Town built school: Lester dedicates ‘citadel of freedom’

Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 11, 1954

By Charles Russell
Post-Intelligencer staff writer

Modern lines with lots of glass windows in the classrooms are features of Lester’s new school [shown here in the late 1960s.] Note how the school nestles among the high mountains.

LESTER, Jan. 10. — A “citadel of freedom” was dedicated today in this isolated Cascade Mountain town, linked in winter with the outside world only by train.

It was the new $192,490.51 Lester Elementary and High School.

Built without a cent of federal or state aid, the rambling, one-story, brick school provides more luxurious accommodations per pupil than perhaps any other of the state’s public schools.

The Lester school has only 31 pupils and four teachers. Its entire high school student body numbers eight—five girls and three boys, not boys enough even for a basketball team.

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Railroads of the East are racing to seaports on northwestern coast

Originally published in Prosperous Washington, 1906

Transcontinental systems reach out and grasp the opportunities offered in Washington—much mileage under construction

By I.A. Nadeau
Seattle

Union Depot, Seattle—west front

Development and progress of the state of Washington along material lines has depended largely upon and kept pace with the establishment of railroads within its borders. The coming of the railroads made possible the present prosperous conditions, and every new line, or extension of existing lines, brings into bearing additional territory.

Railroad building and operation in Washington, as well as in the nation, is the greatest industry save that of agriculture. It is an unfailing financial barometer, as new projects are undertaken only when money is easily obtainable, and when public confidence exists to a degree that the necessary funds will be provided.

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Black Diamond: Historic coal town is getting ready to grow up

Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 14, 1996

Town wants to keep integrity and rural flavor as it grows

Mount Rainier serves as a dramatic backdrop for Black Diamond, a small community that is nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

By Jack Hopkins
P-I Reporter

Black Diamond — Folks generally think of this mostly rural, historic coal mining town as the place to buy bread on the way to Mount Rainier—if they think of it at all.

That’s not surprising because the Black Diamond Bakery’s breads have become known far and wide since the bakery opened in 1902. And the current owner still burns half a cord of wood a day baking breads in the old brick oven, following the same recipes used nearly a century ago.

Little else attracts attention here—except from history buffs.

But dramatic change is sweeping through this tiny community nestled in the Cascade foothills about three miles north of Flaming Geyser State Park.

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Enumclaw—Can it stay ‘most congenial’?

Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, November 29, 1970

By Walt Woodward

What few detractors there may be of Enumclaw would laugh in derision if you would liken the place to mythical Camelot. They would remind you that Enumclaw, to ancient Indians who fled the region after experiencing a violent thunderstorm, meant “home of evil spirits.”

Yet the Enumclaw area, perched on a pleasant plateau in Southeastern King County, does equate with these words which King Arthur sings in the Lerner and Loewe musical play:

“In short, there’s simply not/A more congenial spot/For happily ever-aftering/Than here in Camelot.”

But if that verse should please Enumclaw residents, they should remember that the king at the haunting end of the production, sings yet another chorus, a wistful lament for a Camelot which has vanished and is no more.

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Seattle will not suffer for coal

Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, November 2, 1919

W.B. Monks, president of the Fuel Dealers’ Association, reassures residents

Not caught napping

Fear that the coal strike will bring suffering to Seattle and the rest of the state of Washington is needless, was the reassuring assertion made last night by W.B. Monks of Seattle, president of the State Fuel Dealers’ Association and also head of the Seattle Fuel Dealers’ Association.

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Black Diamond: This residential community has survived, maintaining its place in a world where oil, not coal, is king…

Originally published in the Valley Daily News, September 11, 1996

By Mike Archbold
Valley Daily News

The half-dozen children who visited the Black Diamond Museum recently struck it rich running into Charlie Corlett. He agreed to start up the model he built of Mine 11, the 6,000-foot-deep hole in the ground that launched the coal town.

The table-high model dominates one room of the old train-depot-turned-museum that annually draws 8,000 to 10,000 people to this small community that nudges up against the toes of the Cascades. It depicts Black Diamond at the turn of the century.

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Coal was king in Newcastle mines

Originally published in the Valley Daily News, August 6, 1995

Dusty Greggs’ father, grandfather mined ‘black gold’

By Nathalie Overland
Valley Daily News

‘Dusty’ Greggs stands at entrance shaft to Richmond Tunnel, a remnant of Newcastle’s mining heyday. Valley Daily News photo by Gary Kissel

Gerald “Dusty” Greggs still locates the site of his family’s home in historic Newcastle by looking for a remnant of overgrown ivy.

Like most of Newcastle’s reflections of its glory days, the Greggs family’s gray ivy-covered house is gone. Yet the memories remain, a pride in the past passed down from generation to generation in the form of scrapbooks, oral histories, and photographs.

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Black Diamond has Canadian ‘sister’

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, June 26, 1985

By Eulalia Tollefson

Map-gazing may not be a popular sport but it can reveal the darndest things, as Chris Ellingson of Black Diamond discovered recently.

While looking at a map of Alberta, Canada, Ellingson chanced upon a town named, coincidently, Black Diamond.

Imbued with a natural curiosity, Ellingson determined to learn something about the Canadian town that bears the name of her city. Because she is a firefighter in the Black Diamond—Washington, that is—Fire Department, and knowing nowhere else to begin, Ellingson called the Black Diamond, Alberta—fire department and exchanged pleasantries with Fire Chief Tom Gillis.

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Proposal for library site stirs debate

Originally published in the South County Journal, June 4, 2002

King County considers purchasing Black Diamond property at four times its assessed value

By Mike Archbold
Journal Reporter

A public notice marks property off Jones Lake Road in Black Diamond where the King County Library System hopes to build a 5,200-square-foot library. (Matt Brashears/Journal)

BLACK DIAMOND — The King County Library System is prepared to pay more than four times the assessed value for a piece of view property for a new Black Diamond library.

It is assessed by the King County Assessor at $91,000 for 2002. The sale price, however, is $400,000 and the King County Libraries System is willing to pay the price.

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Coal created local towns

Originally published in the Voice of Valley, May 16, 2006

By Barbara Nilson

In 1920 Fred Habenicht, holding a hand saw, supervised the unloading of the new hydraulic mine motor vehicle or pulling loaded mine cars from water level tunnel to the Continental Coal Co. bunker (in the background). It replaced mules in the mine. Miners are: 18-year-old Vern Habenicht; Bob Kingen Sr., Frenchy Ferdinand Maigre; Evor Morgan, holding the chain; and onlooker Bill Baldwin. (Photo—Habenicht collection from Ravensdale Reflections book)

Before the turn of the 20th century, coal seams ran from the shores of Lake Washington to the foot of the Cascade mountains leading to the establishment of towns at the mine sites, some of which are still in existence, i.e., Renton, Black Diamond, Cumberland, Issaquah, Wilkeson, and Ravensdale. Some linger in memory only, i.e., Franklin, Elk, Bayne, Durham, Danville, Eddyville, Taylor, and Landsburg.

From the year 1888 through 1967, there were an amazing 232 coal seams being tapped in King County and operated by 157 different companies.

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