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Noel V. Bourasaw, editor 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug
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From the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific centennial website:http://www.ayp100.org/. See our notes about the centennial celebration of 2009.

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    Henry [Martin] carved two oxen yokes in front of the fire in the evenings. In the fall of '95, he loaded the two oxen yokes into a canoe and went down on high water to LaConner. He knew that the steamboat captain was probably the only one in the community who would have cash. The captain bought the oxen yokes for the sum of $1 apiece. The father spent 35 cents in town and made the arduous return journey, paddling upstream to where Rockport is located today. When he came into the house with a $1.65, that was the only cash money the family saw for two years. — Ralph Munro.

From left to right, on the porch of the Tom Porter cabin: Dick Harris, Tim O'Connor, Ted Porter, Dan O'Connor.

Dick Harris points out the panels that honor his brother and his father and provide a summary of the importance of the exhibits, for visitors at the park.

      On the evening of Oct. 30 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Thetre presented a dramatization of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. . . . For a brief time as many as one million people throughout the country believed that Martians had invaded the earth, beginning with Grover's Mill, N.J.

      [Wardner autobiography, 1900]: Then [circa 1891] I started my cat ranch. Much has been said and much has been written about my celebrated cat ranch, located on an island about six miles from Fairhaven, Washington. So many bright writers have been there, and have seen my novel experiment and speculation, that I will let them tell the story themselves. I must, however, remark that, although the product did not equal my anticipation, I cannot blame Mr. Samuel Weller, of Cincinnati, who was my sole manager and purveyor to the cats.
      "This gentleman was a cat man, and his father was a cat man before him. " If he finally erred in judgment it was from excessive zeal, and I forgive him. Now, as all my visitors like my cats, had tales, let us listen a bit.

From the New York Tribune:
Black Cats for Profit
      A new industry is always interesting. And it is especially attractive if it shows great possibilities and hints of perhaps becoming a source of national wealth. there comes at this time from the new State of Washington a report of such an industry. We refer to the black-cat ranch just established at Fairhaven by the Consolidated Black Cat Company, Limited.
      We trust that our readers will understand that the organization of this company is a fact. Mr. James F. Wardner, of Fairhaven, is president. The names of the other officers are not given in the San Francisco dispatch which brings the intelligence, but the plan and the object of the company are quite fully explained. The company has bought an island in Puget Sound, and is already taking steps to secure all of the black cats in the neighborhood.
      Several carloads will be shipped from San Francisco next week. The cats will all be placed on the island and shelter provided for them. An island is selected in preference to the mainland, that the cats may be kept separate from others and the pure black cat propagated. Men will be employed to take care of the cats and to feed them regularly three times a day. They will live mostly on fish caught in the surrounding waters, so the expense of keeping them will be small. . . .

      The word got around the upriver district of the Skagit river quickly in the fall of 1911. It was time to take out the horse and buggy and head into Sedro-Woolley. Eugenia Margaret Clinchard came to town to visit her family who lived here. The draw was that she was a child star, at age six, in the relatively new phenomenon of silent movies. Her parents arranged for her to appear at the Princess Theater on Metcalf street, when the theater showed her first two short subjects: A Frontier Doctor and Papa's Letter, which were released together in December that year. . . .
      By the time Eugenia visited her relatives here, she was already a veteran of two movies and she would be cast in nine more in her youthful career. Her parents brought her to meet most of the family at one time. Fred Clinchard was one of eleven siblings born to Elise (Balbach) Clinchard, who hosted the 1911 reunion in Sedro-Woolley. She was a widow; her husband, Jacob Francois Clinchard, died Jan. 5, 1906, in Omaha, Nebraska, where many of the Clinchards lived for quite a while. Brandon has not discovered why members of the family moved to Sedro-Woolley. She did learn during her genealogical research that principals of the family were major investors in various railroads.
      Here in Sedro-Woolley, two of Fred's siblings never married and lived with their mother: Amelia Caroline Clinchard and Edward William Clinchard. Earl Harold Clinchard, youngest of the 11 children, also lived in Sedro Woolley and he married Lillian Baehner on in 1910 in Everett. Two of Fred's other sisters lived here. Adrienne Hermine (Clinchard) was married to Louis Philipoteaux and sister Constance Eugenia Clinchard was married to William Rausch. Finally, another of his brothers, George Alfred Clinchard, lived in Concrete and was married to Zena Augusta Kaster.
      We discovered that Edward Clinchard advanced beyond the home-and-work tinkerer stage and actually obtained two patents while working as a foundryman for Sedro-Woolley Iron Works, the forerunner of Skagit Steel. His first patent in 1912 was for a dental appliance holder and his second a year later was for a washboard, which was featured in the American Artisan magazine.
      During the construction period, Eugenia was cast in another Essanay short, The Sheriff's Inheritance. Her big break, however, came in the 1913 production of Broncho Billy and the Sheriff's Kid. The plot had Billy in hiding after a jailbreak when he discovered the sheriff's daughter, Eugenia, unconscious after a fall and he returns her to her mother. Eugenia impressed Anderson so much that she soon appeared in four more movies in the Billy series in 1913: The Influence of Broncho Billy, Broncho Billy and the Rustler's Child, The Crazy Prospector, and Broncho Billy's Christmas Deed.
      In 1914 Eugenia appeared in her final movies: Broncho Billy, the Vagabond, and Broncho Billy's Christmas Spirit. Brandon discovered that Eugenia's exit from the movies was not due to being dropped as an actor, but because a runaway coach on the set almost ran her over. Fred Clinchard decided that the movie sets were too dangerous for a child and he insisted that she only act on the stage from then on. . . .
      "He was the first movie star," said Dale Carpenter, producer of a 1990 Broncho Billy documentary. "When you passed by the nickelodeon and saw a Broncho Billy film, you put a nickel in. He wasn't by any means a great actor, and not a better story teller than anyone else, but he was one of the first people to realize that movies could succeed by creating a character that people were drawn to. . . .

Any time, any amount, please help build our travel and research fund for what promises to be a very busy 2011, traveling to mine resources from California to Washington and maybe beyond. Depth of research determined by the level of aid from readers. Because of our recent illness, our research fund is completely bare. See many examples of how you can aid our project and help us continue for another ten years. And subscriptions to our optional Subscribers Online Magazine (launched 2000) by donation too. Thank you. We recently visited our newest sponsor, Plumeria Bay, which is based in Birdsview, just a short walk away from the Royal family's famous Stumpranch, and is your source for the finest down bedding. See our Journal feature on this local business and learn more details and how to order items at their website.

      William Hamilton, wife and two children, Ashford and Motz, moved from Kansas to Washington Territory via San Francisco, thence north by boat. They first settled in LaConner where Alice was born. Mr. Hamilton had been in the Civil War and had powder burns on his face as a result.
      In June of 1877, when Alice was five months old, the family moved to what was later the town of Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton filed on the land and the town was named for him.
      He built their first house some distance back from the river. He wasn't satisfied there so moved to within about a mile of the river, but not liking it there either, he moved the family to the river, where he built a house of sawed lumber. The other two had been built of split of cedar. In 1884 he put in a general merchandise store, building a large two-story house.
      The only traffic up and down the valley was by boat or canoe on the river, except for a crude trail along the river bank. Everyone tried to make Hamilton's place by nightfall, so it became a regular stopping place. As many as 35 or 40 people a day stopped for board and room.

      Shortly after graduation from the University, he began work at the Everett Herald, which then had an active staff of two reporters. On Nov. 5, 1916, in his first week there, the massacre of the IWW demonstrators occurred at the Everett docks. Within just the next two years, the ambitious young reporter began looking afield for a weekly newspaper opportunity.
      Evans bought the Skagit County Courier in Sedro-Woolley in January 1918 when he was just 24 years old, born on March 26, 1893. I had the pleasure of working as an apprentice for Evans back in 1957 when I was 13. He was also a close friend of my father's. He often told the story of how he arrived in town on Jan. 26, 1916, to take over the newspaper and was preparing to write his introductory editorial when he heard a thunderous crash: the wreck of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific trains that occurred just north of the depot on Eastern Avenue. The story of the deaths of six passengers, including County Commissioner Henry Thompson was the lead story in the first issue he published. In 1919 he bought the former Munro Shoe Store in the 800 block of Metcalf street, which was the location of the Courier-Times for 50 years until the office was moved to south Mount Vernon after the paper merged with the Skagit Valley Herald.
      Two years later, after the death of Skagit County Times publisher John B. Stowers, on Jan. 11, 1920, Evans made an offer to Stowers' widow to buy the Times, and he spent the next four months lining up advertising pledges from Sedro-Woolley retailers and advertisers for a merged new newspaper. They eagerly signed up for the concept, which would eliminate or lessen the redundant ads, and by May he had enough to convince him that the purchase and merger could be profitable. The first issue of the merged Courier-Times appeared on May 20, 1920, with the lead story of the suicide of Lyman businessman Garfield Minkler. That was the beginning of his nearly six decades at the helm of the paper.

The Poppy Appliqué Quilt from Utopia
Using Quilts in Genealogical Research
by Margaret Robe Summitt
      Representatives from the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum visited the Mukilteo Lighthouse Quilters guild last June with a challenge to do the genealogy of a quilt in their collection. I took up the challenge and was shown the quilt when I visited the museum. This was a large (84" x 90") friendship quilt from the 1930s which was donated to the museum in 2006. It was signed by sixteen pioneer women from the Skiyou and Utopia communities in Skagit County. According to its donor, these quilters frequently met in the Utopia grange hall to quilt and reminisce about old times in the Skagit valley. [Journal ed. note: maybe the old Skiyou school? What we later called the Skiyou or Skitopia Grange when I was a child. At the south end of the Harrison road at Skiyou Slough.] This was the last quilt that the group made. The donor's aunt, named Junia Phay Buchanan, was one of this group.
      The Museum displayed the quilt at the Woolley Fibers Quilt Show in June 2010 to get some information from local people who may have remembered the ladies who signed their names. The little bits of information collected were helpful yet tantalizing. The museum staff copied multiple pages from the 1930 U. S. Federal Census for Skagit County, drawing some of the families more into focus. They also copied biographies of pioneer families from the Skagit River Journal online. This site is edited by Noel V. Bourasaw, who was born in Utopia and has collected an amazing amount of local history: . The seventeen women (including Junia Buchanan) associated with the making of the quilt. . . .

Click on the photo to read about Skiyou farmers and their dahlias and corn — and a Cookie! And the strange story of a 19th-century Skiyou hotel and a body turned to stone.

It is not often that we get the opportunity to feature our best friends and cute couples on the site, but one arose this week. Cookson "Cookie" Beecher and Dean Harrington live near a historical oddity that we discovered many years ago and have never had the right place to feature it. Their dahlia gardens are planted next to the Hess location. You may remember Cookie's name from the time that she edited the Sedro-Woolley Courier-Times, arguably the best editor in its history. And Dean is the fix-it man that many call when haying season is current. The historical importance of such may be found by reading this brief article from 1885:       "At the mouth of Skiyou slough, C.F. Hess has made a clearing and built a comfortable hotel. The still stretch of river, the forest stretching up the side of Little mountain, and the higher ranges in the distance, make a beautiful view. It is just the place for a week's fishing or a summer's rest from overwork. There are no liquors sold and nothing to annoy the most delicate nerves. Those going up the river will do well to stop here. Crossing the slough at his ferry will save two good miles. . . ." [Read the whole story and get the big picture here.]

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Ada Whitmore, Val Hanchett and Lawrence Whitmore in front of cases of memories at the inimitable Whoop-n-Holler Museum, south of Bickleton and north of the Columbia River Gorge. Do not miss it.

Hood River Hotel suite

Most people aware of Washington state history are familiar with the Great Fire of June 1889 that leveled the village of Seattle. But that was not the only city in the state that burned that year: add Spokane Falls and Ellensburg to the list. Earlier that year, attorney (later judge) J. B. Davidson commissioned the building and Architect J. B. Randall and builder William Ames were erecting it when the fire burned much of the rest of the town. As this very informative site notes, a three-foot Phoenix caps the pediment on the south façade and a phoenix mural has recently been painted on the west side. The Phoenix became the center point of the city as the pioneers rebuilt after the fire. Just one block west is the Palace Hotel, which has been extensively remodeled in recent years, featuring beautiful wood paneling and a fine restored ceiling. And the wait staff and bartender were very helpful as well as being a sight for sore eyes, as we emerged from the desert and coulees.

We attended the grand opening of Dick & Jane's Spot, in Ellensburg, back in 1984 and have never forgotten it. Their displays indoor and out are their take on art and more than 40 fellow artists have shared eclectic work. Those who memorized the Dick and Jane books as primary-grade students will likely most enjoy the visit.

The owners outside Café Cicely in Roslyn, l. to r.: Michelle Crone, Lori Clemente, Stacy Reddy, Pat Reddy. They'll get your endorphins lining up for a great new day.

The old 1900 Catholic Rectory today as a house on Burmaster Road.

      I finally found a picture of my house thanks to your site. It used to sit at 807 Puget Street. It was the old rectory for the church next to it. It now sits at 26802 Burmaster Road. It was moved by logging truck in 1977. I thought you might want to add that. Sure wish that old church was still around.

The historic Catholic Rectory circa 1900, from a colorized postcard from the collection of Mike Aiken.

Circa early 1990s

Seneca Ketchum's new Capital Boom
He would move the state legislature to Sedro-Woolley Spokane Daily Chronicle, Feb. 20, 1899       Seneca Ketchum has a capital boom that is all his own. When Seneca used to set type in Spokane he was regarded as a man of modest ambition, but now that he has become the distinguished editor of the Skagit County Times at Sedro-Woolley, Seneca has developed into an independent capital boomer. He was in Seattle one day last week and there made public his new boom.
      "When I've talked about Sedro-Woolley," said Mr. Ketchum, "the fellows down here have always said 'Why don't your town get on the map' and such discouraging things. Well, we're on the map all right and have been for many moons, but never until last week did the citizens of Sedro-Woolley think of trying to change the map. We've started to do it, and there is no telling what will come of it.
      "We have a representative from Skagit county, Joseph H. Parker, who has pleased his constituents right along until last week. In an unguarded moment Mr. parker introduced a bill to move the capital of the state from Olympia to Tacoma.
      "Then it was that the people of Sedro-Woolley showed to the people of the state that not only had they an eye on the gun that is loaded, but likewise had as long a reach for the pie counter as Tacoma or any other town. On Wednesday evening last the Twin City Business League of Sedro-Woolley met and after discussing Representative Parker and his bill, set him a telegram saying, among other things:
      "'The Twin City Business League of Sedro-Woolley, of which you are an honored member, not with astonishment, not to say chagrin, that you have so far forgotten your allegiance to this organization and your bounden duty to advance the upbuilding of this town to advocate whose interests it was projected, as to introduce a bill to move the state capital to any other town but Sedro-Woolley. Please amend the bill immediately.'
      "Up to the present time Mr. Parker has not replied," continued Mr. Ketchucsh [sic], "but the Skagit county people feel assured that being first in the field the capital, when moved, will come our way."

      Several special anniversaries are on the horizon:
90th anniversary of both Oliver-Hammer Clothes Shop, still going strong in Sedro-Woolley, and the launch of the Volunteer Fire Department
The centennial anniversary of The Great Woolley Fire of 1911 (announcement coming)
The centennial anniversary of the first Model-Ts on sale here, via Livermore Ford Agency, 1911. We have met with the mayor about how we can incorporate those centennials into the Loggerodeo parade and events this year. We are following up with a proposal to the Loggerodeo committee. Especially honoring the fire department.
The centennial anniversary of the opening of Sedro-Woolley High School.

Johnny Jacobin

Dirty Dan Harris, aka Jim Rich, center, poses with a race team before the Dirty Dan Piano Race up Harris Avenue during Dirty Dan Days 2006. See the link for the schedule for this year's events and the race schedule and details for teams in the story links below.

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Any time, any amount, please help build our travel and research fund for what promises to be a very busy 2010-11, traveling to mine resources from California to Washington and maybe beyond. Depth of research determined by the level of aid from readers. Because of our recent illness, our research fund is completely bare. See many examples of how you can aid our project and help us continue for another ten years. And subscriptions to our optional Subscribers Online Magazine (launched 2000) by donation too. Thank you.

By Mrs. Raymond Hoyt, Courier-Times, Aug. 25, 1958
      The little Prairie church is no more. The lumber salvaged from it is being used as siding for a building at the Kenneth Fitzgerald farm and Fitzgerald J.B. Mumford are busy clearing up the debris at the original site.
      Two bids, one for $20 from a wrecking company owned by Don McIntyre and partner at Clear Lake and one of $25 submitted by Fitzgerald and Mumford, were the only ones received in response to a recent advertisement placed in the Courier-Times. The highest bid took it.
      The ten high-backed benches in the church were donated to a new Baptist church now being completed at Nooksack.The song books are being used int he Prairie Sunday school now being held at the Samish grange hall.
      Bud Johnston, only grandson of the late Mr. and Mrs. Alex Johnston, who devoted so many years to keeping the Sunday school classes active, was given the old church bell as a keepsake. Money from the sale of the chruch has been turned over to Superintendent Larson for use in the work of the present classes. Some of the his money will perhaps be used in buying a bible and other prizes for a membership contest in the Sunday school.

Fritsch Bros. Hardware       The Fritsch family is one of the ten most important in early Woolley, both for their four-decade hardware store and one brother's involvement in the birth of Sedro-Woolley Iron Works (later Skagit Steel). The family of Franz (Americanized to Frank) Fritsch emigrated from Germany to New Orleans in 1871 and settled in Texas until the early 1880s when they moved first to Whatcom County and then to Sauk City when that was the entryway to the Monte Cristo mines. Quite a great circle route.
      But they walked into a real mess, as old Sauk City would be for the next decade until it washed away. At that early time, their location seemed like a good idea. Gold-seekers at the Monte Cristo mines in the Snohomish County portion of the North Cascades shipped all their machinery up the Skagit and the Sauk rivers and bought their supplies and staples at Sauk City. But the business district burned to the ground in 1889, and after a series of floods, Frank's sons, Joseph and Frank, moved to Sedro-Woolley and the father moved the rest of his family to Burlington.
      The brothers bought out the original Waltz Hardware of old Sedro. Waltz did well during the rail-building times and he hosted the early masses for the itinerant Catholic priests. By 1892, they either moved the store to Jameson Street, at the boundary of the two Sedro's or Waltz had done so. In 1897 they led another parade of Sedro businesses up to P.A. Woolley's new town a half mile north, possibly building themselves a woodframe store at the northwest corner of Woodworth and Metcalf streets. Meanwhile, the father invested in a sawmill and a general store for at least a decade more.
      A 1902 city directory notes that the brothers also opened a machine shop that catered to logging and railroad concerns that needed metal repairs. That was the beginning of what would evolve into Skagit Steel & Iron Works over the next two decades, all contained in those early years in a back room at the Fritsch store. Frank Fritsch became a partner of John Anderson, the new company's founder, and they soon moved the rapidly growing business to the corner of Puget Street and the railroad tracks. In 1907, the brothers erected a new woodframe building that was destined to be the center of one of the biggest stories in Woolley history, with a firewall between two parts to protect paint in storage in case of fire. That was a wise move but not enough to prepare them for the fire that broke out in their oil shed on July 24, 1911, and wasn't contained until it destroyed two blocks of businesses in the heart of Woolley.
      The brothers quickly rebuilt, this time using brick and steel, and the building reopened in December 1911. The brothers sold their company in 1914 to the firm of Ludwick and Wuest, but in 1923, Ludwick-Wuest moved their hardware and appliance business to a new building where Bus Jungquist/Masonic Building stands today at the northeast corner of State and Metcalf streets. The Fritsch brothers soon moved back into their old building and they alternated as owners of the business and then landlord as the company went through several owners over the next five decades. It was for many years the home of Mt. Baker Hardware. We will profile this amazing family and business later this year.

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