine Sample)
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

Happy 10th Birthday August 26: The Journal test launch appeared on AOL that day.
Site founded Sept. 1, 2000. We passed 4 million page views on May 17, 2010. The home pages remain free of any charge. We need donations or subscriptions to continue. Please pass on this website link to your family, relatives, friends and clients. Express to portal/category buttons and newest features.

After a momentary setback, we return to post new stories and columns. As a teaser, we will soon display and conduct a show about glass negatives that have surfaced after 130 years. To prepare, read about: Samuel S. Tingley, who came to Washington Territory in 1859, homesteaded on the Skagit River and married one of the Mercer Girls of 1866
We will present a special history show for the Whatcom County Genealogical Sept. 13, 7 p.m. St Paul's Episcopal Church 2117 Walnut St. by corner of Holly and Broadway in Bellingham. Enter on Walnut St. (The main entrance faces Eldridge Ave). Parking lot is across the street. Featuring: Mark Twain in Fairhaven 1895; NY Times columnist Frank Wilkeson in Whatcom & Skagit 1890s & notorious Marshal Winfield Scott Parker of Fairhaven. Email for details. Special guests (Samuel Clemens sent a maybe).
Everyone in Sedro-Woolley is preparing for the 97th birthday of Joe Nemo, the grandson of pioneer Joseph DeBay. Happy birthday, Joe; we'll report on the presents.
Statement re: Publisher's cancer and chemo linked below

Important: This is our Free Home Page. If you are looking for the full Contents Links for our Subscribers Magazine, check the current-issue link in your email. Also note: some stories still have a Stumpranchonline prefix because we originally partnered with Dan Royal's fine website and we have not finished moving them.

Left: Bowman Bay, overlooking Deception Pass, courtesy of our new Photographer of the Month, Jared Rogers

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Thousands of Skagit Valley birds, courtesy of Skagit County Historical Museum, which continues their new display, Harvesting the Light: Images of Contemporary Skagit Farm Life through September 27.

The Journal will continue with updates The publisher discovered that his cancer is coming back and he begins a series of chemo treatments in July. He is full confident that the treatment will be successful and he intends to continue updating the website and posting new articles in the magazine, with the help of readers. He gives thanks to Drs. Shintabe, Muff and Abbott and a whole coterie of medical personnel, nurses and staff of the North Puget Oncology Center in Sedro-Woolley, whom he believes saved his life.

Join the NW Washington History Detectives present public history shows: July 18 at Skagit City School and July 31 at Bow. See link for details and how to join the group, which is optional.
Dick Harris shares a poem, This River Sings, from his upcoming book, drafted at the memorial service for his brother Jim. Update: We also feature another poem by Dick in our Puget Sound Mail column, this one about the old Porter Rose that we all just saw at the last History Detectives meetup at the Tom Porter cabin in Rockport.
Summer is bringing many changes to downtown Sedro-Woolley, as Pat Farrell prepares the former Bus Jungquist building to be the home of an antique and/or furniture mall and Dyrk Meyers and the Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop crew settles into their new location on Metcalf Street, after after nearly 52 years in the same location next door. Read about it on the What's New in Sedro-Woolley page.
Have you read our introduction to our planned Food & Wine portal? Bold and old Zinfandel from Sausal Winery in Sonoma County. Please help us start our Calendar section for historical events and family and school reunions coming up or planned for 2010. Can you help with events and dates? And read about the Audette brothers turning the Big Rock Store into the Big Rock Store/Café.

Follow these links below to portal sections
of the areas and subjects that interest you:

Click on the underscored Sedro-Woolley link above for an interactive map showing the location of Skagit County at the far northwest corner of Washington and the United States.

Sedro-Woolley

Check out Sedro-Woolley First

Bug through Sedro-Woolley

Reader questions answered

Early timeline

Founders Mortimer Cook — P.A. Woolley — 4 British bachelors.

Areas surrounding Sedro-Woolley in all 4 directions

includes: Prairies, Duke's Hill, Northern State Hospital, Sterling, Skiyou, South of Skagit; Clearlake, Biglake, McMurray

Our monthly and occasional column: the Puget Sound Mail

Upper Skagit River: Utopia to Cascades

includes: north of Skagit from Utopia to the dams and Cascades, Sauk River-Illabot Creek area, and the creeks of Skagit's south shore

West Skagit County: Hwy 99 to Sound

includes: Mount Vernon to Belfast, west to Fidalgo, south to LaConner/Fir Island/Conway, north to Burlington, Blanchard, Edison, Alger & Samish

Logging Section

includes: mills, donkey engines, equipment and logging railroads
Maps … Mining

Whatcom, the mother county til 1883;

Snohomish County, source of many early Skagit pioneers

The trains of the Northwest

includes: Fairhaven & Southern; Seattle & Northern; Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern

Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Puget Sound & Baker River, and more

Skagit County stories that are countywide, that involve more than one town or more than one family and town or that do not fit in any other county portal.
Stories about the Skagit River Floods history very short stories in Odds and Ends Portal Memoirs by pioneers & descendants Puget Sound Mail, our monthly column Food & Wine History

Frontier Women

includes: Territorial Daughters, and biographies of and by pioneer women
Bios and obits, men and women, pioneers and descendants 29 Ray Jordan stories

Suggested reading and museums

Transcriptions old newspapers

Regional Museums

That is the Atlanta Home Hotel above, created on Samish Island by former Whatcom Sheriff G.W.L. Allen. Allen is just one of the most important pioneers whom we will profile in depth in the 2010 optional Journal Subscribers Magazine, along with Mortimer Cook, the founder of Sedro; James A. Power, publisher of the Puget Sound Mail; Michael Padden, of Lake Padden, and several others. All the more reason to subscribe as we enter our tenth year.

Click here for the links to these and other newest free homepage features:Sept. 13 Bellingham history show … 1900 Prohibition newsletter … ?s about Northern Pacific Railroad … Bow1906 History Book transcriptions … Dick Harris Skagit River poems … 1906 Illustrated History annotated transcripts … Nellie Coupe, educator … River Pigs and Cayuses pioneer profiles … Earliest Skagit saloons … Founders of Mount Vernon — Edward G. English, kidnapped? … Skiyou pioneer Lawrence Seabury's memories of 1902 … Junius B. Alexander of Sedro … Jim Crow in the NW: Coon Chicken Inn … Cascade Pass Road & Hwy 20 … Walter Washington deLacy & 1858 Fraser River Gold Rush road … E.R. Million, early Mount Vernon attorney …… Ray Jordan's history of Hoogdal … Woolley's 3-Railroads triangle … Index of 29 Ray Jordan stories … Birth and timeline of Skagit Steel … Dolbeer Donkey & Shay Locomotive … How they marketed booze in Prohibition … … Two-Spot Locomotive Sedro-Woolley … KKK in Sedro-Woolley 1920s

Ella Nicholls, RSVP volunteer, passed away in May 2010 at age 98

Optional Subscribers Journal online — Click here for a peek at the New Issue 51: 99 autobiographical vignettes by old-timer RSVP volunteers in 1989; Updated history of early Northwest schools; Eloise Ingman Stendal recalls Meadow School; Samuel Shea, Rockport area homesteader & bar and pool-hall owner; History of the Eagles Aerie, Sedro-Woolley — Mystery solved; it began in 1902, with history of the state and national Eagles, the fraternal lodge that began in Seattle in 1898; We correct the record: Lorenzo Lyman was a lawyer, not a doctor.; Handy new portals: 1. Odds and Ends Portal, includes stories that are brief; and 2. Memoirs Portal for finding autobiographies and vignettes.

See this Journal Timeline website of local, state, national, international events for years of the pioneer period.

Did you enjoy this story? Remember, as with all our features, this story is a draft and will evolve as we discover more information and photos. This process continues until we eventually compile a book about Northwest history. Can you help?

Remember; we welcome correction & criticism.

Please report any broken links or files that do not open and we will send you the correct link. With more than 700 features, we depend on your report. Thank you.

Read about how you can order CDs that include our photo features from the first five years of our Subscribers Edition. Perfect for gifts.

You can click the donation button to contribute to the rising costs of this site. You can also subscribe to our optional Subscribers-Paid Journal magazine online, which has entered its ninth year with exclusive stories, in-depth research and photos that are shared with our subscribers first. You can go here to read the preview edition to see examples of our in-depth research or read how and why to subscribe.

You can read the history websites about our prime sponsors
Would you like information about how to join them in advertising?

Our newest sponsor: Cygnus Gallery, 109 Commercial St., half-block uphill from Main Street, LaConner. Open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am to 5 p.m., featuring new monthly shows with many artists, many local. Across the street from Maple Hall, 1886 Bank Building and Marcus Anderson's 1969 historic cabin. Their website will be up in early 2010.

Oliver-Hammer Clothes Shop at 817 Metcalf Street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 88 years.

Peace and quiet at the Alpine RV Park, just north of Marblemount on Hwy 20, day, week or month, perfect for hunting or fishing
Park your RV or pitch a tent by the Skagit River, just a short drive from Winthrop or Sedro-Woolley

Joy's Sedro-Woolley Bakery-Cafe at 823 Metcalf Street in downtown Sedro-Woolley.

Check out Sedro-Woolley First section for links to all stories and reasons to shop here first
or make this your destination on your visit or vacation.

Are you looking to buy or sell a historic property, business or residence?
We may be able to assist. Email us for details.

Did you find what you were seeking? We have helped many people find individual names or places, so email if you have any difficulty.

Tip: Put quotation marks around a specific name or item of two words or more, and then experiment with different combinations of the words without quote marks. We are currently researching some of the names most recently searched for — check the list here. Maybe you have searched for one of them?

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