Originally published in the Globe News, July 4, 1976
By Bill Smull
The Nov. 16, 1915 explosion that closed the Ravensdale mine very nearly blew the little community off the map.
But half a century later, the cluster of houses along the Kent-Kangley Road still is home to a hundred or more families who find the relative seclusion and quiet more than compensate for the lack of urban amenities.
“There’s no smog, or city noise,” remarked Wendell C. Johnson, who has handled the local postal service chores for more than 20 years.
But Johnson is a newcomer in town only since 1949. Vern Habenicht, who moved into town in 1909, remembers when things weren’t so quiet.
“It was pretty rough,” he said, reminiscing about stories of barroom brawls and other boomtown scandals.
Much of the action centered around the Georgetown section, where half a dozen saloons were the dominant private enterprise—among them the “W.A. Saloon,” “T-Bone,” and the “Royal George,” whose proprietor also lent his name to the community.
South of Georgetown, parallel to the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks, was Ravensdale proper, founded around 1885 and incorporated—briefly—in 1913, according to a local historical account by Laura Lorenz, Maple Valley.
Ravensdale—originally called Sawmill Town, then Leary, after the first coal mining operation in the area—was in existence as early as 1885.
Shortly after the turn of the century, the community came under the corporate influence of Northwest Improvement Co. (NWI), a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific. It soon took on the attributes of a typical “company town,” owned by the railroad and leased to the residents.
Employees of the company could buy on credit from local stores and rent houses from the firm; records were kept at the mine office and debts deducted from the payroll.
Georgetown, developed by private enterprise, nonetheless depended on Ravensdale—and NWI—for much of its economic health. In addition to as many as 11 saloons in the two adjoining communities, residents had the services of no less than three dance halls—one featuring a dance pavilion extending out over the waters of Sawmill Lake. The lake was named for the sawmill which was established there at the same time Ravensdale came into existence.
It was the scene for huge Fourth of July celebrations—picnics attended by all local residents, with foodstuffs prepared on kitchen stoves hauled bodily to the dance hall grounds.
Another summer holiday came one month later, when black NWI employees celebrated Emancipation Day with a barbecue, music and day-long festivities.
But the music stopped after the mine disaster of 1915. Old-timers recall that 80 to 100 men had been sent home that day because of mechanical problems. The company had been experiencing problems with excessive coal dust and gas. A no-smoking policy had been instituted, and one man reportedly was fired for refusal to comply with the safety rule.
About 3 p.m., several loud booms were heard. Timbers 12 feet long and 18 inches thick were hurled from the mouth of the mine.
Of the 34 men still in the mine, only three survived. One of the victims was John S. Davis, Habenicht’s grandfather. Thomas J. Kane, the mine foreman, reportedly had feared such an explosion and had his underground office constructed of six- to eight-inch-thick concrete. Search teams found him sitting at his desk, dead. Half the victims reportedly were found with smoking materials on their persons.
The company closed the mine, dismantled many of its buildings, and moved its operations to other mines. Remaining houses were sold for a few hundred dollars, if a buyer could be found.
In the local depression which followed, a large proportion of the area’s residents moved away, many never to return. Habenicht recalls that many of those who remained collected insurance settlements from house fires, until insurance companies refused to issue policies on most of the remaining structures.
Gradually, some life crept back into the shattered community.
The Depression left its scar
Habenicht, who worked in shipyards for a year with his father, reports he came back to Georgetown and found work in the Selleck sawmill. Later, he took a mining job with Dale Coal Company, which was starting some new mines.
“Four days was enough of that for me,” he said. “I like to have blue sky over my head.” He moved to the rock-picking table, where men sorted rock from coal moving past on a conveyer belt.
Other mining continued in the area, but the volume continued to taper off as coal became less and less important as an energy source.
Palmer Coking Coal eventually became the operator of the only underground coal mine active in the state. That operation ceased Aug. 20, 1975, although strip mining continued at the surface.
Most of the old-timers are gone now, Habenicht reported, but many of those who remain gather each July at an old-timers’ picnic in Ravensdale. Local historical societies are busily collecting photographs and other memorabilia of the mining operations, as Bicentennial activities spur increasing interest in local history.
Habenicht, who helped organize the first of the old-timer’s picnics, supports the movement by allowing use of his pictures and his memories.
Unlike some other local communities, Ravensdale apparently faces no immediate threat of suburban development. In a curious twist of fate, the community which was founded as a creature of a large corporation now is held in check by its successor—the Burlington Northern Railroad.
Ravensdale is surrounded by BN holdings, according to postmaster Johnson.
“They’re holding on in anticipation of increased land values,” he said. “If you inquire about buying land, they’ll tell you that.”
So for the time being, Ravensdale’s leisurely pace of existence apparently will continue. There’s not much anyone can do about it.
And, talking to men like Wendell, Johnson, and Vern Habenicht, one gets the distinct impression they are quite content with things as they are.
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