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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

Page 5: More new features posted in 2007

Sedro-Woolley

Towns nearby
Sedro-Woolley

Upriver

Western
county

Nearby counties
Statewide WA

Categories, including: Obituaries,
Frontier Women, Library, books to read, background

Thanks to all the history lovers who attended our Burlington Library show on October 18. So many people wrote in about conflicts about this date that we have scheduled a follow-up show on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 19, from 2:45-5 p.m. in the same room. We also hope to present three or four future shows in various locations over the next year. Read more details here and please email us if you are interested in attending or have suggestions for the show.

Sedro-Woolley features:

Charles J. Wicker Sr at 60.

Harold Renfro as a young man, photographed at Hermsmeyer Studio in his costume for a Fourth of July celebration.
Click thumbnail photos for story.

On Aug. 26, 2000, we launched the Journal with one page, our overview of Sedro-Woolley history on an aol domain, the first of four domains leading to the present one. For the first time in four years, we have updated, expanded and fully annotated that basic story, From Bug to the Bughouse.
The Kelley Strip, no man's land owned by developer Norman R. Kelley on the border between Sedro and Woolley until 1906. Do you think you know where Sedro ended and Woolley began, geographically?
James and Blanche Gray, the Palace Tavern and Sedro-Woolley's earliest libraries, including the Carnegie Library of 1915-63
Sedro-Woolley's Hal's Drive-in started as the first drive-in in the county in 1949, a Dairy Queen
Transcription of the April 2, 1903, edition of the Skagit County Times of Sedro-Woolley. Includes the first mention of the Dempsey Brothers upper-Skagit River logging operations, the Goat Trail to Slate Creek mines, logging and shingle mills when a glut hit the market, the Sterling Mill and copies of actual ads.
History of the Sedro-Woolley Chamber of Commerce, which dates back to 1896.
Sedro-Woolley Baptists celebrate their centennial. Original congregation here in 1891.
For the full list of our collections of Odds and Edds short newspaper features about Sedro-Woolley, see our introduction to the Odds and Ends section, short stories from several areas. All five collections can now be accessed, shared from our Subscribers Magazine Archives.
Old Woolley's Opera House, the Bowery Square and the building that became the Moose Club, fully updated from our recent newspaper research.
Loggerodeo, the celebration that put Sedro-Woolley on the 4th of July map starting in 1948, photos from the first Loggerodeo Grand Parade plus 4th of July festivities in the city and county dating back to 1880. Also see the photographs of the first Loggerodeo Parade of 1948, which were taken by the late Bert Webber who died in 2006 in Oregon after a long publishing career there.
Odds and Ends about Sedro-Woolley, Part One,, Part Two, Part One. See the for details of each story. Together they include more than two dozen items.
Odds and Ends short stories about historic businesses and buildings in Sedro-Woolley, Part One, Part Two. See the for details of each story. Together they include more than two dozen items.
Sedro-Woolley High School wrestlers won their Sweet Sixth straight state championship in February 2007. It was their 11th title overall, including the first state tournament in 1953.
The robbery of the First National Bank of Sedro-Woolley on Oct. 17, 1914. Includes layout of the town and businesses at that time, the crime wave of Summer 1914 and the True-Love bandit.
A descendant of J.B. Crane, a member of the 1914 posse that chased the bank robbers, shares letters that give details of how the robbers were tracked after the First National Bank robbery of Oct. 17, 1914.
Bill Hawes surprises his son, John Hawes, at my old Central School in Sedro-Woolley, when he returns home from service in Iraq. See the story and video that played on NBC's Today Show.
Did you know that Skagit Steel nearly moved away from Sedro-Woolley in 1953? Read Part One of the story of how local businessmen insured that the company would stay and expand.
Can you even imagine losing the use of both arms and a leg in childhood and growing up to be a violinist and avid deer hunter. Read how Sedro-Woolley violinist Floyd Maxwell bagged his fifth deer. And read our transcription of two pages from the Dec. 1, 1949, issue of the Courier-Times, which includes photos and details of the severe flood, and especially how it affected old Sedro, the Nookachamps and Hamilton; plus history of the Wildcat Steelhead Club, the first Great Northern passenger in 17 years; plus several more stories.
Dollar Way in Sedro-Woolley, the first paved highway in the county, which Stone & Webster built as a demonstration project to earn the right of way for the Interurban.

Sedro-Woolley area pioneers

Harry Devin, master real estate salesman of old Sedro, Klondike miner, Indian blood brother, best hunter in the Northwest, weatherman and historian & your basic Renaissance man. Updated with new photos and much more research. Another update coming in August, about how Mark Chatt and family have turned the ugly-duckling Devin house, circa 2000, into one of the most beautiful restored homes in Sedro-Woolley and the county. Also see the transcripts of his diary and his famous in-laws, the Mosiers, and their homesteads together in Snohomish County in the 1880s and their pioneer work with Mount Rainier.
The extended family of the Hammers, Greens and Parkers, whom the new Hammer Heritage Square downtown park in Sedro-Woolley honors. George Green was one of the most famous Indian Scouts of Kansas and founded a town there before his sons-in-law, Emerson Hammer and David J. Parker, made quite an impact on Skagit county in Burlington, Sedro-Woolley, Clear Lake and Skiyou. Grandson George Hammer founded the Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop and great-grandson Wyman Hammer donated two lots for the Square.
P.A. Woolley, profile of his family and his company town.
Introduction to and biography of Mortimer Cook, founder of Bug/Sedro.
Howard Miller of Sedro-Woolley, 1915-2000
Harold Renfro, Sedro mailman and son of pioneer parents
Ambrose Ernst, first Woolley real estate promoter and editor of Skagit County Times, 1891.
The Rupert and William Gale families of Sedro-Woolley.
Charles J. Wicker's story about how he and Will Mitchell tried to erect a cabin on his homestead near the present Sedro-Woolley cemetery in 1884 and how a tree got in the way. See Issue 38 of our Subscribers-paid magazine for two more stories of Wicker's arrival in 1884.
The J.J. Conner family moved West from Tarheel country in the Great Smoky Mountains area of North Carolina and Tennessee in the early 1900s. Read family memories plus a gold mine of Tarheel names in a book about the area back there.

Go to this Portal Section to find all Sedro-Woolley stories
And see these special portal sections: All new logging and Mills section. We are updating eight stories about early logging and mills, from 1876 logging to the Dolbeer steam donkey. Newest completely updated story: the Goodyear -Nelson mill. Coming soon: the Willis, Rogers and Pearson mill of Sedro-Woolley. And For first-time readers, we suggest that you read our introduction and overview, From Bug to the Bughouse. This story was the nucleus of our site in 2000. Other basic files: 1953 Skagit County history.

Towns nearby Sedro-Woolley

See these 1875 stories from the Stanwood News that give a marvelous detailed description of the logging camp of Jesse Beriah Ball, the founder of Sterling.
Samuel Simpson Tingley Part Two, Washington Territory pioneer of 1859, who settled on the north fork of the Skagit in 1867 and then Day Creek in 1880. Settles at South Fork, raises family, blacksmith in Mount Vernon, loses first wife, marries again to a doctoress, Elizabeth, settles at Day Creek, builds boats and ferries for Skagit River. Also includes the story of Dr. Capellus B. Knapp, his wife's brother, who also settled here.
The Legend of Big Rock, updated from our original feature. Plus Calamity Jane's gun found at Baker Heights, and the modern Big Rock Grocery. Shared from our Subscribers-paid online magazine, Issue 37
Memories of Clear Lake by Charles R. "Chuck" Hyatt.

Go to this Portal Section to find all Nearby Sedro-Woolley stories

Upper Skagit River to the Cascades

We have dated Marblemount's Log Cabin Inn (above) back to 1889. Read the documentation in the profile about pioneer Andrew Jackson Jackman, namesake of Jackman Creek.

Read about What's New in Concrete, especially their Sat., March 15: St. Patrick's Dinner Theater in the Breon Williams's restored Concrete Theater. And Remembering Herb Larsen, guiding light of the Concrete Heritage Museum, and keeper of the flame.
Our story of the Dalles Bridge on its 50th birthday, from 2002.
Brown Wiseman planted fish in high-country, North Cascades lakes and streams in the 1920s and '30s while he was a schoolteacher. Also includes his experience with the True-Love Bandit in 1914.
Five more columns by Mollie Dowdle about her Tarheel family and the upriver Skagit. See our complete growing list of all the Mollie Dowdle stories in the Journal, and the 1966 introduction that the Skagit Valley Herald wrote about her.
See the von Pressentin family master list of stories for four new stories from the memories of Paul Pressentin and others.
Dan Royal's Stump Ranch, stories of Birdsview, the Royal and Boyd families and the upper Skagit River. Do you have personal stories to add to Tales to Tell?
Read about the history of Utopia district and the Joseph Mathews farm from the eyes of his daughter, still alive. Now owned by the Smiths, this Civil War veteran built the house in 1906. The editor's childhood home.
Otto Pressentin, upriver mountain man, the only man we know of who walked back and forth to Alaska. Twice, circa 1910
Part 1, biography of D.C. Linsley, Northern Pacific Railroad Surveyor, Washington Territory, 1870
Part 2, 1870 survey of the Skagit River, North Cascades and lake Chelan by D.C. Linsley, Frank Wilkeson and others for the Northern Pacific Railway.

D.C. Linsley, 1870 Skagit explorer
Backus Ranger Station at Marblemount, the portal to the Mount Baker and Cascades mountain districts. Along with information about the Bacon creek and Texas Pond substations and the work of the CCC in building many camps in the Cascades from 1933-38.
Mollie Dowdle tells the story of little Gar Green learning the facts of life as midwife Mrs. Tingley races to deliver a Pioneer Baby.
Gar Green, Hamilton/Birdsview pioneer, his family, and his friends, Mollie and Wallie Dowdle, with correspondence from some of his relatives.

Go to this Portal Section to find
all Upper Skagit River stories

Western county

George F. Kyle's Anacortes Hotel, symbol of the magnificent boom of 1890 and also the bust that followed almost immediately.
Catherine "Katy" Savage Pulsipher's memory of Equality Colony, located on the hill above Bow and Blanchard from 1896-1906. And her father's mill there and her brother's marriage to the daughter of the colony president.
15th Alabama attacks Marblemount Civil War Reenactors stage battle April 28-29 and schedule for 2007.
James Madison Shields, LaConner pioneer schoolteacher and Mount Vernon judge, and his in-laws, the Calhouns.
Mount Vernon Log Jams Part One. Introduction to the famous Mount Vernon log jams and transcription of eye-witness articles about the work to remove them, dating from the 1870s. Includes the diary of Otto Klement, who arrived in the Skagit Valley in 1873. And Part Two — newspaper issues of Eldridge Morse's Northern Star (Snohomish City) that pegs exactly when work on the log jams near Mount Vernon began and when it was completed; and issues of the Washington Standard newspaper in Olympia from the 1870s that detail the work on the jams. Includes a short history of the Standard and the first newspapers in Washington Territory and Olympia, from 1853 on.
Chuck Easton's history of Equality Colony near Bow.
The late Chuck Easton, legendary bookstore owner, Mount Vernon
The Bow General Store, only original business building still stands and will stand longer. Photos of the town that time almost forgot, and the story of the Bow History Project."
Anacortes Historic Photos from the files of author Paul Dorpat; publisher Wallie Funk, the old Puget Sound Mail newspaper and other collectors. And details of the Funk photo exhibit at the Anacortes Museum, shown from April 2006 to 2008.

Go to this Portal Section to find all Western Skagit County stories
(West of Sterling all the way to Puget Sound from Whatcom County line to Snohomish County line)

Washington statewide and national, and miscellaneous

Three-part biography of Whatcom pioneer Edward Eldridge Part one and his wife, Teresa Lapin Eldridge, the "mother" of Whatcom. Includes the heretofore unpublished story of Edward's real name and his leadership of the women suffrage movement in Washington Territory. Includes several biographies and obituaries of the parents and children and extensive annotations from Journal research.
June Burn's 1931 column series about the 1858 Fraser river gold rush in British Columbia. And her review of the new village of Whatcom where the rush was launched, along with the earliest pioneers there. Endnotes to June Burn's 1858 gold rush column and capsule biographies of the pioneers and businesses of Whatcom county in the 1850s, A-L and the pioneers and businesses of Whatcom county in the 1850s, M-Z. And profiles of Frontier Women.
A review of Jill Livingston's book, That Ribbon of Highway III, Highway 99 which follows the history of the road from its beginning in the Teen years of the 20th Century, through its designation as US99 in 1926 and its long life until the mid-1960s when most of it was replaced by Freeway I-5 from the Mexican Border to Vancouver. She also profiles Sam Hill — son-in-law of Great Northern magnate James J. Hill. Sam Hill launched the Good Roads Association in 1899 and that inspired similar groups in states and localities all over the West Coast.
A newspaper article from 1900 urging readers to desert William Jennings Bryan and vote for William McKinley. Frank Wilkeson and other Sedro-Woolley, Skagit County and Washington state business leaders endorse McKinley.
Our first excerpt from Theodore Winthrop's important 1863 book, Canoe and Saddle, about his 11-day tour of Washington territory in 1853. This excerpt profiles the controversial Klallam Indian chief who preferred then to be addressed as the Duke of York, and we provide some research about how he matured to become Port Townsend's revered friend, Chetzemoka, and nobody's fool, after all.
We launch a new Model Railroaders section for both modelers and those who want to learn the art — as well as those who still dream about their train sets from their childhood. Please check in and let us know if you have a setup or know someone who does who would like show if off. We especially look for sets that have a historical Skagit Valley theme.
Eldridge Morse's first tour of the Skagit river settlements from his The Northern Star newspaper in Snohomish, in the April 29, 1876 issue. & a subsequent tour from the April 9, 1877 issue, noting the growth of Skagit City, settlement on the north fork of the Skagit and how Mount Vernon was born that year, early LaConner and Fir Island and northern Snohomish County and Hatt's Slough. Links also to our exclusive biography of this great man.
Sam Strom, the young Count of Monte Cristo, Norwegian immigrant of 1893. And links to his memoir from his early days at the mines in the North Cascades, from 1889 on.

Go to this Portal Section to find all stories about other nearby counties and statewide

Categories Obituaries

R.I.P. Walt Crowley, founder and publisher of historylink.org, passed away on Sept. 21. He was a longtime friend and an inspiration for this website, along with his co-founder Paul Dorpat.
R.I.P. Claude Pocock, age 99. Read his obituary and the 2007 interview with his uncle-in-law Homer Alwood.
R.I.P., Lois Atterberry Lewis, 91, of Utopia and Anacortes.
R.I.P., Homer Alwood, 98, of Bow.
We are sad to announce that Carol McCann, one of the finest teachers in the history of the Sedro-Woolley School District, died on Friday, Aug. 25, 2006. Our sympathy and regards are extended to her husband, Bill McCann, and their children. She was a friend of ours and of Skagit Valley history who will be sorely missed. You can read her obituary and a personal tribute to her here.

Frontier Women

The Territorial Daughters of Washington may have had its last meeting, in 2005, for lack of members. We want to help them decide to stay active by building attendance for future meetings. Would you like to know how you can qualify as a member descendant? Email us or see stories in this Portal Section about Frontier women.
R.I.P., Lois Atterberry Lewis, 91, of Utopia and Anacortes.
A collection of biographers of pioneer women, including Lewis Kirkby, 1888 Sedro pioneer, and writing by Joanna Stratton, Lavinia Gates Chapman and Lilla Day Monroe.

Library, Books to read

For a thorough review of the North Cascades Mines, we strongly suggest the new book, Discovering Washington's Historic Mines, Volume 3: The Northern Cascade Mountains. See this Journal review.
Journal review of Neil Lehto's book, Algonquin Elegy, a historical novel that also supplies many historical details about Snohomish history writer Alice Elinor Lambert and Canada's most famous landscape painter, Tom Thomson. They had a brief romance in Seattle at the turn of the 20th century.
Journal Review of Tom Camfield's Port Townsend books, An Illustrated History of Shanghaiing, Shipwrecks, Soiled Doves and Sundry Souls (2000) and The City That Whiskey Built (2002), two great volumes on early Washington Territory history.
Profile of the late John Conrad, memorialist of the Skagit County Historical Society from 1949-73, who wrote these obituary notes for the annual Pioneer Picnic, staged annually on the first Thursday in August. And the story of his father, Charles, an orphaned Swedish immigrant who farmed near Pleasant Ridge. The notes were in handwritten form, courtesy of Maurice Erickson, his nephew, and we are serializing them. John retired after owning a service station on Hwy 20 near Sedro-Woolley and coined the word, Loggerodeo for the Fourth of July.
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.
Journal's exclusive Seneca G. Ketchum Biography Part 1. Feisty pioneer 1899 Sedro-Woolley newspaper editor in his years before arriving in Washington Territory in 1888. And his family, 17th-century English immigrants, pioneer settlers of Toronto, Ontario, and businessmen of New York State. Updated this week with the discovery that he was an early editor of the Olympian newspaper.
Seneca G. Ketchum Biography Part 2. Feisty pioneer 1899 Sedro-Woolley newspaper editor in his years after arriving in Fairhaven, Washington; his adventures in Nelson, B.C. and Spokane, and his publishing years in newly merged Sedro-Woolley.
Charles M. Dwelley, country weekly newspaper editor. We present for the first time full biographies of the editor of the Concrete Herald for 30 years, his grandfather, Joseph F. Dwelley, who was a pioneer of the Skagit Valley in 1870; and his father, Charles L. Dwelley, pioneer resident of Anacortes. Cheri Cook-Blodgett and Dan Royal, who both put in a lot of work, preserving the history of Concrete, remind us that that Chuck's 1980 classic book, So They Called the Town Concrete, is still available in reprint for $15 at the Concrete Heritage Museum, Albert's Red Apple Grocery in Concrete, or by mail order from the Concrete Museum web page. Read our review of the book here and also our Recommended Books Section, which will be totally updated in May 2007.
Chuck Easton's history of Skagit County, written 1976

Story last updated on April 19, 2007 . . . Please report any broken links so we can update them

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

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