The Spirit of the Trail

In January 1917, less than one month before the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River was dedicated, the Washington State chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) gave a water fountain to the City of Vancouver in commemoration of the Oregon Trail (Columbian 30 Jan. 1917:1). However, this was no ordinary water fountain: it was a large sculpture designed by the noted artist Alonzo Victor Lewis (1886–1946) (Poyner 2020). A DAR publication from April 1917 described the composition and construction of the fountain:

“Alonzo Victor Lewis, sculptor, of Tacoma, designed and supervised the execution of the fountain. It is interesting to know that Mr. Lewis is of the same family as Merriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803. The sculptor is descended from Fielding Lewis, who was brother to John Lewis, father of the pathfinder.

The fountain is of Tenino granite in three sections. The tall center shaft is polished and bears a tablet of golden bronze, depicting ‘The Spirit of the Trail.’ A beautiful allegoric figure typifying courage and hardihood, guiding the train of emigrant prairie schooners through valleys and forests to the land of the setting sun. The inscription at the top is ‘To the Memory of the Pioneers of the Oregon Trail, 1844.’ Insignia of the S. A. R. and D. A. R. in each lower corner of the tablet.

Below, cut into the granite and bronzed, is the title of the tablet and legend:

‘SPIRIT OF THE TRAIL’
Erected by
The D. A. R. and the S. A. R. in the State of Washington, 1916. 

On either side of the center granite is a shorter shaft of smooth cut granite, ornamented with two large buffalo skulls in bronze, which bear a bubbling fountain drinking cup on each of the four horns. Below the skull, the bronze is so designed that a bucket may be hung to catch the flow of water. This will be useful to teamsters and chauffeurs. At the base is a stone trough of running water, where dogs drink.” (Daughters of the American Revolution 1917:1082-1083)

Historic photograph from Final Report: The Columbia River Interstate Bridge, Vancouver, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, for Multnomah County, Oregon, Clarke [sic] County, Washington.

Workers installed the commemorative fountain approximately 50 feet north of the north portal of the Interstate Bridge. A very early historic photograph of the Interstate Bridge shows the original configuration of the fountain as it was installed, integrated into the concrete balustrade along the east side of the approach (Columbian 30 Jan. 1917:1; Harrington and Howard 1918:12). A one-story building for the bridge superintendent was constructed immediately behind the fountain in 1918, and this building served as a backdrop for “The Spirit of the Trail” until the building was demolished between 1959 and 1963. Another historic photograph taken by the Vancouver photographer Marcus Belmont Marcell (1869–1939) taken circa 1925 shows the configuration of the fountain in conjunction with the bridge superintendent’s office building (Alsobrook 2023:4).

Real photograph postcard (RPPC), circa 1925. This image shows the “Spirit of the Trail” at the north end of the Interstate Bridge at Vancouver, Clark County, Washington (Author’s Collection)

By the time the second Interstate Bridge was opened in 1958, the bridge approaches adjacent to the fountain had been extensively reconstructed. With easy pedestrian access virtually eliminated, by the early 1960s the fountain was practically forgotten. In March 1961, two articles in the Columbian newspaper reported on the forlorn state of the monument. The first article mentioned that the Fort Vancouver Historical Society repeatedly asked the Washington State Highway Department to move the fountain, but the state agency reportedly rebuffed the requests, citing lack of funding for the relocation project. The second article reported on initial efforts to raise funds for a potential relocation of the monument (Columbian 13 Mar. 1961:9; 15 Mar. 1961:20). By November 1961, the highway authorities relented, and it was announced that “The Spirit of the Trail” would be relocated to the Washington State tourist information center, an ersatz pioneer log cabin building formerly located east of the Vancouver Freeway (present-day Interstate 5) just south of what is now Evergreen Boulevard (Columbian 3 Nov. 1961:5). The monument was relocated to the tourist information center in April 1962 (Columbian 4 Apr. 1962:9, 11 Apr. 1962:2, 13 Apr. 1962:3).

When Interstate 5 through Vancouver was widened and reconfigured during the early 1980s, the 1950s-era tourist information center was removed, and a new rest area and tourist information center was constructed east of the interstate just north of Mill Plain Boulevard. “The Spirit of the Trail” was not included in the new facility, so the monument was dismantled and taken to a Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) storage yard at Battle Ground, Washington (Columbian 27 Jan. 1983:31). The monument remained forgotten at the WSDOT storage yard until 1999, when the Fort Vancouver chapter of the DAR tracked it down and announced their intention to rescue the sculpture from obscurity and return it to a public place (Columbian 3 Oct. 1999:13, 3 Oct. 1999:18).

By 2011, the DAR successfully relocated “The Spirit of the Trail”. The sculpture is now located adjacent to the Covington House, located at 4008 Main Street, Vancouver, WA 98663. The monument was rededicated in 2016 (Columbian 7 Sep. 2016).

WORKS CITED

Alsobrook, Adam
2023 “Interstate Bridge Transformer House / Portland Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Substation / Clark County Utility Substation.” Interstate Bridge Replacement Program, Section 106 Documentation Form (Individual Properties). ODOT Key No. 21570, WSDOT Work Order No. 400519A. Prepared by WillametteCRA.

Columbian (Vancouver, WA)
1917 “Beautiful Fountain is Given City.” 30 January:1.
1961 “Pioneer Monument is Going Unnoticed.” 13 March:9.
1961 “Move for Monument Long-Term Project.” 15 March:20.
1961 “Monument Move Given State OK.” 3 November:5.
1962 “Historical Marker To Be Moved Soon.” 4 April:9.
1962 “Marker Of ‘Trail End’ Is Moved. 11 April:2.
1962 “Trail’s End Moved.” 13 April:3.
1983 “It’s hard to hide an 8-foot monument.” 27 January:31.
1999 “History marker languishes in Battle Ground storage.” 3 October:13.
1999 “Marker.” 3 October:18.
2016 “Daughters of the American Revolution rededicate Oregon Trail plaque.” 7 September.

Daughters of the American Revolution
1917 Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Washington, DC: Capital Publishers, Inc.

Harrington, John Lyle, and Ernest E. Howard
1918 Final Report: The Columbia River Interstate Bridge, Vancouver, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, for Multnomah County, Oregon, Clarke [sic] County, Washington. Kansas City, MO: John Lyle Harrington and Ernest E. Howard, Consulting Engineers.

Poyner, Fred
2020 “Lewis, Alonzo Victor (1886–1946).” HistoryLink.org Essay 20974. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/file/20974, accessed October 3, 2023.

The Burial of Old Man Detour

Introduction

A century ago, in the early afternoon of October 25, 1923, a large enthusiastic crowd of several hundred people threw a man’s body off the Interstate Bridge in Vancouver, Washington. As the Vancouver Barracks Regimental Band played a funeral dirge, newsreel cameramen and photographers captured the body suspended from a pole in midair moments before it was hurled into the Columbia River. The body, dressed in a hat, goggles, duster, and boots, was weighed down with old road signs and canvas bags filled with broken automobile springs. Oddly, the man’s face was rigid but still smiling despite his impending demise. As the body dropped and sank into the rushing water, the crowd quickly piled back into their automobiles, since the lift span needed to open and allow a boat to pass. The long line of automobiles continued on their way to the Hotel Multnomah in downtown Portland, where the mourners held a wake for the dearly departed man.

Fortunately, even though it looked like a man’s body, it wasn’t real: it was just a mannequin, dressed up as a fictional character named “Old Man Detour”. The entire event was just an elaborate publicity stunt, with the crowd “burying” the effigy in the Columbia River to celebrate the official opening of the Pacific Highway. The macabre event that took place at the Interstate Bridge on the afternoon of October 25, 1923, is perhaps one of the most bizarre publicity stunts to ever take place in Washington State and is probably the strangest event to ever take place at the Interstate Bridge. But before we return to the rather tasteless mock “burial” of “Old Man Detour”, let’s first look at some Pacific Highway history.

From Trails to Railroads

The earliest roads established by European Americans in the Washington Territory often followed preexisting Native American trails. During the Treaty Wars of 1855–1856, the U.S. Army paid for the construction of a military road connecting Cowlitz Landing, situated on the Cowlitz River near the present-day city of Toledo, and Fort Steilacoom on Puget Sound. Completed by 1857, this road was little more than an unimproved Native trail. Even after the completion of the entire military road between Fort Vancouver and Fort Steilacoom in August 1861, overland travel between the European American settlements west of the Cascade Mountains was relatively rare. The few travelers who took the wagon road between Fort Vancouver and Fort Steilacoom complained incessantly about the poor condition of the meandering route between the two military posts. Until the construction of railroads in the Washington Territory during the 1870s and 1880s, watercraft remained the fastest and most reliable means of transporting both people and goods between population centers (Alsobrook, et al. 2022: 164–166, 212–215).

After Washington became a state in 1889, road construction continued to be a low priority, and state-level funding for road improvements was practically nonexistent. However, during the early 1890s there was a tentative attempt by the legislature to create a road network in the state. In 1893, State Road No. 8 between Lyle in Klickitat County and Washougal in Clark County was designated as the first official state road in Washington State (Alsobrook, et al. 2022: 220). However, by the late 1890s, there was still no organized network of roads or highways in Washington State. The wagon roads that did exist were little improved over the rudimentary dirt roads established during the early territorial period, and paved roads between cities did not yet exist (Washington State Good Roads and Transportation Association 2023). By the late 1890s, railroads were the dominant means of intercity transportation in Washington State, and by 1900, over 3,800 miles of track crisscrossed Washington State (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1900:4).

The Good Roads Movement

Prior to the invention and widespread use of automobiles, bicyclists were among the earliest advocates for improved roads. In 1880, the League of American Wheelmen (now known as the League of American Bicyclists), was organized. The League of American Wheelmen lobbied both for improved roads and the legal right of cyclists to use those roads. The invention of the safety bicycle in the 1880s helped popularize cycling as both a sport and recreational activity, and by the early 1890s, there were over one million bicyclists in the United States. Despite the muddy roads common in the Pacific Northwest, cycling became popular throughout Washington State. As the popularity of cycling grew, cyclists began lobbying their local governments to pay for road improvements so they could enjoy their sport year-round. For example, during the 1890s, bicycling clubs in Vancouver, Washington, convinced the county commissioners to construct bicycle paths along county roads, which were some of the first publicly funded road improvements in Clark County (Alsobrook, et al. 2022: 219).

During the 1890s, the “good roads” movement gradually evolved from the niche interest of recreational cyclists into a broader and more cohesive nationwide effort. In 1892, the League of American Wheelmen began publishing the Good Roads Magazine to further their cause for improved roads. However, at about the same time, “good roads” supporters began to see their movement as a way to improve the lives of rural residents, particularly farmers. This shift in attitude along the “good roads” advocates mirrored the populist trends of the early Progressive Era in the United States (1896–1917), with the Grange, a national agricultural organization, eventually becoming one of the most vocal supporters of rural road improvements (Kelly 2023; Wilma 2003b).

Washington State Good Roads Association

In late 1899, Samuel “Sam” Hill (1857–1931), former railroad executive and prominent Seattle entrepreneur, invited 100 men to Spokane, Washington, to discuss forming a “good roads” organization in Washington State. Only 13 of the invitees came to Hill’s meeting, which was purportedly held in an abandoned church (Meyers 2019). In addition to Hill, the attendees included Walter A. Bolinger (1864–1944), Methow; R. L. Cline (dates unknown), Bellingham; John J. Donovan (1858–1937), Bellingham; Cornelius H. Hanford (1849–1926), Seattle; John P. Hartman (1857–1945), Seattle; Lee Monohan (1859–1951), Renton; William P. Perrigo (1846–1930), Redmond; W. H. Perry, (dates unknown), Richmond Beach; Claude Ramsey (1868–1930), Seattle; Eli Rockey (1861–1933), South Bend; A. L. Rogers (1859–1929), Waterville; Frank Terrace (1853–1944), Orillia; and Reginald H. Thomson (1856–1949), Seattle (Starmont 1948).

On September 14, 1899, Hill and the 13 other men founded the Washington State Good Roads Association (WSGRA) (Wilma 2003a). Their timing was auspicious, since the first automobile in Washington State arrived less than one year later and marked the beginning of the automobile age in the state (Lange 1999). Over the following years, the WSGRA held annual meetings and lobbied Washington State officials to build a state highway system, though not everyone was initially receptive to their cause. One significant challenge was that during the late 1890s and early 1900s, road funding and construction in Washington State fell under the jurisdiction of individual county commissions. The county commissioners selected alignments to best serve the needs of their county and there was no coordination between counties over the connection of road alignments across county lines. When the WSGRA first began lobbying Washington State officials to fund and build a state highway network, the disgruntled county commissioners derisively referred to the members of the organization as “unbalanced hobby riders”, apparently since several of the wealthier WSGRA founders were also early adopters of the automobile, which was initially dismissed as a plaything of wealthy men. However, the efforts of the WSGRA eventually paid off, and in 1905 the state legislature created the Washington State Highway Department and the State Highway Fund to plan, design, and pay for the development of the state highway network (Alsobrook et al. 2022: 222; Wilma 2003a).

The first automobiles were expensive machines which usually only the very wealthy could afford. However, by 1910, automobiles had become more affordable due to mass production techniques. As more and more people could afford to own their own automobiles, membership in local and national automobile clubs, like the American Automobile Association (AAA) increased dramatically. The AAA became another vocal advocate for road improvements across the United States and bolstered the efforts of the WSGRA. As automobile ownership became more commonplace, the WSGRA, along with the local and national automobile clubs, began pushing for the construction of interstate highway routes. In 1910, automobile clubs from California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, along with members of the WSGRA, met in Seattle and formed the Pacific Highway Association, with the goal of constructing a continuous highway route along the Pacific coast between British Columbia and California. After a few years of stalled efforts, construction of the Pacific Highway in Washington State began in 1913 (Alsobrook et al. 2022: 222–224).

Completion of the Pacific Highway

In late October 1923, the WSGRA held their twenty-fourth annual convention at Olympia, Washington. Their 1923 convention would be like no other in the history of the organization, for even though meetings and other routine business was on the agenda, the hundreds of delegates and invited guests were also there to celebrate the official opening of the Pacific Highway in Washington State. The WSGRA had been a tireless supporter of the Pacific Highway since it was first proposed in 1910, and after almost a decade of construction, the entire route of the Pacific Highway in Washington State was finally fully paved and ready for traffic (Alsobrook et al. 2022: 224; Pacific Builder and Engineer 1923).

In late September 1923, workers rushed to finish the last section of concrete paving near Kelso, Washington, so that it would be ready for traffic in late October after it cured for the required 30 days (Olympian 22 Sep 1923:4; 28 Sep 1923:2). The construction work on this section of the Pacific Highway during the summer of 1923 caused motorists traveling between Olympia and Portland to detour around Clark County and take the Longview ferry across the Columbia River, instead of crossing the Interstate Bridge at Vancouver. These inconveniences were personified as “Old Man Detour” in the press, an abstract representation of the frustrations the detours caused to motorists. The exact origins of the curious moniker are unknown, and the phrase doesn’t appear in Washington newspapers until early October 1923 (Olympian 2 Oct. 1923:1, 2 Oct. 1923:3).

The Chamber of Commerce in Vancouver, Washington, was especially angry at “Old Man Detour”, since the detour around Clark County meant fewer motorists stopped and spent money in the city’s hotels, restaurants, and other businesses. In early October 1923, newspaper articles about the preparations for the WSGRA convention at Olympia reported that the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, along with the Prunarians, a local civic booster organization, in concert with the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, planned to “bury” “Old Man Detour” in the Columbia River to celebrate the official opening of the Pacific Highway. An automobile caravan from Olympia to Salem, Oregon was planned for Thursday, October 25th, and the newspapers announced that “Old Man Detour” would be thrown off the Interstate Bridge when the caravan reached the Columbia River (Columbian 2 Oct. 1923:1, 2 Oct. 1923:3, 5 Oct. 1923:1).

In the days leading up to the WSGRA convention in Olympia, workers constructed two large wooden gates across Main Street (present-day Capitol Way S) just north of 9th Avenue (present-day 9th Avenue SE). These gates would temporarily block traffic on the route until the conclusion of the opening ceremonies, when they would be swung open to mark the official opening of the Pacific Highway (Olympian 23 Oct. 1923:4). Three blocks of nearby city streets were also roped off as parking areas for the hundreds of automobiles expected to arrive during the convention (Olympian 24 Oct. 1923:4). 

By Tuesday, October 23, 1923, several hundred convention delegates and other invited guests from British Columbia, California, Oregon, and Washington filled every available hotel room in the city, including all 155 rooms of the Hotel Olympian at 6th Avenue and Washington Street (present-day Legion Way SE and Washington Street SE), which served as the convention headquarters (Pacific Builder and Engineer 1923). The crowds forced the convention organizers to construct a temporary campground to accommodate latecomers unable to find lodging (Olympian 23 Oct. 1923:4).

At noon on Wednesday, October 24, 1923, a large crowd of dignitaries and onlookers gathered at the temporary gates across Main Street for the formal opening of the Pacific Highway. They listened to speeches given by Governor Louis F. Hart of Washington, Governor Walter M. Pierce of Oregon, and the Honorable Dr. W. H. Sutherland, Minister of Public Works for British Columbia. During his speech, Governor Hart declared: “May these gates never close to progress, to prosperity and to good will between the nations and states represented.” Governor Hart concluded his address with the dry remark: “I hereby formally dedicate this great highway extending from Vancouver, B.C. to Tia Juana [sic], Mexico, or, as a lady friend of mine said, from liquor to liquor.” (Olympian 25 Oct. 1923:1, 25 Oct. 1923:4; Bellingham Herald 26 Oct. 1923:14).

The Auto Caravan

The following morning at 8:30 AM, 176 automobiles left Olympia in a long caravan and headed south to Vancouver, escorted by 35 motorcycle officers from the Washington and Oregon highway patrols. Governor Hart, Governor Pierce, and Minister Sutherland each rode in their own automobiles along with other officials and a few hundred other motorists whose names are unknown to history. One of the automobiles served as the hearse for an effigy of “Old Man Detour”, who would be “buried” in the Columbia River by the Vancouver Prunarians. As the caravan progressed southward, people in every community turned out in droves to cheer the procession of automobiles on its way. The caravan stopped briefly in Chehalis, where the motorists were reportedly showered with apples. By late morning, the procession reached Kelso, and shortly thereafter, the motorists made a quick stop at the Hotel Monticello in Longview for coffee and box lunches. By mid-afternoon, the five-mile-long line of automobiles arrived at the Vancouver city limits. The caravan had grown by the time it arrived in Clark County: highway patrol motorcycle officers counted 355 automobiles as the procession entered Vancouver, escorted by soldiers from Vancouver Barracks and the 7th Infantry band (Capital Journal 25 Oct. 1923:1, 25 Oct. 1923:7; News Tribune 26 Oct. 1923:1, 26 Oct. 1923:2).

At about 3:00 PM, the head of the caravan arrived at the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River. Automobiles jammed the full width of the bridge as both their occupants and curious onlookers jostled to get a good view Governor Pierce of Oregon made a speech. Samuel “Sam” Hill also addressed the crowd, though it is unclear as to whether he took part in the procession or traveled to Vancouver for the occasion. Frank Branch Riley, the “silver-tongued orator of Oregon”, delivered the eulogy for “Old Man Detour” before the gathered crowd. An army band from Vancouver Barracks struck up a funeral dirge as the effigy of “Old Man Detour” was hoisted over the railing along the west side of the Interstate Bridge. The Prunarian “pallbearers” then released the waxen-faced mannequin into the swirling waters of the Columbia River, where “fish now swim around his corpse”. At some point during the macabre spectacle, the steamboat Robert Young blew its whistle to request passage, but the bridge engineer was unable to lift the span due to the crowd of people and vehicles. As the boat waited, officials hastily shooed the caravan off the bridge, and the procession crossed into Oregon toll-free (Columbian 16 Oct. 1923:1, 26 Oct. 1923:1, 29 Oct. 1923:1; News Tribune 26 Oct. 1923:1, 26 Oct. 1923:2).

The “Burial” of “Old Man Detour”, October 25, 1923. This historic photograph shows the effigy of “Old Man Detour” moments before it was dropped off of the Interstate Bridge into the Columbia River (Author’s Collection).

Epilogue

In a bizarre ending to an already odd tale, “Old Man Detour” refused to stay “buried” in his final resting place just west of the Interstate Bridge. In early December 1923, the mannequin washed ashore on a beach at Lemon Grove near San Diego, California. In the few short months after “Old Man Detour” was dropped off the Interstate Bridge, he apparently lost the old road signs and broken automobile springs that weighted him down, floated down the Columbia River, and then bobbed along the Pacific coast down to San Diego. However, even though the “body” of “Old Man Detour” was found, what ultimately happened to the effigy is still a mystery (Columbian 12 Dec. 1923:4; Oregonian 12 Dec. 1923:1).

WORKS CITED

Alsobrook, et al.
2022 Interstate Bridge Replacement Program Historic Resources Baseline Survey Report, Clark County, Washington (Portland, OR: WillametteCRA, 2023).

Bellingham Herald (Bellingham, WA)
1923 “Governor Dedicates Highway ‘From Liquor to Liquor.” 26 October:14.

Capital Journal (Salem, OR)
1923 “Road Caravan 5 Miles Long Starts Trip.” 25 October:1.
1923 “Road Caravan.” 25 October:7.

Columbian (Vancouver, WA)
1923 “Prunarians Will Drown ‘Old Man Detour’ Oct. 25.” 2 October:1.
1923 “Prunarians Will Drown.” 2 October:3.
1923 “Vancouver Kiwanians Pledge Full Support in Greeting Caravan.” 5 October:1.
1923 “Bridge to Be Toll Free for Oct. 25 Caravan.” 16 October:1.
1923 “Northwest Gets Rid of Old Detour.” 26 October:1.
1923 “Bridge May Be Fined $500 for Failure to Open Span for Boat.” 29 October:1.
1923 “Old Man Detour.” 12 December:4.

Kelly, Susan Croce
2023 “Good Roads Movement.” Electronic resource, https://www.britannica.com/event/Good-Roads-movement, accessed October 1, 2023.

Lange, Greg
1999 “First automobile arrives in Seattle on July 23, 1900,” HistoryLink.org Essay 957. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/File/957, accessed October 1, 2023.

Meyers, Donald W.
2019 “It Happened Here: Sam Hill campaigns for better roads in Washington state,” Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, WA), 25 August. Electronic resource, https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/it-happened-here-sam-hill-campaigns-for-better-roads-in-washington-state/article_1507bfb6-dd82-5ba2-a5ee-76869a4c8757.html, accessed October 1, 2023.

News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)
1923 “Happy Crowd Sees Passing of Detours.” 26 October:1.
1923 “Big Crowd Sees Detours’ Passing.” 26 October:2.

Olympian (Olympia, WA)
1923 “Last Concrete Laid on Pacific Highway.” 22 September:4.
1923 “Chamber Will Arrange for Auto Caravan.” 28 September:2.
1923 “Good Roads Convention Opens Highway.” 2 October:1.
1923 “Good Roads Meeting to Open Highway.” 2 October:3.
1923 “Huge Caravan Will Depart Through Gates.” 10 October:4.
1923 “Arrangements Completed for Auto Caravan.” 23 October:4.
1923 “Olympia Now Pivot Point of Autoists.” 24 October:4.
1923 “Columbia is Awaiting the Auto Caravan.” 25 October:1.
1923 “Columbia Awaits the Auto Caravan.” 25 October:4.

Oregonian (Portland, OR)
1923 “’Old Man Detour’ Found at San Diego.” 12 December:1.

Pacific Builder and Engineer
1923 “Washington Good Roads Men to Hold Four Day Session,” Pacific Builder and Engineer (Seattle, WA), 20 October:6.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA)
1900 “Washington’s Railroad Systems,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA), 4 September:4.

Starmont, Leon
1948 “50 Years of the Good Roads Fight: Anniversary Session in Spokane Recalls Early Highway Battles,” Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), 10 October:108-109.

Washington State Good Roads and Transportation Association
2023 “Early Good Roads History.” Electronic resource, https://wsgrta.com/history.htm, accessed October 1, 2023.

Wilma, David
2003a “Sam Hill and other visionaries organize the Washington State Good Roads Association on September 14, 1899,” HistoryLink.org Essay 5218, 16 February. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/File/5218, accessed October 1, 2023.
2003b “Washington Good Roads Association,” HistoryLink.org Essay 5219, 16 February. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/file/5219, accessed October 1, 2023.

Residences, Toledo, Oregon

INTRODUCTION

This real photograph postcard (RPPC) was mailed from Toledo, Oregon to London, England on July 17, 1924. The front of the card is inscribed “Residences, Toledo, Ore.,” but the exact location of these four houses and garage was not indicated either on the postcard or in the barely intelligible inscription on the back.

However, for readers familiar with some of my recent research and writing projects on this website, this was a minor setback to my learning exactly where these buildings were located. I narrowed down the span of years during which these buildings were most likely constructed using a combination of historic aerial photographs, fire insurance maps, and Google Maps. The wood plank road and brushy vegetation in front of the houses was another clue I was able to use to pinpoint their location in Toledo.

A little bit of sleuthing revealed that these buildings were located at the southeast corner of SE 7th Street and SE Fir Street in Toledo, which is a city in central Lincoln County, Oregon (Sanborn 1925:5). It appears that the garage and the four houses still exist where they were constructed about 100 years ago (Google 2021). With the location of the buildings identified, I then set about to learn what I could about this part of Toledo and some of the historical figures involved in their development and construction.

THE FOUNDING OF TOLEDO, OREGON

On December 21, 1865, President of the United States Andrew Johnson signed an Executive Order which allowed European American settlers in Oregon to take reservation lands that had been set aside for the native Siletz peoples. A native of Ireland, John Graham and his family emigrated to Oregon from Toledo, Ohio and were among the first European American settlers to claim some of the land that had been forcibly taken from the Siletz in what is now Lincoln County. In 1866, John Graham established Graham’s Landing on the banks of the Yaquina River about fourteen river miles east of Newport. A post office was established in 1868 and named by John Graham’s son Joseph after their previous place of residence in Ohio (Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians 2021; City of Toledo 2021; Wikipedia 2021).

Less than twenty years later in the spring of 1884, the tracks of the Willamette Valley & Coast Railroad Company reached Toledo from Yaquina, which was located on the Yaquina River about 3 miles southeast of Newport. By December 1884, the same company’s tracks extended eastward another 62 miles to Corvallis, and by early 1887 the line had reached another 12 miles to Albany, where they connected with the mainline of the Oregon & California Railroad (Robertson 1995).

Logging and lumber milling were the most important industries in the early years of European American settlement of Toledo and Lincoln County. It was estimated at around 15 to 20 billion board feet of timber stood in the vicinity of Toledo, and this timber attracted capitalists intent on cashing in on this natural resource. About seventy small sawmills dotted the landscape by the close of the 19th century. During World War One, spruce lumber became a strategic war material used in the construction of airplanes, though the conflict ended before the Pacific Spruce Corporation could begin production. Pacific Spruce was renamed the C.D. Johnson Lumber Company, by 1924 the company employed 800 workers, making Toledo the industrial center of Lincoln County (City of Toledo 2021; Wikipedia 2021).

THE “TOKYO SLOUGH” RACE RIOT

On July 10, 1925, the C.D. Johnson Lumber Company hired 32 Japanese to sort lumber, or “pull chain” as the workers referred to the process. The mill managers had made the decision to hire Japanese workers months previously, and they had worked hard to cool off the simmering tensions of the European American workers who feared that the Japanese would steal jobs and undercut their wages. The decision by the mill heads even got the support of the local chamber of commerce. Despite these efforts to smooth over these concerns, just two days after the Japanese workers were hired, a mob of 50 White men, egged on by about 250 White women and children, attacked the Japanese in their homes along “Tokyo Slough.” The White mob overpowered armed mill workers who had been deputized as guards and confronted the Japanese foreman, who was beaten when he refused to leave (Corvallis Gazette-Times 7 Apr. 2005).

The police chief of Toledo did nothing to stop the White mob, and his wife was one of the most vocal and active members of the large group of White women and children who supported the rioters. The Lincoln County sheriff took down names of the White rioters and made a few arrests, but the White mob loaded the Japanese into cars and trucks and forcibly removed them to Corvallis. Five of the Japanese workers sued their attackers, and one worker won $2,500 in the first civil case, though the four other pending cases were settled by the six Whites accused in those lawsuits. Ted Cox, a Corvallis historian who published a written history of the Toledo race riot, estimated that the accused Whites paid the Japanese plaintiffs more than $7,000, or about $106,000 in 2021 dollars. As part of the settlement, the defendants also promised to not discriminate against Japanese workers (Corvallis Gazette-Times 7 Apr. 2005).  

The aftermath of the race riot split the residents of Toledo, with some supporting the White rioters, and others supporting the rights of the Japanese to follow economic opportunities without outside interference. One White rioter lost his business and left the city, and another had his property auctioned off to pay his share of the settlement. The police chief and his wife paid the most and had to sell off property to meet their financial obligations. Sadly, the July 1925 race riot in Toledo was not unique, and numerous other incidents of its kind took place in Oregon and the United States throughout the 1920s (Corvallis Gazette-Times 7 Apr. 2005).

DECLINING FORTUNES

As the 20th century wore on, the economy of Toledo declined. United States Highway 20 bypassed the city and caused people and businesses to move to Newport. The depletion of timber drove the C.D. Johnson Lumber Company to the brink of failure, and the company was purchased by Georgia-Pacific in 1952. Toledo had served as the county seat of Lincoln County since 1896, and voters had failed in 1928 and 1938 to remove the county seat to Newport. The voters approved the change in 1954, and Newport became the county seat. The booming prosperity of Toledo between the 1880s and the late 1920s was driven by the timber extraction industry, but currently the Georgia-Pacific mill is the only lumber mill operating in Toledo (City of Toledo 2021; Wikipedia 2021).

THE BUILDINGS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

The four houses and garage shown in the postcard are situated in the NE¼ of the NE¼ of the SW¼ of Section 17, Township 11 South, Range 10 West, Willamette Meridian. In April 1882, Henry S. Maynard received a patent for 166.40 acres of land in Section 17 (BLM 2021:OROCAA 032629). However, even before Maynard formally received his patent, he had sold his entire claim to Judith T. Vincent in January 1880 for $500, or about $13,000 in 2021 dollars (Lincoln County Recorder 1880). In 1890, a portion of this property was platted as Vincent’s First Addition to Toledo (Corvallis Gazette-Times 7 Mar. 1890:1). This subdivision was created prior to the formal incorporation of Toledo, which occurred either in 1893 or 1905, depending on the source consulted (City of Toledo 2021; Wikipedia 2021).

Judith T. Vincent died in October 1903, and her estate executors sold off some of her property holdings over several months after her death (Lincoln County Leader 16 Oct. 1903:1). The buildings shown on the postcard are located on Lots 1 through 7 on Block 5 of Vincent’s First Addition to Toledo. On March 3, 1904, T. H. Gildersleeve purchased Blocks 5, 6, and 9 of Vincent’s First Addition to Toledo (Lincoln County Leader 4 Mar. 1904:1). Edwin J. Avery and his wife Anna S. Avery acquired Lots 1 through 7 on Block 5 by 1911, though they lost the property to the Lincoln County Sheriff due to property tax arrears (Lincoln County Leader 3 Nov. 1916:2). G. B. McCluskey acquired the former Avery property in April 1918 (Lincoln County Leader 5 Apr. 1918:3).

The four houses and garage that appear in the postcard image all appear on the 1925 Sanborn fire insurance map (Sanborn 1925:5). The garage shown at the extreme right of the postcard image is located at the rear of the house at 814 SE Fir Street. According to tax assessor records, this house was built in 1924. The property at 741 7th Street SE was built in 1940 according to tax assessor records, but it appears that this house was constructed between 1920 and 1924 and has been extensively altered from how it appeared in 1924 when the photograph was taken. Both of the houses at 763 7th Street SE and 781 7th Street SE were built in 1920, and the house at the extreme left of the postcard image was built in 1924 (Lincoln County Assessor 2021). In summary, based on the tax assessor records, the Sanborn fire insurance map, and the postmark on the postcard, the four houses and garage along 7th Street SE were all constructed between 1920 and July 1924. A present-day image of the garage and four houses from Google Maps is shown below.

WORKS CITED

Corvallis Gazette-Times

1890    “Toledo Notes.” Corvallis Gazette-Times 7 March:1. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

Corvallis Gazette-Times

2005    “Local man’s book examines Toledo race riot.” Corvallis Gazette-Times, 7 April. Electronic resource, https://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/local-mans-book-examines-toledo-race-riot/article_06a15239-ee7f-5701-97ef-20099a621f04.html, accessed April 2021.

Lincoln County Leader

1903    “Mrs. J. T. Vincent.” Lincoln County Leader 16 October:1. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.  

1904    “Real Estate Transfers.” Lincoln County Leader 4 March:1. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

1916    “Notice of Sheriff’s Sale.” Lincoln County Leader, 3 November:2. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

1918    “Announcements.” Lincoln County Leader, 5 April:3. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

City of Toledo

2021    “History of Toledo.” Electronic resource, https://www.cityoftoledo.org/community/page/history-toledo, accessed April 2021.

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

2021    “Our Heritage.” Electronic resource, http://www.ctsi.nsn.us/chinook-indian-tribe-siletz-heritage/, accessed April 2021.

Google

2021    Toledo, Oregon. Electronic resource, https://www.google.com/maps, accessed April 2021.

Lincoln County Assessor

2021    Property Info Search Tool. Electronic resource, https://www.co.lincoln.or.us/assessor/page/property-info-search-tool, accessed April 2021.

Lincoln County Recorder

1880    H. S. Maynard to Mrs. Judith T. Vincent, 17 June. Electronic resource, https://helion.co.lincoln.or.us/DigitalResearchRoomPublic/, accessed April 2021.

Robertson, Donald

1995    Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, Volume 3: Oregon and Washington. The Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho.

Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn)

1925    Toledo, Lincoln County, Oregon, Sheet 2. Electronic resource, https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.ezproxy.spl.org/about?accountid=2565, accessed April 2021.

United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

2021    General Land Office Records. Electronic resource, https://glorecords.blm.gov/search, accessed April 2021.

2021    Land Status & Cadastral Survey Records, Willamette Meridian – Oregon and Washington States. Electronic resource, https://www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey, accessed April 2021.

Wikipedia

2021    “Toledo, Oregon.” Electronic resource, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Oregon, accessed April 2021.

Camp Murray Arsenal

Real photograph postcard (RPPC), circa July 1917 to July 1918. This image shows the Pacific Highway and the Northern Pacific Railway near Camp Lewis, Washington. The Arsenal at Camp Murray is in the distance (Author’s Collection).

Any driver familiar with the frequently congested section of Interstate 5 between Olympia and Tacoma will likely be very surprised to see what that part of road looked like over 100 years ago. Between July 1917 and July 1918, a photographer stood just to the south of what was then called the Pacific Highway and captured this image, which shows a long stretch of open road running between the north boundary of Camp Lewis and the Northern Pacific Railway line. The photographer also happened to capture an early image of Camp Murray, which appears in the far background near the center of the photograph. Camp Murray is the headquarters of the Washington Military Department (WMD), which is a branch of the Washington state government. The WMD consists of several different operational divisions, including the Washington Army National Guard and Washington Air National Guard (Washington Military Department 2021).

CAMP MURRAY

In 1889, Washington became the 42nd state to be admitted to the Union. The Washington State legislature enacted a tax levy to pay for the Military Department of Washington, which was expected to raise about $40,000 in annual revenue (about $1.15 million in 2021 dollars). Shortly after the enactment of the tax levy, Brigadier General Rossell G. O’Brien, Adjutant General of the Washington National Guard, began making preparations for a Brigade Encampment during the summer of 1890. This encampment was held on land near American Lake which would eventually become Camp Murray. General O’Brien reported a final cost for the encampment of $20,319.33, or about $585,000 in 2021 dollars, which included pay for the officers and enlisted men (Washington National Guard 1959).

The 1890 encampment of the Washington National Guard was located on the banks of American Lake south of Murray Creek, which was named after an early European American family that settled in the area. By late June 1890, construction of the Tacoma, Olympia & Gray’s Harbor Railway line had progressed to the extent that the encampment site could be reached by rail from Tacoma, and by August 1891, the entire rail line between Lakeview and Olympia was completed (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 21 Jun. 1890:2; Robertson 1995; Washington National Guard 1959). The railroad, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railway, established Murray station on its new line just south of Murray Creek, about nineteen miles northeast of Olympia and about twelve miles southwest of Tacoma. The 1890 encampment location was used again for the 1892 Washington National Guard summer camp. The new railroad service to the site was ideal for the moving of men, horses, and materiel, and the natural features of the site and proximity to American Lake also made Murray an ideal location for the encampment (Washington National Guard 1959).

After the 1892 summer camp, General O’Brien concluded that a permanent location should be established for the Washington National Guard encampments. In his biannual report to the Governor, the Adjutant General stated that the creation of a permanent installation would be more cost effective to the state, since the massive amount of military equipment typically used during the encampment could be securely stored in one location and not require transportation to the site before and after the event. General O’Brien recommended that the state locate and purchase a suitable site for a permanent camp, but no further action was taken following his report (Washington National Guard 1959).

The Washington National Guard held the 1894 summer camp at Woodland, about four miles east of Olympia, which was located on the same Tacoma, Olympia & Gray’s Harbor Railway line that served Murray. However, a nationwide railroad strike delayed by several days the arrival of units from east of the Cascade Mountains, and there was insufficient equipment to accommodate the over 1,400 personnel who participated in the event. The 1894 encampment also exceeded the appropriation available to the Military Department of Washington and created a deficit of about $20,000, or about $616,000 in 2021 dollars. General O’Brien retired in 1895, and the next encampment of the Washington National Guard did not take place until 1902, when a ten-day-long summer camp was held at Murray (Washington National Guard 1959).  

Adjutant General O’Brien’s recommendation of 1892 was not implemented until 1903, when the State of Washington purchased two parcels containing 220 acres of land in Sections 20 and 21, Township 19 North, Range 2 East, Willamette Meridian. The newly established Camp Murray was located within the Frederick Rabjohns donation land claim. Rabjohns, also spelled as Rabjohn or Ropjohns, depending on the source, was a crew member of the Albion, a British vessel seized by the United States customs officials for violating tax regulations. After the Albion was condemned and sold at auction in November 1850, Rabjohns remained in what was then Oregon Territory (Washington National Guard 1959). He claimed 319.10 acres in October 1852 under the Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850 (BLM 2021).

In October 1855, Rabjohns enlisted in Company D, 1st Washington Territorial Militia Regiment, commanded by Captain William H. Wallace, who later became one of Washington’s territorial governors. During the Puget Sound War of 1855-1856, Rabjohns’ regiment fought alongside United States Army regulars stationed at Fort Steilacoom. Frederick Rabjohns received the final patent to his land claim in December 1880, and eventually sold off portions of his land claim to John Murray and James Reams before he died in 1889 (BLM 2021; Washington National Guard 1959; Washington Standard 5 Jul. 1889:1).

1882 Cadastral Survey Map showing the Frederick Rabjohns land claim. The present-day locations of Interstate 5 and the Arsenal are also indicated (Illustration by Author).

In retrospect, the acquisition of the Camp Murray site was a bargain. The state paid $6,600 for the 220 acres of land, which is about $199,000 in 2021 dollars (Washington National Guard 1959). By 1914, it was estimated at the value of the land was between $250 and $500 per acre, or about $6,600 to $13,250 per acre in 2021 dollars (Seattle Daily Times 13 Nov. 1914:19). Additional transactions between November 1918 and October 1932 increased the total area of Camp Murray to about 231 acres, including Barlow Island in American Lake (Washington National Guard 1959). For purposes of comparison, tax valuations for land just outside of the Camp Murray boundary are currently around $743,000 per acre (Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer 2021).

1914 Map of Pierce County, with the Camp Murray boundaries indicated. The present-day locations of Interstate 5 and the Arsenal are also indicated (Illustration by Author).

THE ARSENAL

After Camp Murray was established in 1903, the Washington National Guard summer camps were held there annually. After Governor Samuel G. Cosgrove died in March 1909, the Murray railroad station was renamed “Cosgrove” in his honor, and a Western Union telegraph office was established there in August 1910 (Spokane Chronicle 18 Aug. 1910:5; Washington National Guard 1959). Even though Camp Murray was the permanent encampment location, the field equipment, tents, and wagons used during each annual summer camp were stored at the State Arsenal in Seattle and shipped back and forth each year (Washington National Guard 1959).

In 1914, Adjutant General Maurice Thompson recommended that a fireproof warehouse be constructed at Camp Murray to house the encampment field equipment (Seattle Daily Times 13 Nov. 1914:19; Washington National Guard 1959). The Tacoma architectural firm of Heath & Gove prepared the plans for the building, and bids for the work were opened in June 1915 (Building and Engineering News 16 Jun. 1915:13; Leavenworth Echo 11 Jun. 1915:4; Western Engineering Jun. 1915:533). The Far West Clay Construction Company of Tacoma was awarded the $17,320 building contract the following month (Western Engineering Jul. 1915:44).

The two-story-tall, concrete and clay tile warehouse was substantially completed by September 1915, and the building was already being partially used for storage (Seattle Daily Times 17 Sep. 1915:19). In November 1915, Major Frank T. Liggett, Chief Clerk of the Adjutant General’s office, inspected the completed building. Major Liggett also conducted an inventory of the Arsenal contents, which had been placed under the care of the Adjutant General’s Storekeeper, Corporal Edward O. Free (Seattle Daily Times 26 Nov. 1915:17; 3 Dec. 1915:21). The following June, Major Liggett was transferred to the Quartermaster Corps from the Inspector General’s Department and made Quartermaster of the Arsenal (Seattle Daily Times 2 Jun. 1916:15).  

At the close of 1915, Brigadier General A.L. Mills, United States Army, Chief of the Division of Military Affairs, enthusiastically declared that the Washington National Guard was the only state militia that was completed armed, equipped, and uniformed for immediate field service. General Mills singled out the new Arsenal for praise as well and complimented the efforts of the Adjutant General to store securely the equipment that the United States War Department regularly provided to the state (Seattle Daily Times 31 Dec. 1915:7).

Historic photograph of the Arsenal (Building 2) at Camp Murray, 1921. Public domain image courtesy of the Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room Collection.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH

Of the two military installations along the Pacific Highway, there were far more photographs taken of Camp Lewis than there were of Camp Murray, which makes the postcard image all that more important as a document of a relatively brief moment of time. A tight crop of the postcard image reveals additional details about the highway, railroad line, and the installation at Camp Murray. Two cars are on the highway, heading toward Tacoma, which is about twelve miles to the northeast. The larger of the two buildings is the Arsenal (now known as Building 2), and the smaller building is the Northern Pacific Railway’s Cosgrove station. There are two sidings off the Northern Pacific Railway mainline: one is a passing siding on the south side of the mainline, and the other siding is located on the north side and serves the Arsenal building loading dock. Other details include the Camp Murray flagpole, tents, trucks, and an enclosed ramp used to load cavalry horses and other military livestock onto railroad cars.

Tight crop of the real photograph postcard. The Arsenal is at the center of the image. Other features, such as Cosgrove Station, flagpole, livestock loading ramp, and the Pacific Highway are also labeled (Illustration by the Author).

CONCLUSION

Two years after the construction of the Arsenal (present-day Building 2), Heath & Gove were hired to design an additional warehouse and wagon shed at Camp Murray (The American Architect 30 May 1917:18). A residence for the Adjutant General (present-day Building 118) was completed by 1921, and the following year the Office of the Adjutant General was relocated to Camp Lewis. A new concrete and clay tile Headquarters Building (present-day Building 1) was completed several years later, and in February 1928 the Office of Adjutant General relocated to that building from Camp Lewis. Camp Murray developed rapidly after the late 1920s, and many additional buildings and structures were built during the next several decades (Washington National Guard 1959).

In addition to the 1928 Headquarters Building (Building 1), the 1915 Arsenal (Building 2), and the 1921 Adjutant General’s residence (Building 118) there are four additional buildings which have been determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as part of a potential historic district. These include the Artillery and Tent Warehouse (Building 7), Original Greenhouse (Building 23), Cottage (Building 24), and Building 26, the Fire Station (Gorman Preservation Associates/Tierra Right of Way Services 2020). The distinctive Arsenal and Headquarters buildings stand proudly as highly visible and significant landmarks to drivers along Interstate 5, even though many of the drivers have no idea that the buildings were originally located in much quieter and bucolic surroundings.

WORKS CITED

American Architect

1917    “Tacoma, Wash.” The American Architect, 30 May:18. The American Architect Incorporated, New York, New York.

Building and Engineering News

1915    “Government Works & Supplies.” Building and Engineering News, 16 June:13.

Gorman Preservation Associates/Tierra Right of Way Services

2020    Updated Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan for Installations of the Washington Army National Guard, 2021-2025. Electronic resource, https://mil.wa.gov/asset/5ffdcced31ceb, accessed April 2021.

Kroll

1915    Atlas of Pierce County, Washington, Township 19 North, Range 2 East, Willamette Meridian, page 11. Electronic resource, https://content.libraries.wsu.edu/digital/collection/maps/id/872/rec/110, accessed April 2021.

Leavenworth Echo

1915    “State Industrial News.” Leavenworth Echo, 11 June:4. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer

2021    Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Information Portal. Electronic resource, https://atip.piercecountywa.gov/#/app/parcelSearch/search, accessed April 2021.

Robertson, Donald

1995    Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, Volume 3: Oregon and Washington. The Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho.

Seattle Daily Times

1914    “Thompson Tells of Guard Needs.” Seattle Daily Times, 13 November:19. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.

1915    “General Praises Militia Officer.” Seattle Daily Times, 17 September:19. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.

1915    “Major Returns from Tour of Inspection.” Seattle Daily Times, 26 November:17. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.

1915    “National Guard Notes.” Seattle Daily Times, 3 December:21. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.

1915    “Officials Laud Guard of State.” Seattle Daily Times, 31 December:7. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.

1916    “Promotion Comes to Two Officers. Seattle Daily Times, 2 June:15. Electronic resource, NewsBank, Inc. via Seattle Public Library, accessed April 2021.  

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

1890    “The Field of Mars.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 June:2. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

Spokane Chronicle

1910    “City in Brief.” Spokane Chronicle, 18 August:5. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.

United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

2021    General Land Office Records. Electronic resource, https://glorecords.blm.gov/search, accessed April 2021.

2021    Land Status & Cadastral Survey Records, Willamette Meridian – Oregon and Washington States. Electronic resource, https://www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey, accessed April 2021.

Washington Military Department

2021    Washington Military Department website. Electronic resource, https://mil.wa.gov/, accessed April 2021.     

Washington National Guard

1959    The Camp Murray Story: The Command Post, Washington National Guard. State of Washington, Olympia, Washington.

Washington Standard

1889    “Territorial Happenings.” The Washington Standard, 5 July:1. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed April 2021.  

Western Engineering

1915    “Tacoma.” Western Engineering, June:533. Western Engineering Publishing Company, San Francisco, California.

1915    “Cosgrove.” Western Engineering, July:44. Western Engineering Publishing Company, San Francisco, California.

Rex Land Company Building, South Lake Union

D.T. Denny’s Home Addition

On May 11, 1889, David Thomas Denny recorded the plat for D.T. Denny’s Home Addition to the City of Seattle (King County Recorder 2021). This plat was one of eleven that subdivided some of the 697.19 acres of land claims that David and Louisa Boren Denny acquired along the southern and eastern shores of Lake Union between 1865 and 1869 (BLM 2021). The D.T. Denny’s Home Addition plat was bound by Mercer Street to the north, Orion Street (present-day 9th Avenue North) to the east, Harrison Street to the south, and Temperance Street (present-day Queen Anne Avenue North) to the west (King County Recorder 2021). The name of the plat was a nod to David and Louisa Denny’s homestead of 1860-1861, which was located on the north side of Republican Street between 8th Avenue North and 9th Avenue North (Seattle Daily Times 8 Oct. 1944:38).

Land Claims of David T. Denny and Louisa Denny, 1865 to 1869. Annotated cadastral map (BLM 2021).

In 1889, David and Louisa Boren Denny built their mansion, Decatur Terrace, at 512 Temperance Street. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1 Jan. 1890:14). Their homesite occupied all of Block 24 of the D.T. Denny’s Home Addition and was bound by Mercer Street to the north, Kentucky Street (present-day 1st Avenue North) to the east, Republican Street to the south, and Temperance Street (present-day Queen Anne Avenue North) to the west (Sanborn 1893:71). Today, the former site of their house is a parking lot between a pet supply store and a hamburger restaurant.

David and Louisa were active and enthusiastic supporters of Seattle’s development. David invested their personal fortune in the Rainier Power and Railway Company, which he created to connect the University District to downtown by streetcar. Unfortunately, the Panic of 1893 caused the street railway company to fail, which bankrupted the Dennys and caused them to lose their assets, including the mansion, to creditors. David and Louisa were practically exiled from Seattle, moving first to a modest house in the Fremont neighborhood and then to a small cottage at Licton Springs. David died in November 1903, and Louisa died in August 1916 (Crowley 1998).

Block 82, D.T. Denny’s Home Addition

After the subdivision was platted in May 1889, the twelve lots in Block 82 of D.T. Denny’s Home Addition remained undeveloped until well into the first decade of the 20th century. In mid-August 1906, the entire block, bounded by Republican Street to the north, 8th Avenue North to the east, Harrison Street to the south, and Dexter Avenue North to the west, was purchased from Dexter Horton & Company by “an English syndicate” for $50,000, or about $1.46 million in 2021 dollars (Seattle Daily Times 15 Aug. 1906:4). Two weeks later, Eldred Tucker and his wife sold the entire block to Charles E. Thomson for $65,000, or about $1.9 million in 2021 dollars (Seattle Daily Times 1 Sep. 1906:4; 2 Sep. 1906:12).

Sanborn fire insurance map, Seattle, Washington, 1904-1905, Volume 3, Sheet 280. Block 82 of D.T. Denny’s Home Addition is bounded by Republican Street to the north, 8th Avenue North to the east, Harrison Street to the south, and Dexter Avenue North to the west, and is labeled “836” on the map. (Library of Congress).

This eyebrow-raising transaction occurred amid feverish land speculation in the area south of Lake Union, which was driven partially by the impending construction of the canal connecting Lake Washington with Lake Union. The thirty percent increase between the original sale price and the resale price of Block 82 caught the attention of Seattle real estate players, some of whom were immediately suspicious of the shadowy Charles E. Thomson. Albert B. Lord of Albert B. Lord & Company placed large ads in both the Seattle Daily Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which boldly asked “who is this mysterious Chas. E. Thompson? [sic],” and claimed that he had purchased $1,000,000 worth of land in the south Lake Union subdivisions (Seattle Daily Times 9 Oct. 1906:10; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 9 Oct. 1906:14). The next day, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer identified Charles E. Thomson as the representative of a mysterious “English syndicate” snapping up properties, and also named the Thomas Investment Company as Thomson’s agent. The same article cited speculation that Thomson actually represented the Canadian Pacific Railway in a bid to obtain industrial property, a claim which the Thomas Investment Company vehemently denied (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10 Oct. 1906:5).

Despite Lord’s claims that Thomson had purchased $1,000,000 worth of land in south Lake Union subdivisions, newspaper accounts reveal property transactions for less than half that amount. In addition to his Block 82 acquisition, in mid-August 1906 Thomson had purchased Lots 6 and 7 in Block 83 of D.T. Denny’s Home Addition (the block north of Block 82) for $7,500 (Seattle Daily Times 19 Aug. 1906:66). In mid-September 1906, he purchased all of Block 3 and part of Block 4 of D.T. Denny’s Second Addition from Clark W. Sprague for $160,000 (Seattle Daily Times 18 Sep. 1906:13). Thomson also purchased Block 2 of D.T. Denny’s Second Addition from Frank M. Stanley for $130,000 (Seattle Daily Times 8 Oct. 1906:10). It is possible that Thomson may have acquired other properties through “straw buyers,” but Thomson’s known transactions only total about $362,500, or about $10.6 million in 2021 dollars. Regardless of how much land he may have or may not have purchased, Thomson was indeed a shadowy figure, and his exact identity, along with that of the company he was representing, remains cloaked in mystery.

The Rex Land Company purchased a double lot at the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue North and Harrison Street from George Vogt for $14,000, or about $211,000 in 2021 dollars (Seattle Daily Times 10 Apr. 1927:32; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10 Apr. 1927:55). Available newspaper accounts do not reveal when George Vogt acquired Block 82, but it appears that Block 82 changed hands at least once between August 1906 and April 1927. Surprisingly, when adjusted for inflation, this sale price of $7,000 per lot in 1927 was about $3,400 less than the price Thomson paid per lot in 1906. Per-lot prices appear to have risen later in 1927 and into 1928, since other transactions in Block 82 of D.T. Denny’s Home Addition included $8,500 paid for Lot 12 in December 1927 and $9,000 paid for Lot 9 in April 1928 (Seattle Daily Times 25 Dec. 1927:14; 22 Apr. 1928:30).

The Rex Land Company announced plans to build a $25,000 masonry building on their 120-foot by 120-foot site (Seattle Daily Times 10 Apr. 1927:32; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10 Apr. 1927:55). The architect Charles Haynes prepared the building plans, and the building permit was issued on August 2, 1927 (SDCI 1927). The general contractor Nels Hedin built the building, which was completed by late October 1927 (Seattle Daily Times 30 Oct. 1927:92). The Troy Laundry Machinery Company of Chicago took a ten-year lease on the entire first floor of the building, and the Kennedy Auto Works leased the entire second floor (Seattle Daily Times 23 Oct. 1927:19; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 23 Oct. 1927:104).

On a warm, clear day in early May 1928, a Seattle Engineering Department photographer climbed to the top of the gas holder one block to the northeast of the Rex Land Company property. That photographer used at least two large format photographic plates to capture a sweeping view of the developed areas south of Harrison Street. This stunning photograph also captured the completed Rex Land Company building at the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue North and Harrison Street (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 8 May 1928:21; SMA 1928). The other recently completed buildings and the newly graded lot to the north of the Rex Land Company building also testify to the rapid pace of development that occurred in this area between 1927 and 1928. Construction of the Pioneer Sand & Gravel salesroom and garage building at the extreme left of the photograph began in early August 1927 and was completed by early November 1927 (Seattle Daily Times 5 Aug. 1927:25; 30 Oct. 1927:36). The Adolph J. Eberharter building at the extreme right of the photograph was begun in late January 1928, and rental space in the newly completed building was advertised in late May 1928 (Seattle Daily Times 25 Jan. 1928:28; 29 May 1928:21). In late April 1928, the architect Charles Haynes completed plans for another building for the Rex Land Company immediately to the north of their recently completed building. The 120-foot by 120-foot, two-story building was completed in late September 1928 and leased for ten years to the Keystone Paper Box Company (Seattle Daily Times 29 Apr. 1928:10; 10 Jun. 1928; and 23 Sep. 1928:27).

Denny Regrade. South from top of gas tanks. May 7, 1928. The 1927 Rex Land Company building is in the center of the image. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives).

Denny Regrade. South from top of gas tanks. May 7, 1928. Tight crop of the above image. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives).

The Kennedy Auto Works occupied the second floor of the 1927 Rex Land Company building until 1930 (Polk 1930:929; 1931:909). The Troy Laundry Machinery Company occupied the first floor of the building until 1939 (Polk 1939:1558; 1940:1744). The McPherson Furnace & Equipment Company leased the first floor of the 1927 Rex Land Company building in November 1939 and relocated from leased quarters on the west side of 9th Avenue North between Harrison and Republican Streets, where they had been located since 1928 (Seattle Daily Times 25 Mar. 1928:18; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 5 Nov. 1939:18). A venetian blind manufacturer moved into the second floor of the 1927 Rex Land Company building the following year, and it appears that they remained in that space until at least 1950 (SDCI 1940; Sanborn 1950:467).

The Fire

By 1950, the two almost identical buildings constructed for the Rex Land Company in 1927 and 1928 were connected at the second floor with two iron-clad fire doors. This alteration effectively merged the two buildings into one 120-feet-wide by 240-feet-long building with the street addresses of 401-423 8th Avenue North and 768 Harrison Street. (Sanborn 1950:467). In 1945, Apparel, Incorporated, manufacturer of Pacific Trail Sportswear, opened for business in the first-floor space at 421 8th Avenue North. Between 1956 and 1957, the company spent $100,000 to remodel the entire second floor of the building (SDCI 1957; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 28 Oct. 1956:2; 25 Jun. 1957:30; 11 Aug. 1957:90).

Sanborn fire insurance map, Seattle, Washington, 1905-March 1951 (1917-June 1950). This excerpt of the 1950 fire insurance map shows the extensive changes made to Block 82 of D.T. Denny’s Home Addition after the 1905 map was published. The two fire doors connecting the 1927 and 1928 parts of the Rex Land Company building are indicated. (Library of Congress).

By 1969, in addition to the entire second floor of the building, Pacific Trail Sportswear occupied two-thirds of the building’s first floor, with the McPherson Furnace & Equipment Company occupying the remainder. Early in the evening on Saturday, March 1, 1969, a former Pacific Trail Sportswear employee pried open the company safe and stole blank checks from the second-floor office. He then set five fires throughout the building, reportedly due to his frustration in only finding $5.00 in cash with which to purchase liquor. The resulting three-alarm fire burned the north half of the building to the ground, severely damaged the south half, and also damaged several adjacent buildings and their contents. City of Seattle Fire Department officials later declared that the fire caused $1.5 million in damage, or about $10.8 million in 2021 dollars, and was the largest case of arson in the city’s history (Seattle Daily Times 3 Mar. 1969:6; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 2 Mar. 1969:1; 3 Mar. 1969:1; 6 Jan. 1970:11; 26 Nov. 1970:6; and 23 Mar. 1971:16).

Epilogue

The north half of the Rex Land Company building, which had been constructed in 1928, was a complete loss due to the fire and was demolished. Pacific Trail Sportswear lost an estimated $1.4 million worth of equipment and goods in the fire, and though initial reports stated that the company’s property was insured, apparently their insurance company denied their claim (Seattle Daily Times 3 Mar. 1969:6; Seattle Post-Intelligencer 19 Feb. 1970:24). In addition to their manufacturing plant in Seattle, the company also operated three other plants that produced about 85 percent of its goods, which somewhat helped to mitigate the loss of the Seattle facility (Caldbick 2012). The company operated in a temporary space for several months and eventually moved into new quarters at 1310 Mercer Street (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 21 Feb. 1971:43). Lowery C. “Larry” Mounger, Senior, the founder of Pacific Trail Sportswear, died in March 1981 (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 20 May 1981:41). The Mounger family owned the company until 1993, when it was sold to a Chicago investment firm, which merged Pacific Trail Sportswear with London Fog. London Fog went bankrupt in 2006, and the Pacific Trail brand was sold to Columbia Sportswear. Clothing is still sold under the Pacific Trail brand to this day (Caldbick 2012; Pacific Trail 2021).

The south half of the Rex Land Company building, which was completed in 1927, still stands at the northwest corner of 8th Avenue North and Harrison Street. It was owned by the Rex Land Company until August 2000 (King County Assessor 2021). The past ninety-four years have been hard on the building, and it has been heavily modified from its original, as-built condition. Nonetheless, this modest two-story building has bourn witness to the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past century South Lake Union and is one of the few surviving remnants of the industrial history of the neighborhood.

WORKS CITED

Caldbick, J.

2012    “Spectacular arson fire destroys Pacific Trail Sportswear’s factory and headquarters in Seattle on March 1, 1969.” HistoryLink.org Essay 1188. Electronic resource, https://historylink.org/File/1188, accessed April 2021.

Crowley, W.

1998    “Denny, David Thomas (1832-1903).” HistoryLink.org Essay 1729. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/File/1729, accessed April 2021.

King County Assessor

2021    King County Department of Assessments eReal Property. Electronic resource, https://blue.kingcounty.com/Assessor/eRealProperty/Detail.aspx?ParcelNbr=1988201370, accessed April 2021.

King County Recorder

2021    D.T. Denny’s Home Addition to the City of Seattle, 11 May 1889. Electronic resource, https://recordsearch.kingcounty.gov/LandmarkWeb, accessed April 2021.

Pacific Trail

2021    “Outfitting Northwest Families Since 1945.” Electronic resource, https://pacifictrail.com/heritage/, accessed April 2021.

R.L. Polk and Company, Inc. (Polk)

1930    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/, accessed April 2021.

1931    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/, accessed April 2021.

1939    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/, accessed April 2021.

1940    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/, accessed April 2021.

Seattle Daily Times

1906    “City Block Sold to English Syndicate.” Seattle Daily Times, 15 August:4.

1906    “Realty Notes.” Seattle Daily Times, 19 August:66.

1906    “Real Estate Transfers.” Seattle Daily Times, 1 September:4.

1906    “7th Ave. Lot Sold for $15,000.” Seattle Daily Times, 2 September:12.

1906    “Real Estate Transfers.” Seattle Daily Times, 18 September:13.

1906    “Lake Union Block is Sold For $130,000.” Seattle Daily Times, 8 October:10.

1906    “Who Is This Mysterious Chas. E. Thompson?” Seattle Daily Times, 9 October:10.

1927    “Company Buys Lot in Lake Union District.” Seattle Daily Times, 10 April:32.

1927    “Building Permits.” Seattle Daily-Times, 5 August:25.

1927    “Building Leases Indicate Growth.” Seattle Daily Times, 23 October:19.

1927    “Announcing Our Removal.” Seattle Daily Times, 30 October:36.

1927    “Charm in Modern Homes.” Seattle Daily Times, 30 October:92.

1927    “Scott-Poor Sales in Month $231,000.” Seattle Daily Times, 25 December:14.

1928    “Building Permits.” Seattle Daily Times, 25 January:28.

1928    “Firm Takes Site on Ninth Avenue.” Seattle Daily Times, 25 March:18.

1928    “Scott-Poor Sales for Week $125,000.” Seattle Daily Times, 22 April:30.

1928    “Plans Completed for New Factory on Harrison Street.” Seattle Daily Times, 29 April:10.

1928    “Another Large Factory Rising.” Seattle Daily Times, 10 June:24.

1928    “Stores for Rent.” Seattle Daily Times, 29 May:21.

1928    “Factory Building is Finished.” Seattle Daily Times, 23 September:27.

1944    “Early-Day Mansions, No. 6 – D. T. Denny.” Seattle Daily Times, 8 October:38.

1969    “City’s Largest Arson Fire Investigated.” Seattle Daily Times, 3 March:6.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

1890    “A Wonderful Era.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1 January:14.

1906    “Who Is This Mysterious Chas. E. Thompson?” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9 October:14.

1906    “Says Buying is Not for Railroad.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10 October:5.

1927    “New Building to Top Sale.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10 April:55.

1927    “Long Building Leases Are Taken.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 23 October:104.

1928    “The Weather.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 May:21.

1939    “Furnace Company Takes More Space.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 November:18.

1956    “Firm to Expand.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 October:2.

1957    “Plant to Expand.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 June:30.

1957    “Pacific Trail Sportswear Completes $100,000 Expansion.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 August:90.

1969    “Blaze, Blasts Gut 2 Firms.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 March:1.

1969    “Blaze Over $ Million.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 March:1.

1970    “Arson Boosts Seattle’s 1969 Fire Loss to $5 Million.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6 January:11.

1970    “Friends Help Rekindle Fashion After Fire.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 February:24.

1970    “Former Employe [sic] Charged With Arson In Big 1969 Fire at Sportswear Firm.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 November:6.

1971    “Pacific Trail to Expand, Add Plant in Wenatchee.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 February:43.

1971    “Ex-Employe [sic] Sentenced in Pacific Trail Case.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 23 March:16.

1981    “L.C. Mounger Sr.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 May:41.

Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn)

1893    Seattle, Washington. Volume 2, Sheet 71. Electronic resource, https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.ezproxy.spl.org/about?accountid=2565, accessed April 2021.

1905    Seattle, Washington. Volume 3, Sheet 280. Electronic resource, https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.ezproxy.spl.org/about?accountid=2565, accessed April 2021.

1917    Seattle, Washington. Volume 4, Sheet 467. Electronic resource, https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.ezproxy.spl.org/about?accountid=2565, accessed April 2021.

1950    Seattle, Washington, Volume 4, Sheet 467. Electronic resource, https://digitalsanbornmaps-proquest-com.ezproxy.spl.org/about?accountid=2565, accessed April 2021.

Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI)

1927    City of Seattle, Department of Buildings, Building Permit 269529, Issued 2 August 1927. Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Microfilm Records.

1940    City of Seattle, Department of Buildings, Building Permit 335908, Issued 10 January 1940. Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Microfilm Records.

1957    City of Seattle, Department of Buildings, Building Permit 452877, Issued 7 March 1957. Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections Microfilm Records.

Seattle Municipal Archives (SMA)

1928    “Denny Regrade. South from top of gas tanks.” Series 2613-07: Engineering Department Negatives, Identifier 77288, Original Number 6027, Box 269. Electronic resource, archives.seattle.gov/digital-collections/index.php/Detail/objects/115905, accessed April 2021.

United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

2021    General Land Office Records. Electronic resource, https://glorecords.blm.gov/search, accessed April 2021.

2021    Land Status & Cadastral Survey Records, Willamette Meridian – Oregon and Washington States. Electronic resource, https://www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey, accessed April 2021.

Heath, Gove & Bell in the Last Frontier: the Pioneers' Home, Sitka, Alaska

In October 1933, the Tacoma architectural firm of Heath, Gove & Bell was hired to design the new Pioneers’ Home at Sitka, Alaska Territory. In a newspaper article announcing the selection, William A. Hesse, chairman of the Pioneers’ Home Building Commission, noted the firm’s extensive experience designing institutional buildings and praised architect George Gove’s close attention to the needs of retirement home residents (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 13 Oct. 1933:6). Heath, Gove & Bell’s design of the Washington Masonic Home at Zenith (Des Moines), Washington was not mentioned by name, but it was certainly one of the completed projects which helped the firm secure the Pioneers’ Home job.

The Pioneers’ Home at Sitka opened in September 1913. The first Pioneers’ Home occupied a Russian-built, log barracks building from the early 1800s, which had later been used by the United States Marine Corps between 1879 and 1892. By the early 1930s, the outdated facility was badly in need of replacement (Alaska Pioneer Homes 2021). Not long after Heath, Gove & Bell were hired, William A. Hesse announced that construction of the new Pioneers’ Home would begin by April 1934 (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 17 Oct. 1933:6).

Construction bids were called for beginning in late February 1934 and were opened in late March 1934 (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 20 Feb. 1934:4; 30 Mar. 1934:5). The Warrack Construction Company of Seattle, Washington was awarded the $153,528 (about $3.01 million in 2021 dollars) general contract for the construction of the new Pioneers’ Home. Separate contracts for the elevator and plumbing, heating, and electrical systems totaled an additional $45,356, or just over $890,000 in 2021 dollars. A longshoreman strike on the West Coast of the United States delayed the arrival of many of the building materials, but by early July 1934 the existing buildings on the site had been demolished and work on the new building was well underway (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 7 Apr. 1934:5; 9 Jul. 1934:1:4).

The Pioneers’ Home Building Commission accepted the completed building from the Warrack Construction company on December 14, 1934, fifty-five days ahead of schedule. Furniture was installed and the building opened to residents in late December 1934 (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 15 Dec. 1934:5). The total final cost of the building was $341,687.62, or about $6.71 million in 2021 dollars (NRHP 1979). Public Works Administration (PWA) grant funds from the United States Government defrayed part of these expenses and paid for the laundry, hospital equipment, and the landscaping (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 7 Apr. 1934:5; 9 Jul. 1934:1:4).

The new Pioneers’ Home was built on a picturesque 2.4-acre hilltop site bounded by Kaagwaantaan and Seward Streets to the north, Barracks Street to the east, Lincoln Street to the south, and Katltan Street to the west. Heath, Gove & Bell designed the building in the Mission or Spanish Revival style, which has been noted as an extremely rare style in Alaska (Gasek and Rickman 2012). The building featured a C-shaped plan with the front oriented toward the harbor. The building has a reinforced concrete structural frame and five levels: a daylight basement, three residential floors, and an attic. The exterior of the building was clad with stucco plaster with a red clay tile roof. The basement contained recreation and card rooms, storage rooms, the kitchen, a refrigeration plant, heating plant, and an auxiliary electrical generating plant, and somewhat unsettlingly, rooms for “a special class of inmates.” The first floor featured a main dining room with seating for 108, a staff dining room, and another dining room for disabled residents. Guest rooms were located on the second floor and the hospital was located on the third floor. A landing between the second and third floors connected to an auditorium. All five levels of the building were connected via two staircases and an elevator (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 7 Apr. 1934:5; 9 Jul. 1934:1:4).

In 1935, the Warrack Construction Company built a superintendent’s residence, nurse’s building, and garage adjacent to the main 1934 Pioneers’ Home. The cost of this work was $40,488, or about $777,000 in 2021 dollars (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 28 June:3). A wing for women residents was added in 1956 (NRHP 1979). The Sitka Pioneers’ Home is still in use and is one of six retirement homes operated by the State of Alaska (Alaska Pioneer Homes 2021). This “twin” to the Washington Masonic Home at Des Moines stands as a testament to the legacy of Heath, Gove & Bell and is a notable example of a historic building still in use for its intended purpose.

WORKS CITED

Alaska Pioneer Homes

2021 Sitka Pioneer Home. Electronic resource, http://dhss.alaska.gov/daph/Pages/sitka/default.aspx, accessed March 2021.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

1933 “Tacoma Firm To Plan New Pioneer Home.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 13 October:6.

1933 “Pioneer Home To Be Started By Next April.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 17 October:6.

1934 “Call for Bids.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 20 February:4.

1934 “Bids Are Opened On Pioneers’ Home.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 30 March:5.

1934 “Work Pushed On Pioneers’ Sitka Home.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 9 July:1:4.

1934 “Pioneer Home To Be Ready In Holidays.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 15 December:5.

1935 “Hesse Relates Purposes of Alaskan Tour.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 28 June:3.

Gasek, Doug, and Summer Rickman

2012 Alaska Architectural Style Guide. State of Alaska, Office of History and Archaeology. Electronic resource, http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/oha/StyleGuide.pdf, accessed March 2021.

National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)

1979 Pioneers’ Home Sitka. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form.

Washington Masonic Home Brochure: 1938

As a follow up to my April 2020 article The Three Masonic Homes of Washington, here is another recent acquisition to my collection of ephemera related to the third Masonic Home of Washington at Zenith (Des Moines), Washington, which was designed by the architectural firm of Heath, Gove and Bell and dedicated on June 21, 1927. This is an advertising brochure for the Masonic Home of Washington at Zenith from 1938.

Cover of a brochure for The Washington Masonic Home, Zenith, Washington, 1938. Author’s collection.

Page gallery of the brochure for The Washington Masonic Home, Zenith, Washington, 1938. Author’s collection.

New Masonic Home of Washington, Located at Zenith

As a follow up to my April 2020 article The Three Masonic Homes of Washington, here is a recent acquisition to my collection of ephemera related to the third Masonic Home of Washington at Zenith (Des Moines), Washington, which was designed by the architectural firm of Heath, Gove and Bell and dedicated on June 21, 1927. This is an advertising postcard for the Masonic Home of Washington at Zenith:

Transcription of the text on the reverse side of the postcard:

NEW MASONIC HOME OF WASHINGTON

Ground broken August 8th, 1925 – Cornerstone laid May 1st, 1926 – Dedicated June 21st, 1927 – Cost approximately $800,000 [just over $12,000,000 in 2021 dollars (!!!)]

Fireproof construction: buff exterior, brick and terra cotta trim, red tile roof; is 175 feet above sea level and contains five stories and basement. Front gable is 75 feet high; 350 feet across front. Contains 108,600 square feet floor space. Solariums on all floors at each end of north and south wings. Elevator and ramps from basement to fifth floor, also three stairways. Building contains 226 sleeping rooms.

Basement – Contains hot water heating and ventilating plant, refrigeration plant, laundry and numerous store rooms, also a supper room 35x80 feet, a smoking room and a billiard room.

Main Floor – Contains social hall 30x45 feet, offices, library, dining room 44x64 feet, kitchen, superintendent’s living quarters, Grand Master’s room, Grand Matron’s room, and living rooms for members.

Second Floor – Contains chapel 44x64 feet, with stage and balcony, also infirmary and living rooms for members.

Third, Fourth, and Fifth Floors – Contain living quarters for members.

Bunker on the Columbia River: the Fuel House of the Long-Bell Lumber Company

The Long-Bell Lumber Company sawmill at Longview, Washington was one of the largest wood products processing plants ever constructed in the Pacific Northwest. A carefully designed complex of buildings, structures, conveyors, railway lines, and docks once sprawled across 2,000 acres of low-lying land along the Columbia River. However, practically all of this massive sawmill has disappeared since the sawmill closed in 1960. All that remains today of the plant once described as the “biggest lumber mill in the world” is a large reinforced concrete structure, which is currently used as a warehouse (McClary 2008).

Robert Alexander Long, Victor Bell, and Robert White founded R.A. Long and Company at Columbus, Kansas in 1875. Long was the active partner and served as manager, clerk, accountant, and laborer until 1877, when Sam Wilson joined the business. Robert White, one of Long’s cousins, died that same year, and the company was reorganized and incorporated as the Long-Bell Lumber Company (Tweedie 2014:4). The growth and development of the Long-Bell Lumber Company during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is an interesting and complex topic that has been well documented by historians of the timber industry. The purpose of this brief article is to explore the history of the humble structure that stands as the sole surviving remnant of the Long-Bell Lumber Company sawmill at Longview, Washington.

By the end of World War One, Long-Bell timber holdings were spread across hundreds of thousands of acres in Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas, and Wisconsin. Mind boggling amounts of finished wood products were extracted from these forests, and the rapacious depletion of these forests ultimately forced company executives to find new timber reserves elsewhere in the United States. Long-Bell purchased timber reserves in northern California and southern Oregon, and also amassed large land holdings in southwest Washington. The company also purchased rights to log 70,000 acres of timber lands in Cowlitz and Lewis counties from the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. Long-Bell executives also began planning for the construction of a sawmill to process the logs extracted from these stands of old-growth timber (McClary 2008).

Long-Bell considered locating their new sawmill in Portland or Astoria, Oregon, which both had the necessary railway and water transportation links. Ultimately, company officials selected a mill site where the Cowlitz River flowed into the Columbia River. This site was close to their timber holdings in southwest Washington, provided deep water access for oceangoing vessels on the Columbia River, and also had an existing railway connection to nearby Kelso. In 1921, Long-Bell purchased 14,000 acres of bottom lands along the Columbia River for about $2.6 million, or almost $38 million in 2021 dollars. This immense land area would not just provide the sawmill site, it would also provide the location for a purpose-built “industrial city” to shelter Long-Bell workers and their families (McClary 2008).

The Long-Bell Lumber Company sent their chief engineer Wesley Vandercook to assess their newly acquired property along the Columbia River. Vandercook set up an office in Kelso in May 1921 and led a small army of 100 men in a detailed survey of the 14,000-acre property. Most of the property was swampy and subject to periodic flooding, and Vandercook concluded that a dike would need to be constructed to reclaim the land and protect it from floods. Long-Bell issued bonds to finance the fifteen-mile-long, thirty-foot-tall dike, which was constructed for $3.25 million, or about $47.5 million in 2021 dollars (McClary 2008).

Long-Bell executive John D. Tennant was placed in charge of the construction of the sawmill, which was situated on 2,000 acres along the Columbia River waterfront. Robert Alexander Long originally intended to construct only one mill but ultimately, he decided to build two, with the East Fir mill producing green wood for overseas export and the West Fir mill churning out kiln-dried lumber for use stateside. Construction of the sawmill complex began in early 1923, and about 1,000 workers labored to complete the work on schedule so that production could begin in 1925 (McClary 2008).

Contracts were let on April 5, 1923 for the construction of the massive power plant, which would provide power not just to the sawmill complex but to the city of Longview as well (Longview Daily News 1924a). Charles C. Moore & Company, Engineers, of San Francisco, California designed and constructed the power plant. The first foundation pilings were driven on June 18, 1923, and a total of 3,044 pilings were installed to support the powerhouse and smokestacks. Over one million concrete bricks were used to construct three permanent walls of the fireproof powerhouse, which measured 296 feet long, 192 feet wide, and rose 65 feet above the ground level. The two smokestacks adjacent to the powerhouse towered 300 feet into the air and measured thirty feet across at the base and tapered to twenty-one feet across at the top. Each of these towering chimneys contained 832 cubic yards of concrete and 216,000 liner bricks and was calculated to weigh almost 4,500 tons (Longview Daily News 1924b; 1924c; 1924d; 1924e).  

Ten Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers rated at 1,200 horsepower each were initially installed to provide steam for four General Electric turbo-generators, which were each rated for 6,000 kilowatts. Four additional boilers and two additional turbo-generators could also be accommodated in the facility, which could produce up to 36 megawatts of electrical power. The Session Engineering Company of Chicago, Illinois installed the substations and electrical distribution system (Longview Daily News 1924b). “Hogged fuel,” or wood waste from the sawmill, was the primary fuel source for the boilers, though half of the boilers had oil burners installed so that steam could be produced while the operators waited for wood waste to accumulate. It was estimated that the boilers would burn 40,000 pounds of hogged fuel per hour to evaporate 10,000 gallons of water into steam (Longview Daily News 1924c).  

Closeup view of the Long-Bell Lumber Company power plant, with the fuel house in the foreground. (Historic photograph, July 1924, author’s collection).

Safe storage of the hogged fuel for the boilers was an important consideration, and the Pacific Coast Engineering Company of Portland was placed in charge of designing and building the fireproof fuel house. Mechanical engineer Orville Reid managed the construction of the reinforced concrete fuel house, which measured 225 feet by 245 feet and was the largest single fuel house ever built at the time. Over one million board feet of lumber was used as formwork for the over 8,000 tons of concrete used in the construction of the fuel house, which was said to have had the largest reinforced concrete roof on the entire West Coast. Engineers with the Pacific Coast Engineering Company estimated that if the steel reinforcing bars in the building were laid end to end, they would stretch over 120 miles (Longview Daily News 1924d). A system of remotely controlled electric conveyors carried the hogged fuel from the fuel house to the powerhouse, where the fuel was fed to the boilers. A system of twelve conveyors extended across the roof of the fuel house to carry the hogged fuel to the boilers, and the structure was equipped with automatic fire sprinklers (Sanborn 1924:20).

The massive reinforced concrete fuel house is shown on the 1924 Sanborn fire insurance map for the Long-Bell sawmill complex. The fuel house is the brown colored box to the left of the power house in blue to the right. (Sanborn Map Company, September 1924, Longview, Cowlitz County, Washington, Sheet 20, from the collections of the Library of Congress).

The power plant was placed in service on June 18, 1924, and the sawmill began production in 1925 (Longview Daily News 1924c; McClary 2008). Unfortunately, not long after the massive sawmill opened, the Long-Bell Lumber Company began to suffer financial problems due to a softening in the lumber market in the late 1920s. The onset of the Great Depression following the stock market crash of October 1929 hit both Long-Bell and Longview hard. Long-Bell was in dire financial straits and were forced to sell the power plant to Washington Gas and Electric Company in 1932. The company filed for bankruptcy and reorganized in 1935. Long-Bell survived the Great Depression, and World War Two dramatically increased the demand for wood products, which helped Long-Bell recover financially. However, another slump in the lumber market in the early 1950s and the depletion of the company’s reserves of old-growth fir and cedar sealed the fate of the company. International Paper purchased the Long-Bell Lumber Company in 1956, and the sawmills in Longview closed in 1960. Many of the old timber storage sheds were used by the Port of Longview as warehouses until they were dismantled in 1996 (McClary 2008).

Epilogue

I recently acquired an old photograph of the Long-Bell Lumber Company sawmill complex. This photograph was taken in July 1924, not long after the power plant began operating and the West Fir mill was still under construction. The power plant is clearly shown in the image, and the distinctive form of the massive fuel house adjacent to the powerhouse is hard to miss.  

“Birds eye view of the Long-Bell lumber manufacturing plant. At the right can be seen the huge electric power plant with its two stacks each 300 feet high. In the rear of the power plant is a portion of the cutting pond which covers an area of 25 acres. The broad flat-topped structure in front of the power plant is the fuel house. The white buildings beyond the power plant are the head mill and resaw [sic] mill and sorter sheds. Extending over many acres in the rear are the dry kilns, cooling sheds, dry lumber storage and dry lumber sorter sheds, planing [sic] mill and loading sheds. On the Columbia river are lumber export docks with rail timber docks between them and the mill.” (Historic photograph, July 1924, author’s collection).

The sheer enormity of the Long-Bell sawmill complex is best illustrated in an aerial photograph taken by the United States Geological Survey in 1951, which shows the centrally located power plant flanked by the West Fir and East Fir mills. The fuel house is marked with the red box in the aerial photograph. An aerial photograph from the present day illustrates how the fuel house is the sole surviving remnant of the Long-Bell sawmill complex. The stout construction of the fuel house is likely the primary reason why it has survived as long as it has. Unfortunately, this historic remnant will soon disappear, erasing the last trace of what was once touted as the “biggest lumber mill in the world.”     

Aerial photograph of the Long-Bell Lumber Company sawmill at Longview, Cowlitz County, Washington. The fuel house is marked with the red box. (United States Geological Survey, October 25, 1951, Entity ID 1QP0000030034, USGS Earth Explorer online).

Present-day aerial photograph of the Long-Bell Lumber Company power plant fuel house, which is the rectangular structure to the left of the red pin (Google Maps).

WORKS CITED

Longview Daily News. Electronic resource, https://www.newspapers.com/, accessed March 1, 2021.

1924a  “Day by Day in The Building of a City; Year’s Events In Chronological Form.” Longview Daily News, 25 February:21.

1924b  “New Mark Reached in Long-Bell History.” Longview Daily News, 31 July:13.

1924c  “Building of Powerhouse is Industrial Achievement and Engineering Triumph.” Longview Daily News, 31 July:16.

1924d  “Fuel House is Largest Built.” Longview Daily News, 31 July:16.

1924e  “Concrete Facts.” Longview Daily News, 31 July:41.

McClary, D.

2008    Longview – Thumbnail History. Electronic resource, https://www.historylink.org/File/8560, accessed March 1, 2021.

Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn)

1924    Longview, Cowlitz County, Washington, September, Sheet 20. Electronic resource, https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps, accessed March 1, 2021.  

Tweedie, J.

2014    The Long-Bell Story. Param’s Press, Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

United States Geological Survey (USGS)

2021    EarthExplorer. Electronic resource, https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/, accessed March 1, 2021.

Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP)

2021    WISAARD, Property ID 723694. Electronic resource, https://wisaard.dahp.wa.gov/Map, accessed March 1, 2021.

The Stationary Streamliner: The Union Pacific Depot at Nyssa, Oregon

On the evening of Wednesday, May 29, 1935, over 100 people gathered at the Nyssa, Oregon railroad depot to catch a glimpse of the M-10001, the Union Pacific Railroad’s latest streamlined passenger train. As the sun set over the city, the diesel electric locomotive and six passenger cars, freshly painted in the bold colors “Armour Yellow” and “Leaf Brown,” roared past the gathered crowd as it headed toward Portland (The Gate City Journal 30 May 1935:1; Strack 2021). On June 5th, Miss Irene Hegeberg, “queen-elect” of the Portland Rose Festival, christened the train as the City of Portland. At 3:45 P.M. the following day, the sold-out train departed Portland Union Station and speeded eastward with 118 passengers on board (Oregonian 6 Jun. 1935:1). The train covered the 2,250 miles between Portland and Chicago in thirty-nine hours and forty-five minutes, over nineteen hours faster than the previous fastest running time over the same route (Chicago Tribune 9 Jun. 1935:29).

Nyssa is located in far eastern Oregon on the banks of the Snake River, along the border between Oregon and Idaho. The city is situated in the northeastern corner of Malheur County, about ten miles south of Ontario, Oregon and forty-three miles north-northwest of Boise, Idaho. Peter Skene Ogden, a trader with the Hudson’s Bay Company, visited the Snake River country in 1825-1826. Malheur County takes its name from the watercourse that Ogden named the “Riviere au Malheur,” or “unfortunate river,” known in English as the Malheur River (Gannett 1905:197; Mosgrove 1980:76).

Gold was discovered along the Malheur River in the early 1860s, and the earliest European American settlers were miners (Weekly Oregon Statesman 2 Sep. 1861:2, 2 Dec. 1861:1). Livestock ranchers arrived in the late 1860s and early 1870s, but more widespread settlement of the arid region did not occur until after the railhead of the Oregon Short Line Railroad (OSL) arrived in present-day Nyssa in December 1883 (WHPC 1902:520-524; Idaho State Journal 22 Jul. 1963:20). The OSL established a section house at Nyssa, and not long afterwards trader Lennox B. Boyle opened a trading post near the railroad line (WHPC 1902:552). A post office was established in June 1889 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 27 May 1954:13). In November 1891, Boyle claimed 160 acres under the Homestead Act of 1862, and his claim later became the south half of the original Nyssa townsite (BLM 2021:ORBAA 104183). Boyle was soon joined by other early settlers such as Philip Beck, who claimed 160 acres in June 1891, and Daniel R. Ehrgood, who claimed about 104 acres between the OSL line and the Snake River in September 1891 (BLM 2021:ORLAA 104175; ORLAA 104180). Beck’s claim later became the north half of the original Nyssa townsite. Elizabeth Morehead, Daniel Ehrgood’s daughter, recalled in 1954 that when their family arrived in the early 1890s, the town of Nyssa consisted of only the railroad water tank and a few houses to the east of the railroad tracks (Nyssa Gate City Journal 27 May 1954:13).

Nyssa remained just a watering stop on the OSL line into the early 20th century, and the only railroad facilities located along the railroad tracks were the section house and the water tank. In late March 1901, OSL officials wrote a letter to John Lackey in Nyssa, which stated that the railroad would construct a depot building at Arcadia, which was located along the OSL mainline approximately three miles to the north of Nyssa (Nyssa Gate City Journal 26 Dec. 1974:1). The residents of Nyssa made it clear to the OSL that they wanted a depot in their city and not Arcadia, and their position was widely covered in newspapers all across Oregon and also in Salt Lake City, Utah (Deseret News 6 Apr. 1901:7; Oregonian 7 Apr. 1901:10; The Hood River Glacier, 12 Apr. 1901:1; St. Helens Mist 12 April 1901:1). Nyssa even dedicated a portion of land to the OSL on which to construct a depot, but the pleas of the city for a permanent railroad passenger and freight facility continued to go unheeded (East Oregonian 9 Dec. 1902:7).

Despite extensive research by the author, the precise construction date of the first depot building at Nyssa remains unknown. Based on available newspaper coverage and photographic evidence, it appears that the first depot building at Nyssa was built circa 1903 to 1907. There was a property ownership dispute between the OSL and adjacent property owners in December 1903, so it appears that the railroad may have been planning to make improvements at that time (Statesman Journal 11 Dec. 1903:1; East Oregonian 11 Dec. 1903:1). The OSL appointed a new passenger agent and operator in 1904, which is the strongest evidence that a depot building may have been constructed circa 1903-1904 (The Holt County Sentinel 30 Dec. 1904:4). However, in 1974 the Union Pacific Railroad told Nyssa city officials that the first depot had been constructed there in about 1907 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 26 Dec. 1974:1).

Nyssa finally had a depot building, but residents continued to have complaints about the level of service provided by the OSL. In July 1907, fifty-two residents of Nyssa sent a petition to the Oregon State Railroad Commission asking that their city be made a flag station for two OSL express trains: Train Number 1, the Overland Limited, and Train Number 2, the Fast Mail, which both passed through Nyssa at night. The residents also requested that the trains drop off mail when they passed through so that it would not be delayed by being carried through to other stations and then returned on slower local trains (Salt Lake Telegram 17 Jul. 1907:9; The Oregon Daily Journal 20 Jul. 1907:8; Statesman Journal 21 Jul. 1907:5). Additional complaints were made in November 1907, and in December 1907 officials from the Oregon State Railroad Commission held hearings at La Grande, Nyssa, and Pendleton to hear evidence in regard to all the complaints lodged against the OSL (Statesman Journal 1 Nov. 1907:8; The Oregon Daily Journal 17 Dec. 1907:5).

Friction between residents and the OSL continued into the early 1910s. Another dispute, this time between the OSL and Nyssa pioneer Daniel R. Ehrgood, arose in late 1911 over the ownership of property adjacent to the depot. However, the printed record is mute as the outcome of the lawsuit (Malheur Enterprise 2 Dec. 1911:1:6). Another newspaper article from April 1912 made an oblique reference to the residents of Nyssa asking the OSL for a new depot building (Montpelier Examiner 5 Apr. 1912:4). This apparently futile plea for a better facility may have been in response to the large, architecturally sophisticated passenger stations that the OSL constructed in other cities along their mainline. The OSL depot at Nampa, Idaho was completed in 1903, and the depot at Caldwell, Idaho opened in 1906 (Montpelier Examiner 7 Aug. 1903:6; The Caldwell Tribune 16 Jun. 1906:1). In 1907, large, distinctive depot buildings were completed in Brigham City, Utah; Ontario, Oregon; Payette, Idaho; and Weiser, Idaho (The Box Elder News 9 May 1907:4; East Oregonian 19 Apr. 1907:4, 7 Sep. 1907:7; The Caldwell Tribune 13 Apr. 1907:9).

Even though the OSL never constructed the grand depot that the citizens of Nyssa desired, the railroad continued to make improvements to their facilities. In 1917, a new water station was constructed at a cost of $14,000 (almost $285,000 in 2021 dollars), and a new section house was built in 1923 (The Salt Lake Herald-Republican 13 Dec. 1917:9; The Gate City Journal, 29 Jun. 1923:3). In 1928, the Nyssa Commercial Club lobbied OSL officials for a new depot building, and the local booster group received favorable replies from the railroad company (The Gate City Journal 5 Oct. 1928:3, 26 Oct. 1928:5, 2 Nov. 1928:8). However, despite the development of detailed plans and cost estimates to move the existing depot and construct a new building, the promised building did not materialize (The Gate City Journal 14 Dec. 1928:1). Even though Nyssa was once again denied a new railroad passenger station, railroad officials made additional facility upgrades to support their operations. Over the winter of 1928-1929 a filtering plant was added to the water station at a cost of $25,000 (almost $381,000 in 2021 dollars), so apparently the OSL officials valued the maintenance of their locomotive boilers more than the desires of their patrons in Nyssa (The Gate City Journal 15 Mar. 1929:8).

By 1930, there were 821 people living in Nyssa, almost double the number that lived there in 1910 (Census 1910, 1930). Despite the widespread economic difficulties of the Great Depression, the population of Nyssa boomed during the 1930s, and the local newspaper estimated in 1935 that 1,000 people resided in the city (The Gate City Journal 30 May 1935:2). By 1940, the city’s population stood at 1,855 (Census 1940). This population boom appears to be directly related to an increase in agricultural production during the 1930s, which was made possible by the completion of the Owyhee Dam in July 1932 (Stene 1996). The dam impounded the flow of the Owyhee River so that the water could be used for irrigation purposes throughout the region. The first water from the Owyhee River irrigation project was delivered in 1935, and in 1936, the Amalgamated Sugar Company announced their interest in growing sugar beets in the vicinity of Nyssa (The Gate City Journal 13 Feb. 1936:1). In early 1937, the company purchased 195 acres of land immediately east of downtown Nyssa and west of the Snake River on which to build a factory (Nyssa Gate City Journal 28 Jan. 1937:1). Construction of the $2,500,000 factory was announced in September 1937, and the massive sugar refining complex was completed in August 1938 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 30 Sep. 1937:1, 25 Aug. 1938:10). A few months later, the new sugar refinery set a production record of a staggering 70 million pounds of sugar for the 1938-1939 growing season (Nyssa Gate City Journal 26 Jan. 1939:1).

Along with the economic and population boom came an increase in automobile traffic on the streets of Nyssa. The grade crossing where the OSL tracks intersected Main Street was the scene of several fatal accidents, including a particularly gruesome incident in May 1937, when five people were killed in an automobile trying to beat a westbound freight train (Nyssa Gate City Journal 13 May 1937:1). The May 1937 accident spurred calls for immediate action, and city officials asked the Oregon State Highway Department to separate train and automobile traffic at the dangerous intersection (Nyssa Gate City Journal 13 May 1937:2). Negotiations and planning for the “subway” continued over the next few years, but the first substantial progress on the project was not made until February 1939, when project engineers bored a hole to test soil conditions (Nyssa Gate City Journal 23 Feb. 1939:1). Planning and property acquisition negotiations dragged on throughout 1939 and 1940, and construction bids were not opened until late July 1940 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 11 Jul. 1940:1). The Main Street underpass under the OSL mainline cost $207,000, or about $3.45 million in 2021 dollars, and finally opened in June 1941 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 19 Jun. 1941:1).

In January 1935, the Commercial Club of Nyssa once again spearheaded an effort to get a new railroad passenger station for the city. However, instead of a completely new depot building that Nyssa hoped for, railroad officials promised to remodel the existing facility (The Gate City Journal 31 Jan. 1935:1, 28 Feb. 1935:1). Even with this promise made, the actual modernization work on the circa 1903 to 1907 depot appears to have not been completed until 1937 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 8 Apr. 1937:1, 27 May 1937:1). After the depot modernization was completed, Nyssa’s dauntless civic leaders continued to press railroad officials for a new passenger station but were once again rebuffed. By the late 1930s the OSL had become a subsidiary of the massive Union Pacific Railroad System (UPRR) through a series of corporate transactions far too complex to untangle here, and the UPRR repeatedly put off definitive plans for a new depot building as the grade crossing underpass plans were formulated during the late 1930s (Nyssa Gate City Journal 23 Feb. 1939:1; 5 Oct. 1939:1). Once plans were finalized and the construction contracts were let for the grade crossing underpass, the UPRR finally committed to constructing a new passenger station building for Nyssa.

In late October 1940, W.J. Hynes of the UPRR told the Nyssa Gate City Journal that the railroad would open construction bids on October 28th. The proposed brick clad building would be built to the south of the existing depot and would contain a passenger waiting room, ticket office, express department, and freight department, and reportedly would be the “most modern of its size on the U.P. system (Nyssa Gate City Journal 24 Oct. 1940:1).” Contractor H.E. Shraven of Salt Lake City, Utah was awarded the construction contract in late November 1940, and construction of the $24,000 building (about $447,000 in 2021 dollars) began in January 1941. The contractor’s job foreman was F.M. Wells of Salt Lake City, and the work was supervised by C.M. Jordan, construction inspector for the UPRR (Nyssa Gate City Journal, 9 Jan. 1941:1). The foundation of the building was completed by late January 1941, and the exterior brick masonry work began in mid-March after the custom shaped and colored bricks arrived from Omaha, Nebraska (Nyssa Gate City Journal, 30 Jan. 1941:1, 13 Mar. 1941:1). In June 1941, the Nyssa Gate City Journal proudly stated that the “new depot [is] looking all spic and span in yellow and gray bricks [is] losing a lot of its glamour so close to the big factory (Nyssa Gate City Journal 12 Jun. 1941:1). The depot was almost fully complete by late July 1941 and ready for occupancy by mid-August 1941, and the macadam passenger platform was completed in early September 1941 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 31 Jul. 1941:1, 4 Sep. 1941:1).

The 1941 Nyssa depot has a steel frame structure and originally measured 121 feet long by 26 feet wide, with the long axis of the building parallel to the UPRR mainline (Nyssa Gate City Journal, 9 Jan. 1941:1). The building was designed by UPRR engineering department personnel in a distinctive streamlined architectural style which mimicked the shape of their latest Diesel-electric named express trains, such as the City of Portland. A band of gray glazed brick about three feet high wraps around the Nyssa depot at the windowsill line. Yellow glazed brick is used above the windowsill line, and two horizontal bands of gray glazed brick are set into the upper portion of the curved façade at the north end of the building and at the west, south, and east facades toward the south end of the depot. The steel sash windows and doors are painted in a dark brown color. These colors recall the “Harbor Mist Gray,” “Armour Yellow,” and “Leaf Brown” paint color scheme that the UPRR adopted for use on their streamliners in June 1940 (Strack 2021).

Union Pacific Railroad M-10001, the City of Portland, painted in “Armour Yellow” and “Leaf Brown.”. (Public domain )

A 73 foot long by 26-foot-wide addition was constructed on the south end of the building in 1948 to accommodate a larger freight office and freight storage room. The depot enlargement was announced in late February 1948 (Nyssa Gate City Journal 26 Feb. 1948:1). Bids were called for in late July 1948, and in early August J.H. Wise and Son of Boise, Idaho were awarded the contract to build the addition to the depot (Nyssa Gate City Journal 22 Jul. 1948:1, 5 Aug. 1948:1). Construction on the addition began in mid-October (Nyssa Gate City Journal 14 Oct. 1948:1). The footprint of the enlarged depot is depicted on the August 1949 Sanborn fire insurance map, so the addition appears to have been completed by the time the map was published (Sanborn 1949).

The UPRR also used their unique “stream-styled” design aesthetic for the Las Vegas, Nevada passenger station building, which was completed in 1940. The UPRR also built at least two other smaller streamlined passenger stations at Oakley, Kansas and Wakeeney, Kansas (Kansas Historical Society 2021). The 1941 Nyssa depot is a rare survivor among this unusual group of buildings: the Las Vegas passenger station was razed in 1971, and the depot at Wakeeney was demolished in 1985. Other streamlined depots were constructed by other railroads elsewhere in the United States, but thus far the author has only been able to locate the four passenger station buildings mentioned above.

Readers interested in learning more about the unique depot at Nyssa are encouraged to locate a copy of the Fall 2010 issue of the Union Pacific Historical Society’s newsletter The Streamliner. This publication has an article about the 1941 Nyssa depot, complete with several historic photographs of the building exterior along with an interior view of the waiting room. The article also has a reproduction of the original UPRR design rendering of the building and a contemporary scale architectural drawing of the depot exterior. The scale drawing appears to be very accurate, which suggests that the Union Pacific Historical Society may possess or have access to the original drawings for the depot, but the author has been unable to confirm whether or not these documents still exist.

Finally, the author wishes to thank Jenny Simpson at the Nyssa Public Library for her invaluable assistance in locating historic photographs of the original depot and also for providing copies of reference books on the history of Nyssa and Malheur County. The City of Nyssa has an excellent page on Flickr which has several historic photographs of the original depot building taken not long after it was constructed circa 1903 to 1907. The link to the Nyssa Archive is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nyssaalumni/albums.

WORKS CITED

NEWSPAPERS

The Box Elder News

1907    “_.” The Box Elder News, 9 May:4, Brigham City, Utah.

The Caldwell Tribune

1906    “The Depot Will Be Built.” The Caldwell Tribune, 16 June:1, Caldwell, Idaho.

1907    “Personal and Social.” The Caldwell Tribune, 13 April:9, Caldwell, Idaho.

Chicago Tribune

1935    “Speedy Train Cuts Times to Pacific Coast.” Chicago Tribune, 9 June:29, Chicago, Illinois.

Deseret News

1901    “Resources of the Town of Nyssa.” Deseret News, 6 April:7, Salt Lake City, Utah.

East Oregonian

1902    “County Seat Fight.” East Oregonian, 9 December:7, Pendleton, Oregon.

1903    “Ordered to Vacate.” East Oregonian, 11 December:1, Pendleton, Oregon.

1907    “New Depot Needed.” East Oregonian, 19 April:4, Pendleton, Oregon.

1907    “Short Line Improvements.” East Oregonian, 7 September:7, Pendleton, Oregon.

The Gate City Journal

1923    “New Section House.” The Gate City Journal, 29 June:3, Nyssa, Oregon.

1928    “New Depot.” The Gate City Journal, 5 October:3, Nyssa, Oregon.

1928    “Nyssa Is Assured A New Depot.” The Gate City Journal, 26 October:5, Nyssa, Oregon.

1928    “Nyssa Is Assured of New Depot.” The Gate City Journal, 2 November:8, Nyssa, Oregon.

1928    “A New Depot for Nyssa Is Assured.” The Gate City Journal, 14 December:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1929    “Building Operations Getting Under Way.” The Gate City Journal, 15 March:8, Nyssa, Oregon.

1935    “A.C. Norcott To Head Commercial Club For This Year.” The Gate City Journal, 31 January:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1935    “Nyssa Depot To Be Modernized.” The Gate City Journal, 28 February:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1936    “Keen Interest Shown in Beet Growing Here.” The Gate City Journal, 13 February:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1935    “Modern Train Draws Crowd.” The Gate City Journal, 30 May:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1935    “Facts About Nyssa.” The Gate City Journal, 30 May:2, Nyssa, Oregon.

The Holt County Sentinel

1904    “Holiday Visitors.” The Holt County Sentinel, 30 December:4, Oregon, Missouri.

The Hood River Glacier

1901    “Oregon State News.” The Hood River Glacier, 12 April:1, Hood River, Oregon.

Idaho State Journal

1963    “Oregon Short Line Railroad is Vital Cog in Idaho History.” Idaho State Journal, 22 July:20, Pocatello, Idaho.

Malheur Enterprise

1911    “Climax is Reached in Law Suit.” Malheur Enterprise, 2 December:1:6, Vale, Oregon.

Montpelier Examiner

1903    “Montpelier to Have One Like It.” Montpelier Examiner, 7 August:6, Montpelier, Idaho.

1912    “_.” Montpelier Examiner, 5 April:4, Montpelier, Idaho.

The Nyssa Gate City Journal

1937    “Sugar Company Will Build On Land Adjoining Nyssa.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 28 January:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1937    “Expect to Re-Model Depot This Summer.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 8 April:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1937    “Crossing Accident Monday At Nyssa Takes Five Lives.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 13 May:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1937    “Can Nyssa Get A Much Needed Underpass?” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 13 May:2, Nyssa, Oregon.

1937    “Re-modeling of Depot To Start In ‘Short Time.’” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 27 May:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1937    “Sugar Factory To Be Built In Nyssa.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 30 September:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1938    “New $2,500,000 sugar beet plant to herald making of sugar in state and ‘Rebirth’ of Eastern Oregon lands.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 25 August:10, Nyssa, Oregon.

1939    “Oregon’s New Sugar Refinery Establishes Production Record and Exceed Estimated Season Output.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 26 January:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1939    “Subway Test Made This Week.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 23 February:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1939    “Citation Issued To City On Underpass.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 5 October:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1940    “Underpass Bids To Be Opened On July 18.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 11 July:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1940    “Nyssa To Have New Depot.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 24 October:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1940    “Contract On Nyssa Depot Let; Work To Start Soon.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 28 November:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “Work Started On $24,000 Depot.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 9 January:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “Depot Brick Work To Start Soon.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 13 March:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “’Round Town.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 12 June:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “Nyssa Underpass To Open For Restricted Traffic Saturday.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 19 June:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “New Depot Nears Completion.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 31 July:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1941    “Passenger Platform At Depot Is Completed.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 4 September:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1948    “Union Pacific Will Construct Freight Depot.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 26 February:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1948    “Union Pacific Is Seeking Bids On Depot Addition.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 22 July:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1948    “Wise Is Awarded Contract To Build New Freight Depot.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 5 August:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1948    “J. Wise Begins Construction On New U.P. Depot.” Nyssa Gate City Journal, 14 October:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

1954    “Local Methodist Church Observes 50th Anniversary; History Also Reveals Events of Community.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 27 May:13, Nyssa, Oregon.

1974    “First Depot at Arcadia.” The Nyssa Gate City Journal, 26 December:1, Nyssa, Oregon.

The Oregon Daily Journal

1907    “Nyssa Wants to be Put Upon the Line.” The Oregon Daily Journal, 20 July:8, Portland, Oregon.

1907    “Railway Commission is at Nyssa Today.” The Oregon Daily Journal, 17 December:5, Portland, Oregon.

Oregonian

1901    “Demand a Depot.” Oregonian, 7 April:10, Portland, Oregon.

1935    “Train Christened by Queen-elect; Marvel of Rails Sold Out Today.” Oregonian, 6 June:1, Portland, Oregon.

St. Helens Mist

1901    “Oregon State News.” St. Helens Mist, 12 April:1, St. Helens, Oregon.

The Salt Lake Herald-Republican

1917    “O.S.L. Spends 3 Millions on Improvements.” The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 13 December:9, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Statesman Journal

1903    “Contest Over Property.” Statesman Journal, 11 December:1, Salem, Oregon.

1907    “Want Better Mail Service.” Statesman Journal, 21 July:5, Salem, Oregon.

1907    “The People of Nyssa Want Better Service.” Statesman Journal, 1 November:8, Salem, Oregon.

BOOKS, PERIODICALS, AND WEBSITES

Gannett, H.

1905    The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Electronic resource, https://books.google.com/, accessed January 2021.

Mosgrove, J.

1980    The Malheur National Forest: An Ethnographic History. United States Forest Service, John Day, Oregon. Electronic resource, https://books.google.com/, accessed January 2021.

Kansas Historical Society

2021    Union Pacific Railroad Company depot, Oakley, Kansas. Electronic resource, https://www.kshs.org/index.php?url=km/items/view/439734, accessed January 2021.

2021    Union Pacific Railroad Company depot, Wakeeney, Kansas. Electronic resource, https://www.kshs.org/index.php?url=km/items/view/215601, accessed January 2021.

Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn)

1911    Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Nyssa, Malheur County, Oregon, Sheet 2. Electronic resource, https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/?fa=location:oregon%7Clocation:malheur+county, accessed January 2021.

1949    Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Nyssa, Malheur County, Oregon, Sheet 3. Electronic resource, https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/?fa=location:oregon%7Clocation:malheur+county, accessed January 2021.

Signor, J.

2010    The Union Pacific Depot at Nyssa. Fall:9-13. Union Pacific Historical Society, Cheyanne, Wyoming.

Stene, E.

1996    Owyhee Project. United States Bureau of Reclamation. Electronic resource, https://www.usbr.gov/projects/index.php?id=374, accessed January 2021.

Strack, D.

2021    “Union Pacific Passenger Car Paint and Lettering.” Electronic resource, https://utahrails.net/pass/pass-paint.php, accessed January 2021.

2021    “UP Streamliner Assignments & Consists.” Electronic resource, https://utahrails.net/pass/pass-paint.php, accessed January 2021.

United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (Census)

1910    U.S. Decennial Census, Census of Population and Housing. Electronic resource, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa,_Oregon, accessed January 2021.

1930    U.S. Decennial Census, Census of Population and Housing. Electronic resource, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa,_Oregon, accessed January 2021.

1940    U.S. Decennial Census, Census of Population and Housing. Electronic resource, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa,_Oregon, accessed January 2021.

United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

2021    General Land Office Records. Electronic resource, https://glorecords.blm.gov/search, accessed January 2021.

2021    Land Status & Cadastral Survey Records, Willamette Meridian – Oregon and Washington States. Electronic resource, https://www.blm.gov/or/landrecords/survey, accessed January 2021.

Western History Publishing Company (WHPC)

1902    An Illustrated History of Baker, Grant, Malheur, and Harney Counties, with a Brief Outline of the Early History of the State of Oregon. Western History Publishing Company. Electronic resource, https://books.google.com/, accessed January 2021.

Oneida Railway Company, Onondaga County, New York

Here is another real photograph postcard (RPPC) that recently caught my eye while I was browsing an online auction site. I was initially intrigued by the stately building in the middle ground of the image, so I decided to purchase it. Once it arrived in the mail, I began to search for clues that might reveal where this photograph was taken. The postcard is unused, so I didn’t have a postmark to work with, but based on the AZO stamp box on the back, I was able to place the date of the RPPC between 1904 and 1918.

Electrical substation of the Oneida Railway Company at Minoa, New York. Real photograph postcard (RPPC), author’s collection. Based on the construction date of the third rail interurban line and the stamp box on the RPPC, this image dates from 1907 to 1918.

Now that I had a rough time period, I started looking for additional clues in the image that could help reveal the location of the building. I looked closer at the double railroad tracks, and the “third rail” power system along the side of the tracks offered the first clue. I looked online to see if I could track down railroad systems that used third rail power, and after a bit of a tedious search over a few days I was gradually able to narrow the location down to Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and New York. I then took a closer look at the type of third rail power system shown in the photograph, and after some additional research I found that I was looking at an “underrunning” third rail configuration. With this type of third rail system, a contact shoe on the rail vehicle (usually mounted on the side of the truck) draws power by running on the underside of the power rail.

So now that I knew the type of third rail power system, I was eventually able to determine that the third rail installation shown in the photograph was the Wilgus-Sprague system, named for its inventors, Frank Julian Sprague (1857-1934) and William John Wilgus (1865-1949). Wilgus and Sprague filed for a patent on May 27, 1905, and they received United States Patent 908,180 on December 29, 1908. The Wilgus-Sprague system is most well-known for its role in the electrification of the New York Central’s lines running into Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, but use of their patented system on rural interurban lines was much more unusual.

United States Patent 908,180, granted to William John Wilgus and Frank Julian Sprague on December 29, 1908 (Google Patents).

I then began to look more closely at interurban systems in New York to see if I could find one that used the Wilgus-Sprague system. At this point, another clue hidden in the photograph came into play: the distinctive electrical distribution towers to the right of the building and then running off into the distance. I began searching for images of interurban railroads in New York to see if any other photographs showed these unusually-designed towers. After a bit of searching, I finally found a matching tower on another postcard from the era. The postcard gave the name of the interurban line as the “Oneida Railway Company,” and a little bit more research revealed that the Oneida Railway Company used the Wilgus-Sprague third rail system.

Now that I was armed with the name of the interurban company, I started looking for a map of the line to see if I could narrow down the location of the electrical substation building. I found a map of the route of the Oneida Railway Company, and I traced it on a modern aerial photograph. After about an hour of tracing the long-gone railroad line, I stumbled across a building at Minoa, New York that sure looked familiar:

After diving down this rabbit hole for several days, I was now reasonably certain that the RPPC in my collection was a rare image of the Oneida Railway Company substation at Minoa, New York. A few days later, I happened across another postcard of Minoa, New York that shows the west side of the substation and three houses to the north:

“Power House - Res. of Strodle, Lewis & Hessler - Minoa, N.Y.” H.A. Myer & Co., photographers, Jordan, N.Y. Real photograph postcard (RPPC), author’s collection. Based on the construction date of the third rail line and the stamp box on the RPPC, this image dates from 1907 to 1918.

After I pieced all of this together I set it aside for a few days. When I picked this research project back up today, I came across a Flickr page that gave me even more information about the Oneida Railway Company and confirmed what I had discovered.

Tip of the hat to “CNYrailroadnut” on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97630304@N02/albums/72157646484078178.

A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company, Seattle, Washington

The industrial history of Seattle has always fascinated me, and when I recently saw this real photograph postcard (RPPC) for sale I just could not resist adding it to my collection. This RPPC shows the three-story tall factory of the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company. The postcard is unused, but the style of AZO stamp box on the back indicates that the postcard was produced circa 1904 to 1918. However, a brief dive into the local newspaper archives provided an unexpected wealth of information about this building and helped to narrow down the likely time period of the photograph.

Real photo postcard (RPPC) of the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company building. Original image from 1911 with later alterations to the painted sign band at the top of the building, which appear to have been applied on the photograph negative used to produce the postcard.

I first came across the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company while writing the landmark nomination for the Thomas and Sarah Esther Bordeaux House on Seattle’s Millionaire’s Row. The Bordeaux House was built in 1903 and originally piped for gas lighting, but electrical service was installed in the house in 1910. An extensive 1913 remodel of the house by Bebb & Mendel included major utility upgrades, including the replacement of the 1910 wiring with a state-of-the-art electrical system. A cutting-edge Pacific Electric telephone and intercommunication system and a Tuec Model 240 Stationary Cleaner central vacuum system rounded out the major infrastructure upgrades.

A builder’s plate on the decommissioned 1913 fuse panel in the basement of the Bordeaux House indicated that the panel was manufactured by the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company. I filed this away for future reference, but it wasn’t until I saw this RPPC that my attentions once again turned to the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company.

The A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company label on the decommissioned fuse panel at the Thomas and Sarah Esther Bordeaux House, which was installed in 1913. Note that the fuse panel is made from marble.

John J. Agutter and Andrew E. Griswold founded the Agutter-Griswold Company in 1905. John J. Agutter was born in London, England in 1875 and immigrated to the United States in 1887 (Census 1910). Agutter appeared in the 1890 Seattle directory as a laborer, and by 1894 he was working at the Home Electric Company (Polk 1890:116; Polk 1894:133). In 1895 Agutter appeared in the Seattle directory as an electrician and by 1898 was working as an electrician at the Union Electric Company (Polk 1895:116; Polk 1898:110). By 1900 he was working as a foreman for the Seattle Electric Company, and the following year appeared in directories as contractor and general estimator for the same company (Polk 1900:130; Polk 1901:160). Agutter remained at the Seattle Electric Company until at least 1904 and formed the Agutter-Reardon Company about 1904-1905, followed by the Agutter-Griswold Company in 1905 (Stradley1904:152; Polk 1905:170; Polk 1906:170).

Andrew E. Griswold was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin in 1876 (Census 1880). In 1886 he moved with his parents to Vashon Island, Washington, where he later attended Vashon College (SDT 24 Jul. 1961:34). By 1900, Griswold was living in Seattle, where he worked as an electrician (Polk 1900:463). The following year he was working as an electrician at Erickson & Wyman, and in 1902 he was working at Gifford & Dow (Polk 1901:533; Polk 1902:579). Griswold was listed in directories simply as an electrician in 1903 but is not listed in 1904 (Stradley 1903:557; Stradley 1904:478). In 1905 he was with the Griswold-Knapp Company, but was listed under the Agutter-Griswold Company the following year (Polk 1905:553; Polk 1906:530).

The Agutter-Griswold offices were first located at 1406 1st Avenue (Polk 1907:150). The company worked initially as electrical contractors, and between 1907 and 1910 Agutter-Griswold installed electrical systems in some of the largest buildings being built in Seattle, including the Moore Theatre (E.W. Houghton, architect; 1907; extant); the Chelsea Family Hotel (Harlan Thomas, architect; 1907; extant); the Orpheum, Empress, Alaska, Liberty, Colonial, and Clemmer Theatres; the Broadway and Lincoln High Schools; the White, Henry, and Cobb Buildings; and the Central, Empire, and American Bank Buildings (SST 22 Dec. 1907:2; PBE 2 Mar. 1907:14; SST 18 Oct. 1914:42). Agutter-Griswold also installed electrical systems in large commercial and industrial facilities, such as the Fisher Flouring Mills, the Ford Motor Company factory, the Supply Laundry, and the Bryant Lumber & Shingle Company mill (SST 18 Oct. 1914:42).

Around 1910 the Agutter-Griswold Company decided to switch from electrical contracting to manufacturing electrical equipment exclusively (SST 18 Oct. 1914:42). In late 1910 and early 1911 the Thomson Estate had plans drawn up for a new factory building at the northwest corner of Aloha Street and Yale Avenue North, and the Agutter-Griswold Company signed a ten-year lease on the industrial development. The building was designed by the noted Seattle architecture firm of Saunders & Lawton and constructed by the general contractor Matt Branigan for $25,000, or about $685,000 in 2020 U.S. dollars. The reinforced concrete building was three stories tall with a basement, and measured 60-feet by 120-feet. The first floor was used for offices, storage, and distribution space, and also featured a dedicated space for the construction of electrical switchboards. The second and third floors were occupied entirely with the equipment needed to manufacture electrical cabinets, panel boxes, meter cabinets, and the parts needed for knife switches, panelboards, and switchboards. Sheet metal shearing, punching, and stamping work took place on the third floor, and an Erickson & Wyman freight elevator connected all of the levels of the building. Naturally, all the manufacturing equipment was driven by electric motors (PBE 1 Apr. 1911:152).

Manufacturing at the new Agutter-Griswold factory began in May 1911 (SST 18 Oct. 1914:42). In August 1915, the company adopted a trademark, which consisted of an “A G” enclosed within a diamond. By the time the company adopted their trademark, the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company was also manufacturing electric popcorn popping machines, electric cooking ranges, and an electric carving knife with removable blades (SST 15 Aug. 1915:62; SDT 28 Nov. 1915:56). In 1916, the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company moved to a new factory at 1350 Dearborn Street, and the Yours Truly Biscuit Company moved into the building following a $50,000 remodel (ER Mar. 1917:76; SST 22 Oct. 1916:22). Yours Truly continued to use the building until the company was purchased by the Tru Blu Biscuit Company of Spokane, Washington in December 1925. Tru Blu invested an additional $50,000 to upgrade the bakery plant (SDT 15 Dec. 1925:8). Tru Blu Biscuit Company became a division of the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company in 1930 (SDT 20 Oct. 1931:11). The Loose-Wiles Company became Sunshine Biscuit, Incorporated in 1946 (SDT 26 Mar. 1946:15).

In October 1929, a group of East Coast investors purchased a controlling interest in the A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company. Governor John H. Trumbull of Connecticut was named to the company board of directors, and the company was reorganized and incorporated as the A.G. Electric Manufacturing Company. Trumbull was one of the founders of the Trumbull Electric Company in Plainville, Connecticut, and served as president of the company from 1911 to 1944. The Trumbull Electric Company eventually was acquired by General Electric. Trumbull served as Governor of Connecticut from 1925 to 1931 (MCH 2020; SST 27 Oct. 1929:29, 31). In January 1931 the company name was changed to the Trumbull Electric Manufacturing Company, Pacific Division (SST 11 Jan. 1931:41).

Sunshine Biscuit remained in the building until at least 1953. The 1950s Seattle directories available online are incomplete and only available up until 1960, so verifying the occupants of the building after 1953 is not currently possible. Sam J. Doces of Majestic Furniture acquired the building at some point after 1953 and appears to have operated a carpet warehouse in the building (SPI 10 Nov. 1967:11). In February 1968 Doces sold the building to Fred Rogers of the Fred Rogers Company, which operated a ship supply business in the building from 1968 until 1977 (ST 18 Feb. 1968:117; 6 Nov. 1977:54). A variety of businesses, including a theatrical scenery production company and a pasta manufacturer, occupied the building during the late 1970s and early 1980s (SPI 11 May 1980:38; ST 8 Jul. 1981:48). The office of the Seattle chapter of the American Institute of Architects was also located in the building for a period of time in the 1980s. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center purchased the property in 1991, and the building was demolished in the early 2000s to make way for the present building on the site (KCDA 2020).

Ok, with all that out of the way, we turn our attention back to the postcard. It appears that the original version of the photograph was printed in the Pacific Builder and Engineer on July 29, 1911. I took out a magnifying glass to examine the text on the panel inside the spare tire on the automobile, and a close look revealed that it was an advertisement for the Golden Potlatch celebration, which first took place in Seattle July 17 - July 21, 1911. The Golden Potlatch took place in 1911, 1912, and 1913, and was renamed the Tilikum Potlatch in 1914, so based on this detail it appears that the original photograph was taken around the time of the 1911 potlatch. However, a comparison of the two images of the building shows that the painted sign band at the top of the building in the postcard image has been altered, most likely by modifying the photograph negative that was used to produce the postcard.

Top left image: Rotogravure photograph of the Agutter-Griswold Company, Pacific Builder and Engineer, 29 July 1911, page 31.

Top right image: Real photograph postcard (RPPC) made with the same photograph used in Pacific Builder and Engineer, but with the painted sign band at the top of the building altered.

Bottom left image: Illustration of the Yours Truly bakery from the Seattle Daily Times, 8 May 1919, page 11.

Bottom right image: Illustration of the Tru Blu Biscuit Company from the Seattle Daily Times, 29 January 1926, page 8.

An extremely poor quality photograph of the building was later reproduced in the Seattle Sunday Times on October 18, 1914, and that image of the building shows an additional painted sign was added on the spandrels between the first and second floor windows on the south and east facades of the building. So taking into account these details, it appears that the postcard in my collection was produced after July 1911 but before 1914.

The A.G. Electric and Manufacturing Company as it appeared in the Seattle Sunday Times on October 18, 1914.

WORKS CITED

Electrical Record (ER)

1917    “Manufacturers’ News.” March:76, New York, New York.

King County Department of Assessments (KCDA)

2020    King County Department of Assessments eReal Property. Electronic resource, https://blue.kingcounty.com/Assessor/eRealProperty/default.aspx, accessed November 27, 2020.

L. R. Stradley and Company (Stradley)

1903    Seattle Business Directory. L.R. Stradley and Company, Seattle, Washington.   

1904    Seattle Business Directory. L.R. Stradley and Company, Seattle, Washington.   

Museum of Connecticut History (MCH)

2020    “John Harper Trumbull.” Electronic resource, https://museumofcthistory.org/2015/08/john-harper-trumbull/, accessed November 27, 2020.

Pacific Builder and Engineer (PBE)

1907    “Hotels, Hospitals and Apartments.” 2 March:14, Seattle, Washington.

1911    “The Agutter-Griswold Factory.” 1 April:152, Seattle, Washington.

1911    “Modern Electrical Equipment Factory.” 29 July:31-32, Seattle, Washington.

Polk’s Seattle Directory Company (Polk)

1890    Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1894    Seattle City Directory for 1894-5. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1895    Seattle City Directory for 1895-6. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1898    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1900    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1901    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1902    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1905    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

1906    Polk’s Seattle City Directory. Polk’s Seattle Directory Company, Seattle, Washington.

R.L. Polk and Company (Polk)

1907    Seattle City Directory. R.L. Polk and Company, Inc. Seattle, Washington.

Seattle Sunday Times (SST)

1907    “Theatre is Almost Ready.” Seattle Sunday Times, 22 December:2, Seattle, Washington.

1914    “Supplies Coast With Switchboards.” Seattle Sunday Times, 18 October:42, Seattle, Washington.

1915    “A.G. Company Has Adopted Trademark.” Seattle Sunday Times, 15 August:62, Seattle, Washington.

1915    “New Electric Range Has Novel Features.” Seattle Sunday Times, 28 November:56, Seattle, Washington.

1916    “$50,000 Factory Added to Seattle Industries.” Seattle Sunday Times, 22 October:22, Seattle, Washington.

1929    “Eastern Group Buys Stock of A.G. Company.” Seattle Sunday Times, 27 October:29, Seattle, Washington.

1929    “Incorporations.” Seattle Sunday Times, 27 October:31, Seattle, Washington.

1931    “Incorporations.” Seattle Sunday Times, 11 January:41, Seattle, Washington.

Seattle Daily Times (SDT)

1925    “Tru Blu of Spokane Buys Yours Truly Biscuit Co.” Seattle Daily Times, 15 December:8, Seattle, Washington.

1931    “Biscuit Company Official Arrives With New Plans.” Seattle Daily Times, 20 October:11, Seattle, Washington.

1946    “Company to Change Name; Split Stock.” Seattle Daily Times, 26 March:15, Seattle, Washington.

1961    “Andrew E. Griswold.” Seattle Daily Times, 24 July:34, Seattle, Washington.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (SPI)

1967    “Warehouse Sale.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10 November:11, Seattle, Washington.

1980    “Making a Scene Part of the Job.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 May:38, Seattle, Washington.

Seattle Times (ST)

1968    “33 Sales of More Than $100,000 Recorded.” Seattle Times, 18 February:117, Seattle, Washington.

1977    “New home in Kent for distributor.” Seattle Times, 6 November:54, Seattle, Washington.

1981    “Varied pastas and sauces are offered at local markets.” Seattle Times, 8 July:48, Seattle, Washington.

1983    “Galleries feature variety of events.” Seattle Times, 27 May:79, Seattle, Washington.

United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (Census)

1880    Tenth Census of the United States. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6742/, accessed November 27, 2020.

1910    Thirteenth Census of the United States. Electronic resource, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7884/, accessed November 27, 2020.

A Few New Bungalows in Ontario, Oregon

I recently acquired this real photograph postcard (RPPC) from an online auction site. There was just something about it that caught my eye. If not for the caption “A Few New Bungalow’s [sic] in Ontario Ore” the location of these Craftsman bungalows would most likely have forever been a mystery.

This RPPC was mailed from Ontario, Oregon on July 15, 1911, which helped establish an estimated construction date for these three houses. I combed through the 1911 Sanborn fire insurance maps for Ontario looking for the footprints of these three houses, and after about a half hour of searching I found them at the northwest corner of Morfitt Street and Washington Avenue. Both streets were renamed at some point prior to 1949. Morfitt Street became SW 3rd Street and Washington Avenue became SW 2nd Avenue, so the houses are now located at the northwest corner of SW 3rd Street and SW 2nd Avenue.

It appears that all three of the houses in the 1911 RPPC still exist. The house on the corner nearest to the intersection appears to be the most intact, and the two other houses beyond appear to have been extensively modified over the past 109 years. The first image below is a scan of the 1911 RPPC, and the second image is an excerpt from Sheet 2 of the 1911 Sanborn fire insurance maps from the collections of the Library of Congress. The last image is the Google Streetview image that approximates the view angle of the 1911 RPPC.

A History of the University District Masonic Building

Bro. Adam S. Alsobrook, AIA, member of University Lodge No. 141, F. & A. M. in Seattle, Washington, just completed a research project on the history of the University District Masonic Building, which was constructed in 1909. The paper also explores the early history of the University District and the founding of University Lodge No. 141, Free and Accepted Masons.

The paper also highlights the work of architects such as Bro. Francis W. Grant and Bro. Austin Grant of Grant (no relation), Copeland and Chervenak, Architects.

Come explore 111 years of Masonic history in Seattle below:

An Outline Biography of the Life and Professional Career of Ulysses Grant Fay, Architect

This document is an overview of the life and career of the architect Ulysses Grant Fay, who was born in Rochester, New York in 1865 and moved to Seattle in 1906, where he died in 1918. Relatively little was known about Fay until my research on the design and construction of the Masonic Building at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. This document is a compilation of information on Fay that I found in vital statistics records, censuses, newspapers, trade publications, periodicals, directories, and other sources. It is intended as a study guide and reference work for others interested in the life of this relatively obscure figure in the architectural history of the Pacific Northwest.     

Early Masonic Meeting Places in Seattle: 1860-1915

Bro. Adam S. Alsobrook, AIA, member of University Lodge No. 141, F. & A. M. in Seattle, Washington, just completed a research report entitled: "Early Masonic Meeting Places in Seattle: 1860-1915." This paper explores buildings in Seattle that were constructed specifically for Masonic Lodges, and also sheds light on existing buildings that were adapted for Masonic uses. Many of these early Masonic buildings were lost to the wrecking ball long ago, and only a handful of these buildings survive to this day.

This report is intended to serve as a high-level overview of these buildings. Some of these buildings will be the subject of forthcoming research papers over the coming months.

A Forgotten Building by a Forgotten Architect at Seattle's Forgotten World's Fair: The Masonic Building at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Bro. Adam S. Alsobrook, AIA, member of University Lodge No. 141, F. & A. M. in Seattle, Washington, just completed a third research paper entitled: "A Forgotten Building by a Forgotten Architect at Seattle's Forgotten World's Fair: The Masonic Building at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition." This paper explores the planning, development, design, and construction of the Masonic Building at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. It also delves into the adaptive reuse of the building after the conclusion of the exposition and its demolition in 1922. The paper also presents additional biographical information about the architect Ulysses Grant Fay that was discovered in the course of Bro. Alsobrook's research into the Masonic Building.

Come explore this long-lost building and discover the role that it played during the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which has become known as Seattle’s Forgotten World’s Fair.

The Three Masonic Homes of Washington State

Bro. Adam S. Alsobrook, AIA, member of University Lodge No. 141, F. & A. M. in Seattle, Washington, just completed just completed a research project on the history of the Masonic Homes in Washington State. This research paper explores the establishment of the first and second Masonic Homes at Puyallup, Washington during the first two decades of the 20th century and also documents the history of the third Masonic Home at Zenith (Des Moines) Washington which was constructed in the mid 1920s.

The paper also highlights the work of noted Washington architects such as the Tacoma architectural firm of Heath & Gove, which later became Heath, Gove & Bell, and the work of Seattle architect Andrew Willatzen (later spelled as Willatsen).

Come explore 130 years of Masonic history in Washington State below: