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 79

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 79
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 79

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On other properties of the district than those just described only desultory work is being done at present, owning to lack of transportation facil- ities. The Cornucopia group of two claims, just west of Copper lake, is undergoing some slight developments.

The next district east is the Index, which, roughly speaking, lies on and between the two forks of the Skykomish for a distance of several miles above their confluence at the base of Index mountain. The country to the eastward is so

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rugged and difficult of access that the prospector has not yet definitely determined the eastern boundary of the copper belt. but the town of Index appears to be a little west of the center of the belt. The developed portion of the Index district is compact and easily accessible from the Great Northern or by wagon road and the camp has the further advantage of being at a com- paratively low altitude, most of the properties being less than a thousand feet above sea level and a few, such as the Copper Bell, Sunset and Ethel, at little more than half that elevation.

Only five miles west of Index, and practically on the line of the Great Northern is the well known Copper-Bell mine, embracing fifteen claims. For five years past this group has been steadily worked with the result that a producing mine has been developed. More than five thou- sand feet of tunnels, shafts and uprises have been made and at a depth of two thousand feet the veins have proven true and as large and rich as ever. A thirty-six-drill compressor operates half that number of drilis at present. Last summer a forty-ton concentrator was built and since its installation steady shipments have been made to the Tacoma smelter. Thirty men are employed in and around the mine, the main force being engaged in driving a long tunnel, which is now in something like two thousand five hundred feet. This is the working tunnel. The ore lies in two immense veins, occurring in gran- ite, the Copper-Bell twenty feet wide and the Jumbo with twice that width. Copper is the predominating value, though a small amount of gold and silver are also found. The ore is low grade, running between two and three per cent. in copper and concentrating ten into one, chal- copyrite constituting the pay streak. In charac- ter and value the copper ores of this mine and district are similar to those of Butte, Montana.

The Gray Brothers, L. W. and C. H., dis- covered the Copper-Bell mine during the middle nineties and operating under the name of the Copper-Bell Mining Company, themselves opened the smaller vein with a four-hundred-foot tunnel. Three years ago the property passed into the hands of Metropolitan Life Insurance people, who organized the Bunker Hill Mining and Smelting Company. This corporation has expended a large sum upon its property, bringing it to an advanced stage of development. Wilbur Morris is manager.

Six miles up the north fork of the Skykomish is another copper property, owned by the Sunset Copper Mining Company, Incorporated, W. H. Baldwin, general manager. The mine has been extensively developed, but for more than a year has been shut down on account of litigation. The veins are known to be rich in bornite and chalcopyrite, averaging perhaps four per cent. copper. There are a number of ledges running through the thirty claims which constitute the

group, the largest being the Sunset vein, which is twenty-five feet wide. A compressor has been built on Trout creek a mile above its confluence with the north fork, and tunnels and uprises aggregating two thousand feet have been driven, the working tunnel being a cross-cut six hundred feet in length near the level of the creek. A depth of between five and six hundred feet has been gained. Seven years ago a surface tram of wood with iron straps on the rails, was con- structed from the mine to the railroad at Index at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars.

Just across the river from the Sunset is the Ethel, which embraces between thirty-five and forty claims. The ledge has been located for over three miles. In quality the ore is of the same generally as that found elsewhere in the district, except that it carries copper glance and some good silver values. Several car loads of concentrates have been shipped, some of which are said to have netted to the mine owners as high as three thousand dollars each. A surface tramway, three thousand feet long, carries the ore from the mine to an eighty-ton concentrator, erected two years ago on the river. This splen- did, modern plant, together with compressors, light works and a saw-mill, constitutes the principal equipment of the mine at present. The main tunnel is nearly three thousand feet long and has several uprises, but another tunnel of about equal length opens the ledge, higher up on the mountain. The vein is said to be fully twenty feet wide. For some reason the Penn- sylvania Company which owns the Ethel has allowed it to stand idle for the past year.

Four miles south of Index and a mile from the south fork is the property of the Buckeye Copper Company, in the development of which eight men are being employed at this time. They are driv- ing a cross-cut tunnel to tap the main ledge and have already run eight hundred of an estimated thousand feet. At a depth of a thousand feet the ledge is between four and five feet wide and has a pay streak of perhaps not more than twelve inches, though very rich, carrying copper glance or almost pure copper. Thomas McIntyre is the company's manager.

The Index Mining Company, consisting of Shohomish men, is developing a rich glance and bornite property four miles up the south fork. More than seven hundred feet of tun- neling has been driven and a vein of eight to ten feet of concentrating ore uncovered.

On Gunn's mountain a rich chalcopyrite mine is being opened by the Gun's Peak Mining Com- pany, which has already driven eight hundred feet of tunneling. Many other properties and prospects in this district are receiving more or less development work from time to time, among them the Helena, on the north fork; the Uncle Sam, three miles southeast of Index; the Mer- chant-Townsend group and the Nonpareil on

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Trout creek, the Acme near the Ethel and the Columet, six miles southeast of Index.

The history of the Silver Creek district was thus outlined by L. K. Hodges in 1897:

"The first mineral location of which there is any record was the Norwegian, made in IS74 by Hans Hansen, who carved the name and date on a tree, showing that the claim ran up the monn- tain on the left bank from a point five hundred feet above the forks of the creek. Shortly after- ward a man named Johnson discovered a cropping of iron pyrites on the bank of the creek and mistaking it for gold, located the Anna. Ile then carried the news to Snohomish, causing a stampede among the loggers all along his route, and induced E. C Ferguson, Theron Ferguson, Lot Wilbur and William Whitfield to spend two or three thousand dollars in building an arrastre on the present site of Mineral City.

"Prospecting really began in ISS2 when the late Elisha H. Hubbart cut a trail to Galena. relocated the Anna, with the Trade Dollar on the extension and the Morning Star on the Parallel ledge to the north. Discoveries then followed one another in rapid succession until in 1890 there was quite a boom, and the towns of Mineral City and Galena were established, a trail having been meanwhile cut through. It was during the four succeeding years that the road was cut from Index to Galena, partly by the county and partly by the miners."

In the Silver creek district, the principal mine in operation at present is that of the New York-Seattle Copper Mining Company, consisting of a group of twelve claims on the east fork of Silver creek. It is predominantly a copper proposition, the principal mineral being chal- copyrite, but it also has its values in gold and silver. Three ledges, parallel to each other, extend through the group to tap and open which a thousand feet of developments have been made. Since the property came into the hands of its present owners four years ago fifteen to twenty men have been employed continuously. The equipment of the property ineludes an air com- pressor and saw-mill, and the erection next spring of a concentrator is contemplated by the company's plan. The east fork of Silver creek furnishes plenty of water power. Of this com- pany H. D. Cowden, of New York, is the present president and Philip Hlingston is manager.

A mile farther up the east fork is the Bonanza Mining & Smelting Company's group of fourteen claims. The ore in this mine is more of the type found in the Monte Cristo basin, the values being in gold, silver and arsenical iron. Ten tunnels, of an aggregate length of two thousand feet, have blocked out an immense ore body which will return heavy dividends as soon as transpor- tation facilities are furnished to the district. A small foree of men is still at work in this mine under the management of Charles Lovejoy.

Another mine in the Silver creek district upon which work is being done constantly is the Ontario, two miles above Galena. The ore carries gold, silver and lead as its principal values and requires concentration. Some of it is said to run as high as a thousand ounces of silver to the ton. A. P. Michaud, the company's manager, is now engaged with a force of men in driving a tunnel and sinking a shaft.

The Lucky Day group lies on the high divide just south of Monte Cristo. Six leads, parallel- ing each other, pass through the six claims con- stituting the property, carrying copper, gold and silver in moderate quantities. One small lead is very rich. Developments are all on the Lucky Day claim, where a hundred- foot tunnel has been driven, with a seventy-five-foot uprise in one place and a shorter uprise in another. There are also, on the claim, a number of open cuts. The tunnel is now being extended by a small force of men under direction of Manager James Peccalo, who expects to open up a large ledge.

At the Orphan Boy, in the same mountain, four men are at work this season, extending the tunnel and otherwise developing the property. Seven claims constitute the group, on all of which high values in gold, silver and arsenical iron are known to exist, the ore being of the same general character as that which occurs in the Monte Cristo district, of which Silver creek is in reality only an extension. The Copper Chief, lying near the Ontario, carries gold, silver and arsenopyrite, but little or no copper. At present a long tunnel is being driven to tap the ledge at depth. The Monte Carlo group, two miles above Galena, is also being developed slowly at this writing, and it already has three tunnels. Some work is in progress, too, on the Seattle & Aurora, Consolidated, the Libby and the National groups near Mineral City, and the Trolley, Ohio, Corona and Victory in and around Galena. On Troublesome creek, which empties into the north fork of the Skykomish just above Silver creek, no activity is being manifested at present, though the region is connted a rich one. Many years ago a German syndicate installed a compressor piant upon a property in the locality and developed it sufficiently to secure patents, then discontinued operations entirely. The great need of the Silver creek district is a rail- road, and this the Mineral City Power and Transportation Company are planning to supply. They expect to build a road from Index to Trout creek in 1905, and thence to Mineral City in 1906. Should they do so a tremendous impetus will be given to mining operations in the entire country contiguous to their lines.

In any description of mining development in Snohomish county, due eredit should be given to the influence of the Everett smelter, for in a country of base ore propositions, convenient access to such a plant is the sine qua non of mining

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activities. The plant was started about 1592, buit was not ready for operation until some two years later. The capacity is two hundred and fifty tons of ore daily, and it is supplied with the latest appliances for the accomplishment of its purpose in an expeditions and satisfactory man- ner. "The business of the Reduction Company is the smelting of gold, silver, lead and copper ; the refining of lead and the making of dore bars. The latter, it may be explained for those not familiar with the terms used in the business, is a bar of precious metal, gold and silver mixed, which is nine hundred and ninety parts fine out of one thousand, or exceeds that proportion. This is the work of the refining department. The ordinary smelter simply reduces ores and turns out a pig of metal, that is principally, almost wholly, lead. By the refining process the gold and silver are made into a dore bar, and this needs only the separation of the two to give the actual bullion of commerce. The finished prod- uet of this plant, therefore, is pig lead, and this is refined to a degree not excelled by any other refinery in the United States." This smelter also has the splendid distinction of having in connec- tion with it the only arsenic plant in the Amer- ican republic.

Although the leading industry of Snohomish county always has been and still is lumbering, and although the development of agriculture has been necessarily slow on account of the great body of timber which covered the face of the country, yet the agricultural possibilities of this section were long since demonstrated in part. In 1874 the Snohomish County Agricultural Society was organized, and for five suceessive years afterward fairs were held annually. Each year selections from the county exhibit were sent to the territorial fair at Olympia and each year withont a single exception the county carried off first premium for its display of fruits and vege- tables, though in competition with all other counties of the state. The dull times of the latter seventies put the society out of existence, otherwise the record might have been main- tained indefinitely.

The Stillaguamish flats, perhaps the largest and best developed body of farm land in the county, is in almost all respects similar to the Swinomish flats of Skagit county, whose agricul- tural possibilities have been previously described, and all that has been said about the phenominally large yields of oats, hay and other products in the Swinomish country may be applied with equal truth to the Stillaguamish tide lands. The principal difference is that the latter are much smaller in area than the Skagit county flats. The marsh lands of the Snohomish river are not yet as fully developed as those on the Stillaguam- ish, but they furnish extensive areas of grass land upon which dairy cattle are kept, and in the course of time they will be fully reclaimed and

drained and converted, no doubt, into vegetable gardens. Experience has proven that there is but little land in Snohomish county not adapted to some form of agriculture, aside from the Cas- cade mountain areas. The river bottoms will produce oats, hay, vegetables and almost all other products of the temperate zone, while the highlands are specially adapted to the production of clover and other vetches, fruits, berries, etc.

The heavy timber and the difficulty of clear- ing land have forced the development of inten- sive agriculture from the beginning, and the adaptability of the soil and climate to that industry has been abundantly proven. "Persons familiar with farming here," says the last report of the State Bureau of Statistics, referring to Snohomish county, "never recommend operating on over twenty acres and many do better on less, unless dairying or general farming on a large scale is contemplated. The country is suited to intensive farming and careful attention to sinall acerage. A ten-aere tract, farmed on intensive principles, will support ten to fifteen cows, and the cost of butter fat need not exceed two cents per pound. A good herd will average from three hundred pounds to three hundred and twenty pounds of butter to the cow per year. A five-acre traet in fruit and berries should pro- duce four hundred dollars per acre. Poultry farming or truck gardening as a specialty offers excellent inducements. The rapid improvement of the rural districts of the county by way of good roads, trolley lines, 'phones and rural free delivery is making the agricultural life attrac- tive."

In an article in the Everett Daily Herald of August 27, 1904, J. F. Littooy, fruit inspector for Snohomish county, says that the county is especially adapted to the production of red clover, the great fertilizer. Italian rye grass. oats, which yield from eighty to one hundred and forty bushels to the aere, potatoes, which yield from five to fifteen tons an acre, hops, which yield three-quarters of a ton to an acre, cabbage and cauliflower seeds, bulbs, cranberries, celery. tomatoes, peas, corn, carrots, mangles, sugar beets and rutabagas. "All varieties of fruit, except the citrus fruits do well here, " he tells us, "and especially is this the home for small fruits. Strawberries yield from 300 to 600 crates of 24 pounds each an acre; raspberries, 300 to 700; blackberries, 400 to 700; currants, 400 to 800; gooseberries, 300 to 500." Thousands of aeres of logged off land, much of it of excellent quality, are available at reasonable prices to home- seekers. The excellent market afforded for poultry, eggs, and all kinds of fruits, berries and garden vegetables by the logging and lumbering camps cannot fail to hasten the clearing and cultivation of all this land, and Snohomish county may reasonably expect a speedy and splendid agricultural development.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

Two Views of "Hole in the Wall"

OFF-SHORE, SKAGIT COUNTY

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One direction in which great strides have been made in the past few years is dairying. In 1899 there were nine creameries making 170,010 pounds of butter; in 1900 the number had increased to 11 and the product to 214,126 pounds; in 1904, there were 2S creameries, producing 821,541 pounds of butter, and the number and capacity are rapidly increasing.

Snohomish county has, of course, its share in the fish industry of the sound, and its ports are the homes of numerous fishing-craft, yet nowhere is salmon catching and canning made anything like the industry it is on Fidalgo island. The county is, however, ahead of its sisters in possess- ing a unique piant for fish culture, that of the Commercial Trout Company, Incorporated. The company was organized in 1902, with a capital stock of seventy-five thousand dollars fully paid. It has ever since been engaged in installing a mammoth trout farm, two miles west of Sultan. Already fifty thousand dollars have been expended on the plant, and improvements and enlargements are still in progress, a force of eleven men being employed at present. The water supply is secured by means of a dam in Sul- tan river, from which a flume three by four feet, with a capacity of thirty-seven thousand gallons a minute extends three thousand five hun- dred feet to the plant. The plant proper consists of a hatching and propagating shed forty by one hundred and twenty feet, in which the spawn is treated in the same manner as at state salmon hatcheries. The fry is kept in octagonal tanks, five feet in diameter, until developed sufficiently to be turned into the outside ponds, which are thirty in number, and each about fifty feet in diameter. Grading of the fish, according to size, is an important part of the work, owing to their cannabalistic habits, and for this purpose, a trap

is used. To provide a flow of water free from sediment, the company is constructing a thirty acre settling pond, which will also furnish a home for mature fish. A refrigerator will also be installed. It is expected to make the first ship- ment of trout about January 1, 1906, and to place on the market a million mature fish annually thereafter.

In the development of large manufacturing industries, Snohomish county has already made long strides. In all parts of its territory the hum of machinery may be heard, saw-mills, shingle mills, sash and door factories, and other wood- working plants being greatly in the ascendency, of course. Everett, the county's seaport and commercial center, was originally designed as a manufacturing city, "a city of smokestacks," and though its barge works are out of service, it has a pulp and paper mill turning out twenty-two tons of book, writing and wrapping paper daily, and giv- ing employment to upwards of two hundred and fifty persons ; a smelter employing more than one hundred men ; the only arsenic plant in the United States; an iron foundry, with a large pay-roll, plenty of saw-mills, and other factories of less magnitude. Saw-mills, shingle mills, flour and feed mills, brick plant, machine shop, foundries, breweries, stove works and emery wheel factory, a trunk factory, wagon works, concentrator. creameries, etc., constitute the manufacturing plants of the county at present, but there is no reason why plants of many other varieties should not be installed in course of time, increasing the county's pay-roll and population many times. Here is a climate specially fitted for the textile industries, and for all other lines of manufacture ; here are almost limitless water powers, ready to be harnessed, and here at the front door are the markets of the world.

CHAPTER II

EDUCATION

Citizens of the state of Washington need not be ashamed of their schools, public and private. While it is not possible that a state so new as this should provide educational facilities equal in all respects to those of the older states, we may justly claim that in the basis which has been and is being laid, and in the prospects which this foun- dation assures, the state of Washington has every reasonable certainly of attaining a front rank among the states of the Union. Indeed at the present time it is a well-known fact that the Western states have less illiteracy than those of any other portion of the United States. Nebraska and Iowa in the older West and Oregon and Washington upon the Pacific coast stand at the head of the column in freedom from illiteracy. This high standing of our new states is due in part to the fact that almost all of their immi- grants had already acquired the essentials of education before coming here and partly to the fact that it has been the pride of Western com- munities to maintain good schools from the pioneer epoch to the present.

We purpose in this chapter to give a sketch of the history and present condition of the schools in the two counties which constitute the subject of this work. It is fitting, however, at the outset to outline briefly for the benefit of the general reader the provisions of public education in the state as a whole, for the educational history of Skagit and Snohomish counties is essentially one with that of the other counties of the state.

Washington las had, both as a territory and as a state, generous provision for public education. Although during territorial days the scanty popu- lation and isolation from all great centers pro- duced of necessity somewhat narrow conditions, yet even then the ambition and energy of the early settlers and their willingness to sacrifice something of outward ease for the mental fur- nishing of their children made their early schools fit ancestors of the more elaborate and well- equipped schools of the present time. Since the isolated and scantily settled territory entered into statehood, with its international connections, its great and rapidly growing cities, its phenom- enal development of all sorts of industry, and its inrush of wealth and population, the vital instru- mentalities of public education have not been neglected, and indeed have more than held their own in the forward and upward movement.

The state of Washington provides four great

departments of public education. The base of the pyramid is of course the common schools, the next the high schools, followed by the nor- mal schools, and these in turn by the state college and university.

When Washington became a state the enabling act provided that sections sixteen and thirty- six in each township should be set apart to create an irreducible fund, the income from which should be employed for the common schools. In addition to this regular income there is a state school tax and a district school tax. For the year ending June 30, 1904, the total receipts for the maintenance of common schools in the state was $5,619, 315.98. Of this the amount expended for teachers' wages was $2,246, 662.48. The total value of school property in the state at the period covered by the same report was $8,732,996. The school population of the state for the same period was 196,347, and the total attendance for the same time was 161,651. Comparing the year 1904 with 1903, we find an increase in the three items of receipts, of valuation of school property, and of number of pupils of about ten per cent. The report of the state superintendent for the year 1905 is not accessible at this writing, but it is understood that the gain of 1905 over 1904 is even more than ten per cent.

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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 79

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