South end pioneer logging town sold

Originally published in The Seattle Times, June 29, 1969

Before the Pacific States Lumber Co. closed its mill in 1939, Selleck was a neat little town with a school, meeting hall, water system, and post office.

The mill superintendent lived in house number 1, the company doctor and supervisors lived in the 300 row, and mill hands lived in the 200 and 500 rows.

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Valley personalities: Early Hobart boasted hotel, dance hall, and lumber mill

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, March 7, 1979

(This is the second in a series of feature articles written by students in Tahoma’s Beginning Journalism class. Steve Eichelberger, a senior, lives in Hobart where he became acquainted with Dorothy Iverson. She remembers when her small community housed the largest lumber mill in the Northwest.)

By Steve Eichelberger

Dorothy Iverson and her son, Warren, at their Hobart store. Dorothy remembers Hobart in the days of its lumber mill and the Hobart Bunk-Hotel.

For many years, Dorothy Iverson was a homemaker.

“Women didn’t work in those days,” she said about her early life in Hobart. Mrs. Iverson was born in Seattle where she lived with her three older brothers and three younger sisters before moving to Hobart while in the seventh grade.

She remains there today where she still helps operate the Hobart store.

Mrs. Iverson attended school in what is now the Hobart Grange and graduated from Tahoma, where she had been editor of the high school newspaper and class valedictorian.

She attended Wilson Business College in Seattle and after graduation was a secretary in Seattle for four years.

She married the late Iver Iverson in 1933 and they set up housekeeping in Hobart. Iver was employed at his father’s grocery store, the “Wood and Iverson Grocery Store,” where he continued to work until it burned in 1939.

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The Nap mill is loading their lumber at Sandstrom Spur: Logging operations at Lake Peterson are under way

Originally published in the Maplevalley Messenger, December 27, 1923

The new logging camp at Lake Peterson has been making fast progress in their logging executions

The new logging camp at Lake Peterson has been making rapid strides lately in putting into execution their logging operations.

Mr. Wilson, who is managing the new camp, purchased a number of ties from Mr. Green, of the Hideaway Cash Store, and has extended Sandstrom Spur five hundred feet, giving loading accommodations for 60,000 feet a day.

They have two large donkeys, one at the woods and the other at the spur. They are laying the foundation for the loading stand.

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New sawmill will start manufacture of maple lumber

Originally published in the Maplevalley Messenger, December 14, 1922

C.M. Drake erects mill here with a capacity of 5,000 feet per day—hardwood will be turned out

Maple and alder lumber will be manufactured in Maplevalley soon. The new sawmill, which has been installed on W.D. Gibbon’s place below the depot by C.M. Drake and Son, will be put in operation as soon as the weather permits.

The mill has a capacity of about 5,000 feet a day, states Mr. Drake.

Logging operations will be conducted by private individuals who will also deliver the logs to the mill. Several contracts have already been entered into.

The finished product will be shipped to Seattle, San Francisco, and other points by rail.

Mr. Drake formerly operated a shingle mill near Peterson Lake on the pipe line.

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‘Love affair’ with Selleck evident

Originally published in the MVHS’s The Bugle, October 1994

Eva Litras fondly tells that five generations of her family have grown up in the Selleck area.

A “love affair” with Selleck was evident at the reunion September 18 at the old grade school. Amandus Carlyle Butcher summed up the emotional attachment to the old sawmill town: “I love this country.”

Butcher went to all the first eight grades in Selleck and said it was the best place in the world to grow up.

His dad built the Kangley tavern in 1927 and ran it until 1932 while working days at the sawmill. Butcher hasn’t moved very far away, residing in Maple Valley.

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Mill town of Selleck still exists; remnants of Lavender town next door

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, August 22, 2006

By Barbara Nilson

The rebuilt Selleck School, completed in 1930. This April 10, 1940, photo is courtesy King County Assessor Property Card collection, Washington State Archives, Puget Sound Branch.

At the end the Kent-Kangley Road east of Maple Valley is the mill town of Selleck, which still exists today; next door was the town of Lavender, or “Jap Town.” The mill is gone, but the school is still there and about 16 of the original houses.

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Lake Sawyer log dump

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, September 9, 2014

By Bill Kombol

Lake Sawyer log dump, 1928

This photo by Clark Kinsey shows one of the log dumps of the Lake Sawyer Mill Company, circa 1928. This log dump facility was located on the west shore of Lake Sawyer at the current site of the Sunrise Lake Sawyer Resort. This old log dump is now a short peninsula at the resort which juts out into the lake.

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