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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Free Home Page Stories & Photos
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

Most Recently Posted Features, April 2008

Calendar

2007-08 stories sorted by area

Meet with the editor

Journal history shows

Thanks to David Wilma and Priscilla Long of historylink.org, we have one of those whiz-bang photos that only computer cognoscenti know how to compose. Hint: it takes a lot of work and we are very grateful. They recently took a photo, looking north on Metcalf Street in downtown Sedro-Woolley and matched it nearly seamlessly to a circa-1910-to-1922 postcard of the exact same view. We know the date range because in the latter year, the Knights of Pythias Lodge added two more stories to their building in the left center of the photo, as you will see when it transforms before your eyes. The Princess Theater was then on the ground floor and present-owner Paul Kelly, of Cascade Fabrics, has designed his store to retain the old projection booth. Just to the left was the post office, which Skagit Realty also erected in 1910 on the location where it stood until the present post office was erected in 1939. Click on the postcard photo above to see the whizbang version; we did not upload it here because — Warning! — it takes a long while to upload for those dial-up users like me. If anyone else has "Then and Now" photos like this, please email us. HistoryLink is the most important history resource on the web in Washington state.

Thinking about gifts for reunions, birthdays or other occasions? Due to continued popular demand, in the interest of furthering our "open source" policy, we have assembled a collection of CDs that include MS Word files of our pioneer profiles and town profiles from years 1-5, so that you can print them individually at your convenience, or for people who do not have access to the Internet. They are organized by region: Sedro-Woolley & surrounding area; Upper Skagit River from Utopia to Cascades plus logging, hunting and fishing; Western Skagit County and other counties. CD #1 for the Sedro-Woolley is already being shipped; the other two are in production. See our site with details of what is offered and the prices and ordering information.

Click on photo for story:

David G. McIntyre

Gertrude Sawyer

Two-Spot Lokey at the entrance to Sedro-Woolley

New features posted most recently:
In addition, at this site you will find the nuts-and-bolts stories of pioneer life, including homesteading, exploration and many more subjects. Return to home page or portal links to subjects and towns and areas. See our Calendar.

Concrete Grade School burns April 27, 2008. Updated May 1: the arsonists are discovered and the building owner is interviewed.
Read about upcoming history shows in Bow on May 17 and Mount Vernon on June 14. And see the Bow History Project page.
On May 3 and 4, at 1 p.m., 15th Alabama Civil War reenactors stage mock battles each day at Marblemount. You can also tour their bivouac area near the North Cascades Business Association Building and watch them drill from 10-12 both mornings. Phone (360) 873-4150 or 873-2103 for details.
Our dear friend Niles Chapman "Sonny" Jordan died March 15. See his obituary here and after Thursday, read our recent last interview with him, including his Major League Baseball days and his historic family.
Read more about what's new in historic Sedro-Woolley: Janicki Industries buys old city hall & new city hall opens on Metcalf . . . Leo's Pizza becomes Coconut Kenny's. . Article also includes: Sporting Goods store coming this summer on Metcalf Street; Boondocks reopens Townsend Hall in downtown Woolley; Just Moe's opens across the street from the old Castle Tavern; DC's Printing and Awards replaces Glenn Allen Jewelers.
On Sunday, April 27, Lynn Lennox of the Blanchard Wedding Chapel hosted a 100th Birthday Party for Egbert "Edward" R. Murrow. See the Murrow Portal Section for all the stories about him and the towns of Blanchard and Fravel. Note change in date from April 20.
Read about how and when Mortimer Cook's town of Bug became Sedro in May 1885.
David M. Donnelly, Woolley pioneer and early butcher, postmaster and dairyman who was honored at 2006 Sedro-Woolley Founders Days. He was also the financial backer of the Sedro-Woolley Courier newspaper, the third in town, in 1901.
Have you ever wondered about the details of how moonshine was marketed during the Prohibition era? Otto Peterson, patriarch of a fascinating Marblemount family, told us how. Also see the Journal Introduction to Prohibition in Skagit County.
John Fravel, namesake of the Oyster Bay/Chuckanut town that became Blanchard. Updated with new information, including the obituary of his mysterious father-in-law, George Hall Richardson.
Yes, it's snowing today (late March — and April 19!) in Sedro-Woolley. Read about the Big Snow of 1916, when Skagit county was shut off from the outside world for a month and the Skagit river was frozen over. Snow drifted 5 feet high in old Woolley. Including Ray Jordan's memories of the 1916 snow.
Bus Jungquist Furniture in Sedro-Woolley closes in April 2008 after 40-plus years on Metcalf Street. The walls and floor are almost bare but there are a few nuggets left, including an antique safe.
The original Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop, circa 1921, and the modern evolved pioneer clothing store, in its location since 1958 and celebrating 86 years in business.
Our Wish List: Copies of photos, documents and articles that we would like to see . . . donated computer items we need . . . names searched for that we are tracking.
Recommended books to read, including this month, Blake Warner's new book, Early Snohomish. And last month's updated reviews of Washington, Then and Now by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard; The Nooksacht's Trail and Crossing by James Berg; Lake Chelan in the 1890s, by Robert Byrd.
Obituaries: Glenn Hall, Sedro-Woolley teacher for 36 years. Albert Frank, the best friend Concrete/Grasmere ever had. John Stendal. Pat Hegg Brown and Fred Hegg. Iris Mae Torset. Elsie Meyer.
Ku Klux Klan in Sedro-Woolley 1920s, and an overview of the KKK in Washington state and nationwide.
The Two-Spot Lokey at the entrance to Woolley. Puget Sound & Baker River Railroad's logging legacy welcomes visitors.
Sedro-Woolley Museum, 15 years of work by volunteers, without government stipends.
See more recent new features below. See Oldies but Goodies from our archives. And see new featured series shared from recent issues of our Journal Subscribers Magazine

Recent featured pioneer series from our Journal Subscribers Magazine Here are some stories that originated in our Subscribers Edition, which features our in-depth research, original exclusive stories, and transcriptions of rare materials — and is the source for 70 percent of our features.

First marriage licenses in Skagit county, 1884-86.
Complete growing list of all the Mollie Dowdle stories in the Journal, and the 1966 introduction that the Skagit Valley Herald wrote about her.
Dirty Dan Harris, the legendary founder of Fairhaven, now South Bellingham. An introduction to our in-depth research in seven parts about Harris, who came to Bellingham Bay in 1853, the year that Washington became a territory. Includes discoveries about Dr. and Mrs. Andrew S. Shorb of Los Angeles, who helped Harris spend his newly acquired fortune after selling the townsite to Nelson Bennett, and extensive annotations about early Whatcom history and its pioneers. Introduction and links to Journal series.
William Lightfoot Visscher: poet, troubadour, 1890s editor in Fairhaven and Tacoma; nationwide performer & author. Introduction and links to Journal series.
Read the full review of this fine book, Samish Island, a History, by Sue and Fred Miller, which all Skagit history-lovers will want to read, along with those who want to learn about the geology of the Puget Sound area and the "pre-history" of the Indians of the archipelago before the white settlers arrived.
Sam Strom, the young Count of Monte Cristo, Norwegian immigrant of 1893, who worked the mines, later became a lawman and shared this memoir.
William R. "Blanket Bill" Jarman, the first full study in 50 years about the first Whatcom/Skagit settler and all the myths surrounding him. Introduction and links to Journal series.

Oldies but Goodies Features that originated in the early years of our project, from 2000-05

The four British bachelors who staked out homesteads from future-Sedro to Sterling, starting in 1878, Batey, Hart, Dunlop and Woods.

Read our exclusive two-part story on Birdsey Minkler, his mill, his family and the upper Skagit river that results from ten years of research and correspondence with his descendents..

P.A. Woolley, profile of his family and his company town.

Introduction to and biography of Mortimer Cook, founder of Bug/Sedro.

See 6 rare old photos about the 3 trains in the famous 1890s Sedro-Woolley triangle

Samuel Simpson Tingley, Washington Territory pioneer of 1859, who settled on the north fork of the Skagit in 1867 and then Day Creek in 1880.

The story of the Hammer, Green and Parker families who made such an impact on Sedro-Woolley and Lincoln, Kansas, and inspired the new Hammer Heritage Square.

Transcription of two pages from the Dec. 1, 1949, issue of the Courier-Times, which includes photos and details of the severe flood; plus history of the Wildcat Steelhead Club, the first Great Northern passenger in 17 years; and how violinist Floyd Maxwell bagged his fifth deer despite losing an arm and both legs; plus several more stories. And old Newspaper Logs with links to all our transcriptions on the site, dating from 1878 on.

Amasa Peg-Leg Everett, the 1870s settler who discovered coal, lost a leg and then discovered the limestone that led to the cement companies and Baker City/Concrete.

Timeline of Sedro and Woolley through the merger in 1898. We know that Sedro and Woolley merged in December 1898 but did you know that the city council voted to consolidate the towns as early as 1891?

Who was The Duke of Duke's Hill? The real story versus the many myths. And read about Bottomless Lake, where he lived, and see a photo essay about the lake, where many pioneer kids learned to swim.

James B. Hamilton, 1900 clerk for Bingham's Woolley bank. And his Baker Lake-pioneer parents, Frank and Adelaide Hamilton

Frank Wilkeson, mining engineer, civil war veteran and author and boomer who lived in Hamilton, Fairhaven and Chelan from the 1880s to 1900 and whose New York Times columns put Skagit County on the national map.

Our exclusive profile of Harrison Clothier and the birth of Mount Vernon, the town he founded with Edward G. English in 1877 — Part one — Part two, featuring English, will come in 2008.

Closing Northern State Hospital: we reprint articles from the 1968-78 time period when the hospital was being closed and then reborn as a different facility. And the introduction to the Northern State portal, one of the three most popular sections.

As we watch the magnificent McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon host a varied entertainment venue, readers often inquire about where the endowment came from that paid for the building. The seed money came after the death of an old friend and a truly generous man, Jack McIntyre. Read about his family and the Skagit Steel business at this introduction site, with a timeline for the business from 1902 and links to other stories about the business and the family of David G. McIntyre, Sedro-Woolley's visionary from Michigan and truly a giant of Washington industry.

Gertrude Sawyer, nurse and matron at the old Memorial Hospital in Sedro-Woolley.

See the extensive list of all Sedro-Woolley-related stories in our Check out Sedro-Woolley First section.

We are updating our Hamilton History section this winter. Here is the link to the Introduction site. We hope that readers will help us as we update the present stories and add new chapters about historic Hamilton families.
Humor on the frontier

Three readers' favorites of Skagit County humor features — Otto Klement: Hogtied! Good ole boys in 1882 Lyman — devil rum, hijinks and cooking a pig . . . Frank Wilkeson — Two hobos of old Bug/Sedro, from the Dec. 14, 1890, New York Times.

From Whatcom County and Fairhaven. Our own research about the apocryphal Consolidated Black Cat Co. Ltd., the most famous story about Mr. Wardner while he lived in Fairhaven. He fooled a gullible reporter and several subsequent historians and story-tellers by referring to Sam Weller, a fictional character from The Pickwick Papers.
Floods and snow stories, timely for the season

The Big Snow of March 1916, when Skagit county was shut off from the outside world for a month and the Skagit river was frozen over. Snow drifted 5 feet high in old Woolley. Including Ray Jordan's memories of the 1916 snow.

The Mother of all Skagit Floods, 1815 through the twin floods of 1896-97 and the two November 1990 floods that may have been the worst in tandem.

Larry Kunzler and Dan Berentson launch a new website that explores Skagit river floods in depth — past, present and future. See the links to the huge collection of documents that they have posted that include hundreds of newspaper articles from throughout the 20th century.

In 1958, Otto Pressentin recalled the 1897 Skagit River flood that wiped out several downriver towns and how he helped save the books and bell from the Marblemount School where he was teaching. Part 4 of the Otto B.C. Series, 1911-21. Plus, we have now found the complete article that started the series, from April 24, 1958.

More new features

The real and the unreal story of Sedro and Woolley's merger in December 1898; myth debunked. And did you know that the towns almost merged as early as 1891? Deanna Ammons discovered the story.
Read about Skagit City, where settlement of the Skagit River region began, and about the annual July picnic at the 1902 Skagit City School on Fir Island. Would you like to help preserve the school?
R.I.P. Fred Slipper, 1917-2007. And see our full history of the Slipper and Sprinkle families of Hamilton in Issue 41 of our Subscribers-Paid Magazine.
Charles Woodworth, long-lost but now-found namesake for Sedro-Woolley's street. And a Tacoma promoter.
Amariah Kalloch III, namesake of Kalloch Road, Prairie pioneer and his famous family, which included the late Glenn Hall.
Read about how the Froggy Orchestra entertained settlers around the swamp that became P.A. Woolley's original company town in 1890, and how that area north of the railroad tracks is changing today, becoming almost chic.

Charles Wicker at 60
Charles J. Wicker arrives in Sedro in 1884, on the way to becoming county's most powerful real estate agent.
Rebuilding downtown Woolley post-July 1911 devastating fire. The birth of our brick downtown.
Now that the beautiful new Burlington Library has opened, we direct readers to our growing collection of features about Burlington pioneers and the town itself. This library is a dream come true and it also includes an expanded Skagit Valley Genealogical Society library, the best resource available for historians, students and genealogists.
A review of a wonderful book that illustrates the spirit, perseverance and consternation and challenges of the pioneer woman: Bold Spirit, by Linda Lawrence Hunt. The story of Helga Estby, Norwegian immigrant and mother of nine, who accepted a challenge to walk across America from Spokane in 1896, and collect a wager that would save her family home. This is the newest addition to our updated section about Frontier Women.
How Lyman was named and the very brief nearby village of Heffron, with amazing new photos.
See the extensive list of all Sedro-Woolley-related stories in our Check out Sedro-Woolley First section.
We are updating our Hamilton History section this winter. Here is the link to the Introduction site. We hope that readers will help us as we update the present stories and add new chapters about historic Hamilton families.
Introduction portal to the Goodell family, which had a marked impact on all of Washington Territory from the year it was formed in 1853, with special emphasis on Lewis, Thurston, Skagit and Whatcom counties. Capsule profiles of the major characters of the family and their biographers, especially Phoebe Goodell Judson, the mother of Lynden, and Edward Goodell, namesake of Goodell's Landing, founded in 1879 near future Newhalem during the gold rush. Updated 2007 with photos of the family.
Who wrote "Go West, Young Man"? Horace Greeley or John B. Soule?
Sedro-Woolley Fire Truck 2, dating from 1938, has been found in Whatcom County. Read about how you can help the Fire-fighters Association purchase and restore the truck.
Introduction to Darius Kinsey, Sedro-Woolley's most famous photographer; he lived here from 1897-1906. Also includes information about the complete Kinsey collection at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art and links to other Journal Kinsey stories and other background sources.
Washington Territory Attorney General James Metcalfe, namesake of Metcalf street in old Woolley and the man who pulled the strings to pave the way for P.A. Woolley's company town.

Return to top for newest posted features
See this page
for more recent-2007 postings, sorted by geographic area and category.

Calendar

May 3 and 4, 1 p.m., 15th Alabama Civil War reenactors stage mock battle at Marblemount. You can also tour their bivouac area near the North Cascades Business Association Building and watch them drill from 10-12 both mornings. Phone (360) 873-4150 or 873-2103 for details.

May 17, 1 p.m., Bow Church of Christ in downtown Bow. Third Annual Bow History Project, where guests are encouraged to bring documents and photos of Bow and the area. No admission cost and refreshments will be served. For details, phone (360) 766-6339 or 766-6070.

Thanks to all the history lovers who attended our Concrete History Show on Feb. 16, the best one so far, and Lynn Lennox's April 27 100th birthday party for Edward R. Murrow. We are now planning for a Mount Vernon show at 2 p.m., June 14. We will announce the location soon. The first half will be a presentation of photos and drawings of the original old town, before the fires of 1891 and 1900. The second half will be a walkabout of the revetment area, the scene of Main and Front streets and the original steamboat dock, where development is being planned. Please email if you would like to attend and if you have documents or photos that you would like to share or display.

The Skagit Valley Genealogical Society hosts the State Genealogical Society Conference, annual meeting and seminars over two days, May 16-17, 2008, at the First United Methodist Church, 1607 E. Division St., Mount Vernon. See the SVGS website for details of how the public can attend informative seminars on how to study genealogy and family trees, from the novice to the very committed.

We are pleased to announce that the new Hammer Heritage Square sign was installed on July 3, 2006, at the downtown park. It is made of bronze and weighs several hundred pounds, and cost $13,000, according to Mark Christ, architect.
Return to Newest Features . . Return to home page

Thanks and acknowledgments:
Thank you very much to Dr. Jesse Kennedy and Dr. Linda Newman-Kennedy, Ron and Pastor Wendy, Tingley, the late Reno Odlin, Dan and Maureen Royal, Peni Ramsey and Larry and Josef Kunzler for contributing computer items to the Journal. You made our Christmas very merry. And special thanks to Berniece Hoyt Leaf, who inspired us to launch this project long ago and has been our most ardent supporter. Meanwhile, our old, tired computers and accessories are getting sick. If you are trading up and would like to find a home for your old equipment, please let us know.
(In photo at right) June Burn, one of the finest Northwest writers, circa 1940s. See the Frontier Women section for the links to her biography, her book, Living High and her 1930s columns about the 1858 Fraser River gold rush.

If you have documents or photos that you would like to show the editor, please email so that we can meet in Sedro-Woolley at your convenience, or elsewhere. Also keep in mind that you can attend our history photos shows and show your material to the editor and other history lovers. Our next show is planning for 2:45-5 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 19, 2007. Read more details here.

After we complete our CD project, we would like to launch our satellite site, the Washington and British Columbia Travel Advisor. Do any of you remember the International Loop Magazine. We edited it back in the 1990s and described that wonderful 400-mile trip across the North Cascades on Highway 20 from Sedro-Woolley to the Columbia River, via Winthrop and Pateros, then up through Okanogan County to Osoyoos and British Columbia, and west on Canada One through Princeton and Hope and Chilliwack, and back down Highway 9 or I-5 to Skagit County, and all the little historic towns along the way in both countries, all with their own stories? Readers have requested a reprise, so watch for it. Do you have any information or photos to add, or do you have a town you want to learn more about? We would also like to spawn soon a section on the history of wine and vineyards of Washington, contrasted with the exploding number of wineries from less than 40 to well more than 100, in just 30 years. Our plans will be influenced by your interest in either or both ideas. Please email if you would like to see them and if there are particular subjects that would interest you in either spinoff site.

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See this Journal website for a timeline 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?

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Please report any broken links or files that do not open and we will send you the correct link. With more than 550 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 seventh 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
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Jones and Solveig Atterberry, NorthWest Properties Aiken & Associates: . . . See our website
Please let us show you residential and commercial property in Sedro-Woolley and Skagit County 2204 Riverside Drive, Mount Vernon, Washington . . . 360 708-8935 . . . 360 708-1729

Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop at 817 Metcalf Street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 86 years.

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.

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

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