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Skagit River JournalFree 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 |
 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug |
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Henry and Katherine Martin in their parlor. Almost everything came by horse and wagon or on their backs. Their second house still stands, silent and empty on a slope from which the family could see the back side of Sauk mountain when they looked west and Illabot Mountain when they looked east. —Photo courtesy of descendant Lea Von Pressentin |
If you followed the mountain road from Rockport to Sauk, you wound down a series of steep switchbacks. They had been cut into an almost vertical slope. Or you could go by canoe. Down there, clinging to the bank of the big river, the Great Northern's tracks passed through the town. W.W. Caskey, Garnet Thompson and Emerson Hammer ran the Sauk Shingle Company's mill, hotel and general store, and you could barely hear the chime of the big nickel-plated cash register above the whine of the upright saws and the pulse of the steam engine that ran the mill.We hope you read Bob Jenkins's book, Last Frontier in the North Cascades, especially the story of his accidental swim in the Skagit with his friend and mentor, homesteader George Allenger. You can purchase new copies at the Skagit County Historical Society Museum in LaConner.
I bought my first pair of caulked shoes from Old Man Caskey when I was sixteen. They cost me $9.90. When I gave him a crisp new ten-dollar bill he tossed onto the counter a ten-cent can of Copenhagen to make the sale an even ten dollars. But I told Caskey I didn't chew snoose and he had to give me the dime.
Where the long steel cable of the Sauk ferry sagged across the Skagit to the south bank, the dirt road to Darrington passed through a brush-grown flat that was once the site of an earlier town known by the prophetic name of Sauk City. This was the trail head in the early 1880s of the historic route that wound south through virgin wilderness to the Monte Cristo mines and on through Buck Pass beyond the headwaters of the Sauk to Eastern Washington. There was another trail that began at Sauk City to follow more easterly through the wild gorges of the Upper Skagit. This one led to the Ruby Creek country, where a gold rush followed Albert Bacon's discovery of pay dirt in 1879.
Sure in their eager minds that the railroad would come to the south bank of the Skagit by way of the Darrington country, the creators of Sauk City in 1884 built a new town from scratch. They put up a post office, school, hotel, saloons and a big general store, all from lumber fresh off the circular saws of a new mill. . . .
Boom town fever in Sauk City had come to such a pitch by 1891 that there was urgent talk favoring its selection as the county seat of newly created Skagit county. In 1899, fire — which seemed to have a way of visiting sudden violence on early settlements surrounded by dense timber — came back to Sauk City. The town was again obliterated. And as if water had suddenly formed an alliance with fire, floods in the Sauk and Skagit rivers carried away the charred ruins, cleansing the townsite of all but mineral earth. The last visible remnants of Sauk City were swept seaward.
The future of the settlement seemed destined to the north bank of the river and what later became known as Sauk, or Old Sauk, grew from an accumulation of river cabins hard under the steep slope of the north bank. This village survived through subsequent years, its own future more permanently assured when the railroad was extended upriver from Hamilton. the Seattle & Northern finally laid its north bank rails to a turnaround two miles above Sauk in 1900-01, and gave the dead end of the tracks the name of Rockport. The line was a forerunner of the Great Northern. The new town of Sauk enjoyed a more or less quiet existence during the next twenty-odd years. It was a shingle mill village again when I knew it, a place dependent upon the rise and fall of the market for red cedar shingles and the flow of bolts driven down Sauk river, Bacon creek, the Cascade river, and into the Skagit. Indian crews working hip deep in the bone-chilling waters herded the bolts to the mill. . . .
The early 1920s were of more than average prosperity for Sauk City. May 14, 1924, was a warm day and the soft breezes coming upriver rustled the leaves of the big cottonwoods along the Skagit. It was a day to be remembered. The noon-hour whistle had sent the mill hands to their mid-day meal, the saws were silent, fire under the steam boilers stoked for an hour of rest.
It was said, later that day, the watchman had reported hearing what sounded like a muffled explosion; however, such an incident was never clearly established. But fire — the demon that had stalked Sauk City since the 1880s — suddenly curled under the eaves of the mill roof, leaping skyward. In a thin minute the Sauk mill was a mass of roaring flames.
As if inspired, the wind picked up a new turbulence; a mass of hot gas exploded in the roofs of the adjoining dry kilns; the hotel, store and post office erupted in flames. The fire quickly spread to include several homes, three garages, a blacksmith shop, two Great Northern boxcars and 30,000 bundled shingles. In two hours Sauk was wiped out and a community of approximately 100 [men] made homeless and jobless. Soon the shinglebolt camps on Bacon Creek would shut down, canceling a river drive.
The fire of 1924, followed by repeated stages of high water, wrote the final chapter in the story of Old Sauk. Eventually even the ghost town disappeared.
Ed McGovern, who was born in these parts and was perhaps more understandably river-wise, later opened a store a little distance downriver. Ed's place is on high ground, well above any foreseeable flood level. Nowadays Ed's neighborhood is called Sauk. Ed's store is a little old-fashioned place, its shelves display a mixture of staples, canned goods and antiques, some of the items dating back to the years of his pioneer boyhood on the Skagit. He spends a lot of his time reminiscing with friends. There is an atmosphere here that reminds you of early times on the river. You might call Ed's place and the one or two nearby homes, the ghost of Sauk City.
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Would you like information about how to join them? Oliver-Hammer Clothes Shop at 817 Metcalf Street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 88 years. Peace and quiet at the Alpine RV Park, just north of Marblemount on Hwy 20, day, week or month, perfect for hunting or fishingPark your RV or pitch a tent by the Skagit River, just a short drive from Winthrop or Sedro-Woolley 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 firstor 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. |
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