The Carbon River country: It flows with great magic

Originally published in The Tacoma News Tribune and Sunday Ledger, April 19, 1964

By Rod Cardwell

Left: Wilkeson sight, sculptor John Geise. Middle: Wilderness defeats man in Carbon River country. Right: Wilkeson quarry workers get a lift.

“Where the ladies’ rest room is now, they used to have a dentist’s chair,” said Eugene Wright, proprietor of the Carbonado Tavern.

The amiable, soft-spoken Wright, a Carbonado citizen for 49 years, was reflecting on the coal-mining boom days of another era … a hectic, happy, good-money time when the ache of a tooth and a thirst for a tall, cool one were treated under the same roof.

The magic of Pierce County’s Carbon River country is a spellbinding blend of faded greatness, of wild, mountain beauty … of mementoes Franklin D. Roosevelt … of tough, robust people who would live in no other spot on earth.

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Roslyn: They came from 24 nations to mine the black diamond

Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 7, 1973

By Joel Connelly

There is a cemetery for each ethnic group inhabiting the town.

This is the 67th visit The Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff reporters and photographers have taken to introduce the people, industry, and lifestyles of Northwest cities, towns, and rural communities. Next week: The American-Canadian border range of the North Cascades.

For 75 years, Roslyn was Washington’s toughest mining town, but it may also have been the most spirited place in the state.

About 1,200 people live there today, a decade after closure of Roslyn’s last coal mine. But more than 4,000 people—a colorful mixture of 24 nationalities, come to work in coal mines operated by the Northern Pacific Railroad—once inhabited the town.

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Diamond’s Labor Day acclaimed best ever

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, September 12, 1973

The Black Diamond Labor Day Celebration was the best every exclaimed longtime resident Mrs. Murial Wing who served as Queen Chairman. She attributed its success to the community’s residents who cheerfully cooperated so well with one another.

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Labor Day events again scheduled in Black Diamond

Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, August 29, 1973

By Laura Lorenz

In 1973 the Citizen of the Year was Joe Androsko. The Labor Day Queen was Kari Sawyer and her princess was Kathy Storey. Sid Bergstrom was the Labor Day chairperson.

Swinging in Saturday night, Sept. 1, with a dance and ending Labor Day afternoon, Sept. 3, with a rough-and-tumble tug-of-war, the Black Diamond Labor Day Celebration is just about here again.

The annual event was born out of the coal mining days of the past when vigorous work was complemented with pleasure just as lively.

It has now grown into a diverse two-and-a-half-day program, offering activities for all ages, entertaining both the participant and the spectator.

And, as before, the entire Valley is welcome.

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With royalty: Black Diamond’s ‘day’ labors on

Originally published in The News Journal, September 9, 1976

By Nancy Gould

“This is the one folks,” announces Duane Deslongchamp on the mic at King’s Tavern in Black Diamond. “This is Queen Ella.” Deslongchamp gives 76-year-old Ella Stellpflue a supportive hug before placing the derby atop her regal head.

It seems nothing, but nothing can break the association between Labor Day and Black Diamond. Even though the traditional festivities were not staged this year, persons seeking a good time or athletic outing were found in numbers there during the Labor Day weekend.

Amateur Athletic Union’s race walkers held their 16th annual four-mile sprint in the historic mining town Sunday, and a handful of bike racers were seen looking for the usual bike races.

It was a dismal showing in comparison to the former athletic events—soapbox derbies, foot races, greased pole climbing, nail pounding, and barrel rolling. But visitors, filled with spirits passed, came seeking a portion of the madness found in the rural town on this weekend of “rest.”

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Diamond days recalled

Originally published in the Auburn Globe-News, June 13, 1969

This is the concluding part of a series on coal mining in the Black Diamond-Ravensdale section of King County. Today’s story relates recollections of Fred Roberts who has lived all of his 90-plus years in and around Black Diamond. His memories of coal mining are bright and [illegible] if not altogether nostalgic. In the wake of earlier-day mining operations are situations that cause concern for present day mine owners. A few of their problems are touched upon in an accompanying story.

Three men who have lived much of their lives in a small coal-mining community of Black Diamond are, left to right, Val Sternis, Carl Steiert, who operates Black Diamond’s gas station, and Fred Roberts, 91-year-old former coal miner. Staff photo

By Elaine Fleming

The best thing that ever happened to Fred Roberts was when Pacific Coal & Oil Co. laid him off his job 48 years ago.

“If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be the man I am today,” boasts the stalwart, 91-year-old former coal miner who has spent all but nine years of his life in and around Black Diamond.

Roberts is the son of a Pennsylvania coal miner who came to live in Back Diamond with his wife and four sons in 1887—two years before Washington reached statehood. He and his wife eventually reared seven sons and two daughters in the [illegible] mining community that consisted of a single store. This was a combination general store and post office and was located where King’s Tavern is now.

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Restaurant and cemetery all that’s left of Krain

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

By Barbara Nilson

Holy Family Krain Cemetery on the plateau north of Enumclaw was established around 1900 by Slovenian immigrants and is still in use today.

A restored restaurant at the corner of Highway 169 and 400th Avenue Southeast is the only building left in the old town of Krain; just “up the road a ways” is the cemetery dating from the 1900s.

More than 255 graves have been recorded with many names that reach back into the history of Maple Valley and Ravensdale such as Lubinsky, Pauscheck, Petchnick, and Logar, grandparents of the Habenichts.

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Selleck history survives—owner seeks ways to keep town alive

Originally published in the Seattle Times, December 17, 1986

By Jim Simon

In its heyday, Selleck was a testimony to American corporate energy.

Running three shifts a day, the massive mill owned by the Pacific States Lumber Co. turned out nearly a million board feet of lumber each week. Its power was generated by an on-site steam plant; to feed the saws, the surrounding hillsides were stripped of virgin stands of Douglas fir and red cedar.

Built in 1908 as a workers’ camp, Selleck became a full-fledged town with two hotels, its own hospital and school, a tavern and a community hall. Nearly 900 people lived there at one point: East Europeans, Irish, Italians—and a contingent of Japanese recruited to produce lumber used to rebuild Tokyo after a 1923 earthquake leveled that city.

The good times came to an abrupt end in 1939, when Pacific States went bankrupt and dismantled its mill to provide building materials for the war effort.

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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.

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The foothills

Originally published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 5, 1972

There’s little activity in Cumberland to disturb a Husky dog sleeping in the sunshine. Once a thriving coal mining community, today there are, well, the memories …

By Walter A. Evans

(This is the 19^th visit Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff reporters and photographers have taken to introduce the people, industry, and lifestyle of cities, towns, and rural communities around the state. Next week: Bellingham.)

The names are little more than memories now, once thriving communities of people who made their living from deposits of coal buried beneath the ground of the Cascade foothills. They bore names like Cumberland, Kangley, Kanasket, Bayne, and Selleck.

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