An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 46

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 46
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 46

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twenty. Perhaps it would be too much to say that the town is maintaining this ratio of increase, but it is still forging ahead at a rapid pace. It has much to render it attractive to the home builder, a beanti- ful site, broad streets, well laid out. a thrifty citi- zenship, good school facilities and a large and increasing number of elegant modern homes.

THE TALE OF TWO CITIES.

On the banks of the mighty Skagit. In the haunts of the Siwash and shig. Some time in the early eighties Rose a brisk little town, called Bug.

There are tales of the valor and prowess Of these knights of the saw and the av. Who made through the forest primeval The first irretraceable tracks.

There are tales of soul-stirring adventure: Of bears that were bigger than barns : Of salmon of whale-like proportions- But I cannot spin all of these yarns.

And the little town grew so pretentious That it no longer fitted its name : So, ont of regard for the cedars. It finally Sedro became.

Now. to the northeastward of Sedro. Rose Woolley; and lo! there began A strife that was long and unhappy- Raging fiercely, as clan against clan.

But Woolley kept creeping southeastward. And Sedro kept creeping northwest Until it grew plain to all people That peaceable union was best.

So they formally buried the hatchet And all was henceforward serene; For the two became Sedro-Woolley. With only a hyphen between.

And t sing of a glorious future. Well worthy the deeds of the past : Here's three cheers for our own Sedro-Woolley- Long may its prosperity last !

MRS. W. T. ODLIN.

CHAPTER VIII

CITIES AND TOWNS (Continued)

BURLINGTON

It was in the fall of 1882 that John P. Millett and William McKay entered the dense forest of cedar, spruce, fir and smaller timber and, disturb- ing the deer. bear and cougar, erected a shack and made ready for the establishment of a logging camp on the ground upon which now stands the impor- tant town of Burlington. From a viewpoint mid- way between the town of to-day and the solitary shack of 1882, one gains an interesting glimpse of the beginnings of Burlington as it stepped toward its seat in the sisterhood of Skagit county com- munities. Such a viewpoint was enjoyed by the editor of the Skagit News when in the issue of his paper of July 27, 1891, he recorded his visit to Burlington in the following language :

"After taking a walk over town we found a num- ber of fine new buildings, some completed, others under course of construction and some just being commenced. One of the most notable buildings, and one which is nearing completion, is a large two- story building; the lower room is to be used as a school-room and the upper one for a hall. The building is being put up by the town company to be used for public schools until a district school building can be built. Arrangements are being made to vote bonds at an early date. The enroll- ment of school children in the district is upward of seventy-five. The M. E. church has the founda- tion laid for quite a large building, which will be a beautiful structure when completed. A couple of foundations have already been laid for warehouses near the railroad crossing, in which grain and farm products will be stored for shipment. The Sedro Mercantile Company moved into their two-story building about four weeks ago, with a $10,000 stock of general merchandise. The proprietors, Poulson Brothers, were not at home, but from all appear- ances we should judge that they were doing a good business. On Fairhaven avenue the Rowley house is located, with A. Rowley as proprietor. It is a fine two-story building; near it on the same avenue Mr. Rowley is just completing another two-story building which will be fitted up for a billiard hall, and his entire business is run on a strictly tem- perance basis. The Burlington house. on Ana- cortes avenue, is a two-story building, and run under the management of W. A. Gould. The house

seemed to be well patronized. Opposite the Bur- lington house is located Shaughnessy's restaurant, with Thomas Shaughnessy at the helm. He has also five acres in the town site which is nearly all under cultivation. His potatoes are as fine as can be found in the county. We next called at the Pioneer store of T. G. Wilson, the future postmaster of Burlington. Mr. Wilson carries a large stock of general merchandise, and is making a specialty of handling giant and Judson powders. He is doing a good business. Information has been re- ceived from Washington City that the postoffice would be established in a few days."

Before turning back in point of time to a consid- eration of the first period in the development of Burlington from a logging camp site to its position at the time the editor wrote the statements quoted above, it may be well to record a few annotations which will fix in the mind of the reader acquainted with the present day Burlington the buildings and men referred to by the editor. The town company building referred to is now the Maccabee's hall, and it stood first on Orange street. The Sedro Mercantile Company's store building had been erected in 1890 by Joseph Woods & Company. Mr. Shaughnessy, starting a year after the visit of the editor, was proprietor of a butcher shop and meat market for several months and in 1893 he built the World's Fair saloon and hotel, now the Great Northern. Mr. Wilson had bought out Mr. Burton, who es- tablished the business only the spring previous to the editor's visit, and Mr. Burton had embarked in the general store business only the year beforc.

The shack built by John P. Millett after the establishment of the Millett & Mckay logging camp late in the fall of 1882 was the first human habita- tion on the ground where the people of Burlington live. It was located a little to the southwest of the junction point of the railroads of to-day, and in it Mr. Millett and his family lived until late in the eighties. The first timber claims on the site of the present town of Burlington were taken early in the year 1883. William McKay held the land. which included Little Mountain, while across the line where Fairhaven avenue has since been made was the claim of Larry Gilfoy, on which Mr. Mil- lett's cabin was erected and on which the railway station of the present day has since gone uID. Look- ing from Anacortes avenue across the Gilfoy claim,

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ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN SOUNDS !!!

Burlington

Timothy Hay.

IN SKAGIT COUNTY

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one could see the land of "Smoky" Smith, while in the same direction, with Little Mountain as the viewpoint, one beholds the land which formed the Millett timber claim.

There was little done in the way of settlement of the land during the period when timber and logging were the chief industries. Isolated facts concerning this period of development have been obtained from an article from the pen of Frank Umbarger, which appeared in the School Bulletin in the issue of March, 1903. Mrs. John P. Millett was the first white woman to reside in the locality of Burlington. The best of the timber was logged from the town site by Mr. MeKay in 1883, but it was not until the closing days of 1890 that he platted the town site, recording his plat on New Year's Day of 1891. It was in the summer of 1890 that the first railroad train passed through Burling- ton over the Seattle & Northern. Though the Great Northern was not surveyed until that year, its through trains were running'early in 1891. The first saw-mill was erected by T. L. Fox in the winter of 1890-1, and in the latter year Dale & Company manufactured the first shingles, using a threshing machine engine for power. It was about this time that the first saloon was opened in the place. Burton & Son establishing it on Anacortes avenue in buildings which were consumed by fire on Christmas night, 1896. The first postoffice at Burlington was established early in the year 1891, T. G. Wilson being the first postmaster. The school district was established May 1, 1891, Miss Clara Garl being the first teacher.

The advent of the railroad gave a great impetus to the settlement of the town of Burlington and vicinity. for it afforded transportation for men and merchandise. While Burlington has never felt the impetus of boom days nor the depression of col- lapsed booms. its growth as a commercial center opened with the orderly laying out of the town site in 1891 and the subsequent advertising of its natural advantages and resources by the town site company. Soon after Mr. Mckay had platted his logged off land, George D. MeLean, then a resident of Mount Vernon and the western agent of Roswell Skeel of New York City, purchased fourteen hun- dred acres of Mr. MeKay's property and com- meneed the formation of the town site company. T. WV. Soules of Mount Vernon secured an interest in the company and Mr. McKay, by the terms of the purchase of his land, retained an interest, but in the course of a short time all interests were ab- sorbed by Mr. Skeel. The two hundred and forty acres which were platted into the town site proper were placed on the market at low figures and the inducements held out were attractive to prospective buyers who noted the natural resources of the con- tignous territory and saw the advantages to accrue from the development of railway traffic. The one thousand one hundred and sixty acres remaining

out of the original purchase from Mr. Mckay have been divided into one, five and ten-acre tracts and placed on the market as suburban property at prices low enough to warrant purchase for purposes of residences, small farms and market gardens. Thus was the settlement of Burlington as a center of activity made easy by the men who controlled the land where the town has grown.

But Burlington is more than an artificial town site and the creation of real estate speculation. It possesses advantages not surpassed and only occa- sionally equaled as a place of permanent commercial activity. Being the junction point of the Seattle, Bellingham & Vancouver and the Rockport, Bur- lington & Anacortes branches of the Great North- ern system, the town is easy of access for commerce from outside points. The railroads have tapped the sources of agricultural production in the vicinity by making possible the easy transportation of the vield of the helds, while at the same time they have made easy of access articles of consumption. Lying to the northwest of the town is the Olympia farming district, a large area of rich and fertile agricul- tural lands, which, though more recently brought tc the attention of settlers than some other sections of Skagit county, are none the less remarkable for their powers of production. To the west and south, extending to the Skagit river, are other rich farming lands which are rapidly becoming productive and conveying their yields to the central ship- ping point at Burlington. To the northeast and east of the town the land is less settled, though scat- tered through the tract of timber are to be found numerous smaller hoklings of farm land which are sending their products to town.

As early as 1893 the inhabitants of Burlington proposed incorporation as a municipality. The movement failed because the community could not minster the required population. The subject of incorporation lay dormant for a number of years and no organized movement was inaugurated until June 16, 1902, when Burlington became a town of the fourth class. The first mayor was F. W. Weide- man, and the first city council was composed of Zachariah Warfield, Orson Pease, William Hurley, Michael Hogan and David Koch. At the time of incorporation the town census showed that two hundred and sixty persons composed the popula- tion. Burlington now has, some say, three times that many, and the cause of this influx of people lies solely in general conditions. No municipal works have as yet been undertaken by the town, yet much progress in the way of street grading and improvement has been made. A stone crusher has been purchased at a cost of five hundred dollars and is in operation every day in preparing rock for macadamizing the principal streets of the town. A quarry situated within the town limits furnishes rock of a quality very desirable for road building and the streets are kept in good condition.

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The present officers of Burlington are : Mayor, '1. J. Howe ; treasurer. A. E. Henry ; clerk, D. Ben- lett ; attorney, George D. Greene ; councilmen. I. B. Koch, G. E. Heathman, Sr., W. H. Whitney, F. Fritsch and John Forst ; police judge, O. A. Pease; marshal. V. Tourtillotte.

The railroad has been a very important factor in the rapid development of the town of Burlington and of the farming country of which the town forms the chief center. The first depot of the Seattle & Northern was erected in 1890 and stood at the crossing of Anacortes avenue. The first building of the Great Northern was erected the following year and was a mere shack at the Orange avenue crossing. One Sunday morning a few years later the people of Burlington awoke to find that they had a new railway station, the fine structure which had stood at Bellville, two miles north of Burling- ton and on the line of the Great Northern, hav- ing been moved during the night on flat cars and brought down to the junction of the two roads at Burlington. The removal of this depot had not been heralded and the citizens of Burlington were as much surprised as was Samnel Bell, on whose land it had been built as a part of right of way con- sideration. This building did duty as a union sta- tion until it was burned, when the present structure was erected. The town enjoys excellent railway and transportation facilities, the number of daily passenger trains being ten. There are six trains on the Seattle line, three each way, and four on the Skagit valley branch, two being trains from and to Anacortes. Communication is maintained with Sedro-Woolley, five miles up the valley, by a twice- a-day stage service. operated by Ira Brown.

To turn again to the development of commer- cial activity in Burlington, the first business building in the town was the twin structures already referred to at the southeast corner of Anacortes and Fair- haven avenues, occupied as store and saloon by E. D. Burton & Son. The building was ereeted in the spring of 1890 and was destroyed by fire on Christ- mas night. 1896. In 1891 the Sedro Mercantile Company established itself in the Joe Woods & Company building, which was later occupied by Emerson Hammer and is now the home of Thomas Collins' saloon. In the same summer F. W. Weide- man opened a hardware store on Orange street. just west of Anacortes avenue. While this was going on a building was erected at the intersection of Orange street and Anacortes aventie by a man who left town before engaging in business. In 1891 the first meat market in the town was opened by John Deneke & Brother. Among the mutations of the years which have elapsed since the first busi- ness houses were established have been changes in the character and importance of the thoroughfares of the settlement. At one time Orange street seemed destined to be the leading business street of Burlington, but it had to give way before Ana-

cortes avenue, which in its turn has seen the great- est business activity transferred to Fairhaven ave- nue. The years of these early business ventures were those of feverish activity regarding the des- tiny of the town on the part of the pioneer mer- chants. At the close of the year 1891 there were probably not over three hundred people in Burling- ton, but with the coming of the following years more settlers arrived in the surrounding country, transportation facilities opened up and business man and farmer alike knew that Burlington had come to stay. The subsequent history of the town has been one of steady and conservative advance- ment.

It has been only within comparatively recent years that manufacturing has flourished in Bur- lington, but at present the town boasts of three shingle mills, which are capable of turning out 220,000 shingles per diem. The O. L. Bridgeman mill was established in 1901 and has a daily capac- ity of 60,000. The Burlington Mill Company, un- der the management of David Bennett, established in 1901, is turning out 100,000 shingles each twenty- four hours. The Burlington Electric Company's mill was established in 1904 by local people and has a capacity of 60,000 shingles daily. In connection with the last-named establishment, of which I. J. llowe is the manager, there is operated an electric plant which cost $10,000, and which furnishes pub- lic and private lighting.

A list of the leading establishments of the town at this date would include the following: Hotels : the Northern, with C. Il. Harpst as proprietor ; the Travelers' Home, built in 1903, with Orson Pease as proprietor. and the Ludin house, operated by Albert Ludin : lodging houses, Mrs. Madge Warfield and Thomas Shaughnessy ; general stores : J. F. Shilder, established in 1900 : F. W. Weideman, established in 1891, and now dealing in paints, oils and house furnishings, in addition to the original hardware business, and J. H. Knutzen & Son, who succeeded to the business of E. K. Barnard in September of 1901; confectionery stores: Harry Knutzen ; Otto Engbaum : Chamberlain & Company. and Mrs. Ada Rusk; meat markets, Burton & Knutzen and Ebeling Brothers; barber shops, E. M. Simpson and J. (). Forst ; tailor, A. Lindbery ; drug store, A. E. Henry, established in June, 1903 : physician, Dr. Fred S. Schacht ; attorney at law. George D. Greene: dry goods. W. F. Schacht : millinery, Mrs. John Doughty; bicycle shop, E. Reno, with E. A. Tucker as manager: Racket store, J. B. Koch: blacksmith, J. W. Clark; con- tractor and lumber dealer. R. H. Hopkins: three saloons. The old town site company is still in ex- istence, with George D. MeLean as general man- ager. I. J. Howe as resident manager, and Ros- well Skeel of New York proprietor.

Burlington has an opera house with a seating capacity of several hundred. The opening of the

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Skagit State bank in May of 1905 filled a want long felt by the business people of the town and vicin- ity. The Burlington Journal is another one of the semi-public institutions in which the citizens take pride and interest. This paper was established in 1899 by H. L. Bowmer & Son, but in the beginning of 1905 it passed into the hands of Thomas Howe.

Since that May day of 1891 when Miss Clara Garl opened the first school in Burlington, the school has occupied a prominent place in the local politics of the town. In 1892 a commodious new school, two stories high, with basement, was erected. It has since been rebuilt, and now has eight com- modious rooms. There is talk of the erection of a high school in the near future.

In the early days of the growth of the town its people recognized the need of the tempering effect of religious influences and services and in 1891 two thousand dollars were raised for the pur- pose of erecting a church for the Methodist Epis- copal denomination. A substantial frame build- ing resulted, to which in more recent years a par- sonage has been added at a cost of eight hundred dollars. The society is entirely out of debt. Rev. J. W. Kern is pastor. The Episcopal denomina- tion is represented by St. Mark's church, which has a neat frame structure, built several years ago at a cost of two hundred dollars. As yet there is no resident rector, but the organization is kept up by the members and already more ambitious plans for work are talked of by the leading adherents of the church. There is also a society of Catholics in Burlington which receives ministrations at intervals from visiting priests. The Evangelical Lutheran Zion church society was organized last year and a frame edifice with stone foundation was erected. The pastor is Rev. Theodore Goeswein, whose work is meeting with a hearty response on the part of the church membership.

Of fraternal organizations Burlington has her quota. The Odd Fellows are represented by Bur- lington lodge, No. 19, and Valley lodge, No. 67, Daughters of Rebekah. The Maccabees have a local tent and an auxiliary hive. Burlington camp, No. 8996, Modern Woodmen of America, was or- ganized on the 22th of July, 1904, and now has a membership roll containing twenty-eight names.

EDISON

At various points in this work we have described the character of the lands in western Skagit county bordering the sound. We have seen the great de- velopment which these regions have enjoyed through the diking, clearing and cultivating of the rich lands subject to overflow which border the streams, sloughs and inlets of that portion of the county. We have also seen how the timber re- sources, the pastoral resources and the commercial resources work there hand in hand with the agricul-

tural, thereby producing a variety of industries and a general strengthening of enterprise such as can- not be easily matched in many other portions of the state. In natural response to demands created by these varied industries there have grown up at many places small, yet active and enterprising towns, which, even more than the large cities, represent the vital forces concerned in the upbuilding of the great state of Washington.

A type of these numerous small towns may be found in Edison, located in the far-famed Samish valley in Skagit county. Edison, which derives its name from that of the "Wizard of Menlo Park," is located upon both sides of the north branch of the Samish river, which is also called Edison slough. It is about a mile from the bay and, at high tide, is accessible to steamers of medium draught. Im- mediately around the town is the reclaimed tide land, while rising slightly above those lands is a belt of fertile valley densely timbered in its native state, but, cleared first by the hands of the loggers and then of the farmers, now a rich farming region. A few miles to the south of it lies the picturesque Bayview ridge, and at about an equal distance northward may be seen the green heights of the Chuckanut hills. Far to the eastward, dominating the entire landscape, tower the majestic peaks of the Cascade mountains.

Edison's beginnings may be said to date from the year 1869, when several settlers took up their abode on the tide-swept flats and began reclaim- ing them from the sea. Among these men were Ben Samson, who took the claim upon which the town site of Edison was later platted. A year later came Edward McTaggart, who settled immediately north- west of Samson and adjoining him. Gradually others gathered around this nucleus until the set- tlement became so large that a postoffice was de- manded. To further this project Mr. McTaggart called a meeting for the consideration of the mat- ter. It was held at the McTaggart place March 26, 1876, forty-six settlers being present, and a peti- tion drawn and signed asking for the creation of Edison postoffice with Edward McTaggart as post- master, he suggesting the name of Edison in honor of the celebrated electrician. The office was estab- lished the following June with Swen Johnson as the first mail carrier. For a long time the office was kept in the house of D. P. Thomas, situated in a little grove on the northwest side of the slough opposite Samson's place.

The opening of the postoffice naturally led to the establishing of a trading post for the convenience of those on the flats, the honor of being the pioneer mer- chant belonging to Captain A. J. Edwards, a sloop trader. His little store was opened about the year 1880, or perhaps a year later, directly on the slough. occupying a small tract of land donated for the purpose by Mr. McTaggart. Mr. McTaggart says that Dan Dingwall built Edison's first hotel in 188?

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on a little tract of his ( McTaggart's) claim ad- joining that on which the store stood, though some claim that this hotel was erected a little earlier. At any rate. Dingwall did erect a hotel and lodging house there about that time especially for the con- venience of his force of loggers at work on the slough.

Not very long after this Dingwall failed and through foreclosure proceedings his property passed into the hands of Colonel Granville (. Haller, the well-known Coupeville pioneer, who also at the same time came into possession of Samson's claim. Upon a part of that property, the Samson land. Colonel Haller, in 1886, platted the original Edison town site, consisting of only four acres or even less. More land has been platted from time to time by the Ilaller interests, which still own the greater portion of the site, as also much surrounding property. A small tract of the McTaggart claim is also included in this site.

Settlement in those early years progressed slowly as the reclamation of the flats and the densely timbered bench lands was expensive. All traveling was done in canoes. row-boats and flat-boats, says Mr. McTaggart, as the flats were so badly cut up by sloughs and the ground was so slimy and spongy that land traveling was an impossibility. In 1885 a bridge was built across the south branch of the Samish, half the cost being paid by the county and half by the settlers, the latter's portion being guar- anteed by Mr. McTaggart. Just previous to this in the year 1881, the settlers built another bridge across the North Samish near Edison, using cedar logs for bents and cedar logging for flooring. William Dean did the pile driving. This bridge proved a valuable improvement indeed. A dike was also early completed across the flats to Samish island. affording the interior easy connection with the Seattle-Whatcom steamers on the sound, and ferry boats established between the island and the mainland. The late Swen Johnson was the first ferryman, followed by Joseph and Charlie Mat- thews, William Brown and son and John White suc- cessively. Too much praise cannot be given those early navigators, for the labor of rowing against tides, winds and during storms, waiting, etc., was extremely exhausting and trying.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 46

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172