Suds safari

Originally published in The Seattle Times, December 9, 1973

By Andy Fuller

Have you been on a suds safari lately?

The safari is out to such remote places as Buckley, Black Diamond, or North Bend in quest of schooners and pitchers brim full of beer.

But a suds safari is more than a trip to the sticks for a beer. Just any old beer joint won’t do.

Taverns included on a suds safari should not only be rustic and out of the way, but also have something extra in the way of color or background or plain honky-tonkiness.

Most of the taverns worth visiting have basic similarities. There’s a certain weathered and ancient dignity in the heavy carved backbar and battered but comfortable wooden tables and chairs. There is always at least one pool table and perhaps a shuffleboard and piano. There usually is a dance area. The country tavern’s interior is more roomy and airy than its counterpart in the city. Often there’s a horseshoe pit out back.

Country taverns of any pretensions have country and Western music Friday and Saturday nights. You can stomp and jostle on a dance floor jammed with loggers and construction hands and their wives and girlfriends and also with a surprising number of city types who go out for the weekends.

Read Full Post »

Two King County one-room schools want to stay small

Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, March 1, 1959

By Don Brazier

Entire school: Cumberland School roommates sat on the steps for four class photos, all in this one picture. From left, front to rear— first grade, Sandra Case, Joanne Sardarov; second grade, Joanne’s brother, Matt; third grade, Leroy Coutts, LeeOla Castle, and fourth grade, Linda Tost, Margy Williams, Joey Sinkovic. Cumberland is one of two one-room schools remaining in King County. —Times staff photo by Paul Thomas.

Two one-room schools 25 miles southeast of Seattle contrast with the big schools and consolidated school districts throughout the rest of King County.

Cumberland School, six miles northeast of Enumclaw, and Neuwaukum, between Auburn and Enumclaw, are the heart of this educational outpost.

Cumberland has only eight pupils in the first through fourth grades and Neuwaukum 27 through the sixth grade.

The school directors there put their case simply:

“We think small schools are better than big ones.”

Each school has its own school district. Each has had to fight for survival.

The most recent skirmish was in the fall of 1957, when parents of several Cumberland children transferred them to Enumclaw.

“I didn’t take sides, and I’m still teaching here,” said Mrs. Laura Massey, 71, who received special training at Western Washington College years ago to teach in small schools.

Two moves were defeated in the past six years to consolidate Neuwaukum with the Auburn or Enumclaw system.

Read Full Post »

All that remains from Lester are stories, memories

Originally published in the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, March 26, 2003

Wally’s World by Wally DuChateau

The other day I was enjoying a tuna sandwich in the Lee dining room when a casual acquaintance walked over and asked: “What’s left of the old town of Lester?”

That’s a good question.

Read Full Post »

Black Diamond gets water deal

Originally published in The News Tribune, March 3, 1998

Tacoma agrees to increase dam flow, potentially ending 9-year holdup on project

By Leslie Brown
The News Tribune

Tacoma Public Utilities has agreed to bail Black Diamond out of its water shortage, a move that likely will pave the way for a large new development in the South King County city.

After several closed-door meetings in Olympia, the utility has said it will spill an extra 500,000 gallons a day over the Howard Hanson Dam on the Green River to make up for an equivalent amount of water Black Diamond wants to draw out of the ground near the river.

Read Full Post »

Old towns: Railroad towns of Palmer/Kanaskat

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, March 6, 2007

By Barbara Nilson

The original depot at Kanaskat built in 1912 and destroyed by fire in 1943. — From the Museum of History and Industry and loaned by Ruth Eckes.

The old railroad towns of Palmer and Kanaskat once thrived across the Green River from each other, Palmer on the north and Kanaskat on the south; eight miles southeast of Enumclaw. Somewhere along the line the two lost their identities. Apparently, the post office located in Palmer burned and the authorities moved it to Kanaskat but left the name of Palmer.

Read Full Post »

Carrying their water

A ritzy development cuts a deal to take water from Puget Sound cities and endangered salmon

Originally published in Seattle Weekly, March 5, 1998

By Chris Carrel

The DOE insists taking more of the Green River’s scarce water for a golf course won’t hurt its struggling salmon.

The endangered-species listing proposed last week for Puget Sound chinook salmon served official notice that Pugetopolis’ sprawl-as-usual is incompatible with healthy salmon runs. In response, legislators pledged serious salmon-recovery legislation for next session.

A proposal in the current session to divert water from salmon streams to luxury homes in southeast King County has highlighted the difficult politics of balancing development with salmon.

Read Full Post »

Gorge dam begun

Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, February 3, 1959

HANSON DAMSITE: At Eagle Gorge, on the Green River, 30 miles southeast of Seattle, work started today on the long-planned Howard A. Hanson Dam. The broken line indicates where the crest of the dam will cross the narrow valley, creating a lake eight miles long and impounding 106,000 acre-feet of flood waters. Poring over maps indicating the area to be covered in excavation and subsequent construction were, from left, James J. Grafton, resident engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, and two surveyors, Louis Zumek for the Army Engineers and Andrew McDermott for the Henry J. Kaiser Co. and Raymond International, joint contractors.

The final step in a long-deferred flood-control project, construction of the Howard A. Hanson Dam on Green River, got under way today.

Dean H. Eastman, president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Northern Pacific Railway Co., threw a switch setting off a blast of dynamite. L. Costello, member of a civic committee organized by the late Mr. Hanson to urge dam construction, moved the first shovelful of earth.

Read Full Post »

Eagle Gorge Dam renamed for Howard Hanson

Text and photos from the Howard A. Hanson Dam dedication program, May 12, 1962

Eagle Gorge Dam was renamed Howard A. Hanson by an act of Congress 28 July 1958, introduced by Congressman Thomas M. Pelly, and signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 August 1958.

Many people worked long and hard to establish a flood-control project on the Green River in King County of Western Washington. One of these was Howard A. Hanson.

In addition to his many prior years of personal effort, he was, from 1947 until his death on 4 November 1957, a leader of civic and government groups actively seeking construction of the project. He organized and directed effective action leading to contributions by the state and King County totaling $2,000.000.

Read Full Post »

Franklin Hot Springs: A brief history

Originally published in the BDHS Bulletin, Summer 2015

By William Kombol

Cover photo of Franklin Hot Springs by R. Curnow, circa 1984, cropped from the cover page of “Everyone’s Guide to Hot Springs of Western Washington: A complete guide to over 250 Hot Springs and Soda Pop Springs,” by Jesse W. Love, copyright 1985 by Jesse W. Love, published by Kaleidoscope Publications, Inc. Bellevue, WA 98005.

The Franklin #12 underground coal mine began operations in the mid-1950s. It operated on the Franklin No. 12 coal seam, sometimes known as the Fulton seam. There are seventeen coal seams in the Franklin series, the most famous of which was the No. 14, better known as the McKay. Another heavily mined seam was the No. 14 known as the Gem.

Most of the mining at Franklin was done on the Black Diamond west side of the Green River. However, the eastern extension of the Franklin #12 mine was accessed from a log bridge across the Green River then driven southeast all the way under the Enumclaw-Franklin Road, a total of about 4,000 feet.

Read Full Post »

Old station liability to railway, but landmark to one man

Originally published in The Seattle Times, January 19, 1983

By Herb Belanger
Times South bureau

In 1964, people were still waiting for the train in Lester. Now Burlington Northern wants to get rid of the old railroad station deep in the Cascade Mountains.

Ever had a hankering to own a railroad station? This might be the time to pick one up cheap.

But there’s a slight catch. You’d have to move the two-story building from Lester, the isolated town southwest of Stampede Pass, deep in the Cascade Mountains.

The Lester train depot has got to go. That’s the word from its owner, Burlington Northern.

BN wants to demolish it, sell it or possibly give it away, according to Mike Cook, BN environmental engineer. In any case, the company wants the building off the railroad right-of-way, Cook told members of the King County Landmarks Commission last week.

Read Full Post »