Puget Sound Mail for January-February 2012
Chapter 16
By Journal Publisher Noel V. Bourasaw
Last updated Jan. 20, 2012 . . .
Previous monthly posts from 2011
Previous monthly posts from 2010
Previous monthly posts from 2009
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Skagit Eagle Festival, Jan. 28-29
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The 2012 Skagit Eagle Festival continues on the weekend of January 28 and 29 to conclude. If you have not yet attended, this is a month-long celebration during the peak of eagle-watching season in eastern Skagit County. Activities take place in Concrete, Rockport and Marblemount and surrounding area every weekend in January.
Sat, Jan. 28: Info station has free maps at directions at 45821 Railroad street, Concrete, (360) 853-8784 . . . Bald Eagle Interpretive Center, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., 52809 Rockport boulevard, (360) 853-7626, www.skagiteagle.org
Also: Marblemount Hatchery Tours by Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group 10-3, 8319 Fish Hatchery road, Marblemount, learn about salmon . . . Float trips by Chinook Expeditions 10-3 from Marblemount to Rockport, (800) 241-3451 . . . Eagle Watcher Stations at Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Rockport and at Milepost 100, Hwy. 20, with volunteer educators, and Skagit River Excursions 3-hour tour, (888) 675-2448 . . . Wine Tasting and Eagle Talk, Eagle Haven Winery, 11-5, 8243 Sims road, Sedro-Woolley, south of Hwy. 20.
For all activities both days, see this website from Valerie Stafford and the Concrete Chamber of Commerce.
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Old Northern Pacific Depot in Sedro-Woolley
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"The Sedro-Woolley depot in the 1960s, after it had been shortened, during a Casey Jones excursion to Sumas. Insulatd boxcar SCL494783 is spotted at Lentz Farm Supply. Looking north."
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Our friend in all things steam and railroad, Kent Sullivan, mailed us the latest edition of a really fine magazine, The Mainstreeter, lovingly maintained by Ed Sherry in Normandy Park, Washington, and the Northern pacific Railway Historical Association.
The cover article for Fall 2011 was "Sumas and Trains 675/676" by Kent and David Sprau and Jim Fredrickson. It is a lovely journey on the same route that the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Coast Line pioneered through Sedro in 1890. They have included photos of many of depots through Sumas. They interviewed NP vets and analyzed Jim's collection of dispatcher's sheets for a period in 1955. They also interviewed Jack Christensen, a retired engineer and NPRHA board member, and Lorren Coleman, retired Sumas Agent. This is a feast.
Kent Sullivan attended our NW Wasghington History Detectives meet-up and told us of his plans for a very realistic, large-scale, model-train layout that will prominently feature the Northern Pacific tracks and the businesses along them in Sedro-Woolley in 1955. He and his guests Dan Cozine and Jack Christensen, along with Allen Miller have supplied much of the historic facts and photos that have helped us piece together our local history. Now they specifically want readers to help them as they nail down the details for the scenery and buildings on the layout. Can you help? See this feature
We strongly recommend that you join this fine group. Go to their great website, or email for membership details or, if you get a chance to pass on a "well done" to all these guys. And while you're here, have you read our extensive Railroad Portal section, with links to dozens of our photo features?
To the right: a lovely bonus from the issue, one of those lovely moments that only trains provided.
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The photo above was nice enough by itself, but the magazine also provided this earlier photo that shows the full-length depot, about 15 years before the photo above. "The full-length Sedro-Woolley depot circa 1950, with FT-4 5403D on point of Train 675, facing compass north. Lentz & Nelson Farm Supply is in the background. — Jim Fredrickson photo MF04-02955."
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And la crème de la crème is this beautiful color photo from the article. Jan. 16, 1963, just before I left for the U.S. Army. I would have loved to take a train down to report for duty, but passenger service ended on the Northern Pacific Coast Route back in 1940. This was a beautiful freight, which makes me sigh to recall it. That is where Don Bentz, ace linotype artist and bon vivant of the Courier-Times took me every week to pick up the printing mats that we used to compose type back in the shop. The parking lot at the left was for the Safeway store that moved there on Ferry Street in 1958 from downtown, replacing the notorious Keystone Hotel of pioneer days. The service station was Cargill & Lisherness Mobil, on the location of the old Hotel Royal/Vendome. This is so wonderful that it makes us hope even more that someone will come up with photos of the water tower and the old roundhouse, especially in action. Click on the photo to see an even larger version, with details.
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Your Comments Welcome
We encourage your additions, comments, criticism or corrections. For now, please use our communal comments section by clicking the button to the left. Please note the date of the column and/or the headline of the subject on which you are commenting, just to help us keep them straight.
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*Disclaimer
2009: We have attempted to find who the current owner of the Puget Sound Mail name is. The newspaper went out of publication in 1983 and it has never been published again as a newspaper. Years ago we found a few quick-printed pages under that logo but we have not found anything in years. We are assuming that the name is in public domain, but if someone owns it, please contact us. We employ the name to honor the longest continuously published weekly newspaper in Washington state and territory. When it went out of publication in 1982, it was also still the earliest of the territorial newspaper to still publish as a weekly. James Power launched it in 1873 in Whatcom as the Bellingham Bay Mail and changed it to its present name in 1879 when he moved the paper down to LaConner, where it stayed for 103 years, under fine editors such as F. Leroy Carter, Pat O'Leary and especially Dick Fallis, who passed away in early 2011. He was justifiably proud of his years at the Mail's helm. We will feature an extensive history of the paper and its publishers in Issues 55-56 of the optional Journal online subscribers magazine. [Update 2011: The owner of the Puget Sound Mail contacted us and authorized us to use it as the name for this column. He is Christian Knight and has his own Puget Sound Mail website.]
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Howard Royal and his family's Birdsview Stump Ranch
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