Site founded Sept. 1, 2000. We passed 2.25 million page views on Feb. 10, 2008
These home pages remain free of any charge. We need donations or subscriptions to continue.
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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

Railway map to the dams, circa 1930

Our Subscribers Magazine online pays for our extensive free home pages. We really need your help this season to conduct more research and share it
Our subscription rate increased in 2004 to $20 per year, as we added two more issues to the year's total. You may renew at the old rate of $17.50 per year or $27.50 for two years.

Click for: Reasons why to subscribe
Or for: Options of subscription length and gifts
Or you may simply donate by clicking the Donation button below.
You may also donate or subscribe by check:
1. Make out the check to: "Noel V. Bourasaw"
2. Mail to: Skagit River Journal, 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284

You get access all the way back to features in Issue 1 on Jan. 1, 2001
See the current stories and archives back to Issue 1.

Attention: please consider donating to our research project Are you perplexed about how to be a Santa Angel this year? We have two modest suggestions. For your friends and family who love history as much as you do, 1) Purchase subscriptions as holiday gifts. 2) Purchase the CDs of our first six years of stories and photos.
We have reached a crucial point where we either have to receive more donations for our project or we will be forced to take more outside clients and cut back our research and writing radically by the end of this year. This is especially important as we have invested nearly $500 in a new domain and broadband access. We are always woefully underfunded, so any donation you choose to make will help provide funds needed for research, copies and travel to find original sources and meet with descendants of pioneers.
Read a full list of stories in Issue 43 and see the archive lists of stories in the magazine.

Our goal
to raise
by Christmas
$1,350 We have raised $210 so far. Subscriptions: $20/1 year; $35/2 yrs.;
$45 1 sub and 4 gift subs;
$100 lifetime (10 years)

Thinking about gifts for Christmas, reunions, birthdays or other occasions? Due to continued popular demand, in the interest of furthering our "open source" policy, we are assembling a collection of CDs that will 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. They will be 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. See our site with details of what is offered and the prices and ordering information.

Why should you subscribe?

This is the main reason. Photos that you might not see otherwise. Photos that lay hidden for years in someone's attic or garage or the back of a drawer. Your subscription will help us maintain this site so that others like Borgne Heyntsen will loan us photos to scan, like this one she provided. Do you remember the days when these monster trees were slung between truck trailers and transported down the Burlington Highway (now Highway 20)? Do you remember this service station, owned by John Conrad, at the corner of Collins road? Would you like to read his notes on the obituary of every pioneer over a 25-year period in mid-century? Is that a good enough reason to subscribe and help this project? Other reasons are below.

Why subscribe? Don't worry. We get that question a lot. To answer your question, there are benefits that a subscriber gets over and above the free resources of the home page. Most of our subscribers have paid mainly just to help us defray basic costs and to help make sure that we can continue sharing information, especially for students and researchers who cannot afford a subscription. But others paid because of these benefits:

You get access all the way back to features in Issue 1 on Jan. 1, 2001.
A free lookup of vital statistics, census, marriage or burial records for your family tree. We have a pretty good track record for tracing records of the family of subscribers.
First look at rare old photos. We have recently scanned more than 120 photos from all over the Northwest in the pioneer days, most in Skagit and Whatcom counties and Sedro-Woolley.
First look at phenomenal discoveries in our research. Most currently are the columns of Frank Wilkeson in the New York Times in 1886-1900 while living in Skagit and Whatcom counties.
Raw notes from our research that give a picture of the frontier Northwest that no one has read before or which has been lost for years. We obtain this information from descendants, libraries all over the country, museums, doctoral dissertations, etc. This website is the result of nine years of research. We recently estimated that we have gone over the 10,000-hour mark. While this may seem certifiable to some, our search is a labor of love. We truly believe in the motto of historical kindness.
One free answer to a question you may have about the Northwest, Skagit county, Sedro-Woolley, your family or business. For instance, we have answered many questions recently for subscribers who have lost track of family members or have broken branches in their family trees or need obituaries, newspaper stories, etc., about their ancestors or friends. Just don't ask us to recreate the wheel. Any simple question will be answered promptly as a thank you.

I hope this answers your questions and that you will consider subscribing. If you decide not to, we do hope you will consider revisiting our free pages now and then and will page the link on to others. The pages are updated at least every two weeks.

Options for Subscriptions or donations

We want to keep this homepage free. The separate Subscriber Edition now includes eight issues per year. It is most valuable to genealogists and students of area history because it includes hundreds of names of pioneers and is searchable. And when you subscribe, you get a special bonus of access to all issues going back to the beginning. There is no obligation to subscribe, whatsoever, but if you would like to subscribe or donate to help defray costs, please email us with your name and email address where we can email the link for each issue. Then you can pay by either using the donation button above or follow the instructions for mail payment there. Please choose one of the options below for your subscription. Please note: if you purchase gift subscriptions between now and St. Patrick's Day, we will double the number of your gifts. Please include those names and email addresses for your gifts when you send us an email.
1. $20 for 1 year, with seven annual issues starting in 2008, plus aid in your family research included
Please note: You may still renew for $17.50

2. $35 for 2 years, now 14 issues, with aid in your family research included
Please note: You may still renew for $27.50 for 2 years

3. $9 for 1 year, eight issues for a gift subscriptions for your family, friends or clients after your initial subscription.

4. Family package: $45.00 for 1 year, eight issues, for you and four 1-year gift subscriptions for your family or friends.

5. 10-year, "lifetime subscription" for $100 donation.
Thank you for donating any amount to our research fund. Email us and give us the name and email addresses for your gifts.

6. For those who have asked, we would welcome any help to defray the rising costs of copying and reproducing photos and our upcoming trips to interview descendants.

Last updated on May 23, 2008 . . . Please report any broken links so we can update them

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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?

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 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
Would you like information about how to join them?

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

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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Email us at: skagitriverjournal@gmail.com

Mail copies/documents to Street address: Skagit River Journal, 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, WA, 98284.