How to Preserve the End of an Era?

By Steve Williams, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

At the end of Lakemont Boulevard in south Bellevue sits a red two horse barn, five acres of pasture grasses, and the last coal miner dwelling of the 1920's town of Newcastle. For over 100 years coal was dug out of Cougar Mountain and shipped to San Franscisco, turning Seattle into a major seaport by 1880. Seattle's population then was 3,533; but Newcastle by 1918 had well over 1,000 people living right here at Coal Creek. Note the Company Store, Hotel, and Finnish miner's homes on both sides of Lakemont Boulevard in the photo below. Today the road is in the same place, but it is no longer a dirt track with transport only by horse wagons.  

Photo courtesy of Ruth Swanson Parrott, c. NHS

The last coal miner in the area, Milt Swanson, lived in company house #180 there at the end of Lakemont Boulevard opposite the barn. He worked for the B & R Co. until the end of mining in 1963. For the next 30 years he hosted hikers and school groups in a little museum he established in a renovated chicken shed out behind the house. Milt had maps and tools and stories of work in the tunnels and shafts under everyone's feet. He also founded the Newcastle Historical Society and served as its President for many years. (The new 3rd City of Newcastle made him “Citizen of the Year” in 2008). He and his brother John provided tools and artifacts and stories at 15 events sponsored by the Issaquah Alps Trails Club across the street at the Red Town Trailhead.

The “Return to Newcastle” event happened on the first Sunday in June each year. It was a re-union for the miners and their families, and a chance for the trail club to introduce new residents to the woods and local trails. With help from Harvey Manning and others, those events led directly to saving Coal Creek and Cougar Mountain and turning them into public parks that are wildly popular today. Parking lots are jammed on weekends and sunny afternoons. Trails and fresh air have always been enjoyed by people; but nature and exercise have become really important to all of us in these times of Covid. 

Photo by Bob Cerelli, c. NHS

Photo by Steve Williams, c. EHC

Today that historic house #180 property is owned by an outfit called Isola Homes and they are applying for permits to bulldoze it all flat and wedge 35 private houses in there between the two parks. Local citizens began a movement called “Save Coal Creek” to instead preserve the property as a wildlife crossing, a safer hiker crossing, meadow habitat, and perhaps add some trailhead parking while preserving historic features like the barn. If you enjoyed seeing the coal car in the front yard, the open pasture, and one of the last barns in South Bellevue – the question is “Will Bellevue sacrifice it all for just 35 exclusive and expensive private homes?” A public hearing is anticipated in the spring. Visit www.savecoalcreek.org  for updates and more detailed information.

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Resources:

“The Coals of Newcastle – A Hundred Years of Hidden History” 2020 edition, the Newcastle Historical Society, ( availble on amazon.com )

“Newcastle” files 183-194, Richard McDonald Collection, the Eastside Heritage Center

“Newcastle's Busy Mining Years” - Seattle Times article, L. McDonald, 10/04/1959

“Seattle in the 1880's” - D. Buerge, 1986 Historical Society of Seattle & King County

“14 Shorter Trail Walks in and around Newcastle” - E. Lundahl, 2018

The Winters House

Frederick W. Winter moved to Spokane from New York in 1906.  He began working with Hoyt Brothers Florists, where he met Cecelia Roedel, the firm’s bookkeeper. The two married the following year.

1994.34.03 - Frederick & Cecelia Winters in Winters House. Circa 1935.

Frederick and Cecilia Winters settled in the Bellevue area in 1916, after purchasing a farm in the Mercer Slough. The Winters raised azaleas for sale in several greenhouses on the property, which was expanded in the early 1920s. Frederick Winters raised narcissus, Dutch irises, and Spanish irises.

“F. W. Winters, internationally known Bellevue bulb grower, recently purchased 60 acres in Mercer Valley, which he plans to eventually have in production.  Twenty acres of this land is cleared and Mr. Winters plans to clear about ten more this summer.”

— Lake Washington Reflector, April 11, 1929

The Winters constructed their home in 1929 for $32,000. Cecilia's brother, Elmer H. Roedel, designed the home using the popular Spanish Eclectic style, and based it on his own home in Portland, Oregon. The decision to use this Spanish Eclectic style was influenced by the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, as well as the architecture they enjoyed on a trip to Cuba.

1999.09.01 - The Winters House, 1930s.

“Fred W. Winters, pioneer florist in Mercer Valley, has just received eleven tons of King Alfred, Spring Glory, Emperor, Victoria and Golden Spur daffodil bulbs from Holland, which he will plant on his property south of the Factoria bridge.  The magnitude of the order may be imagined when you realize that over 110,000 bulbs are included and the freight and import duty amounts to over $1500.

This lot which is now being booked under government supervision for sterilization is the first of three shipments.  One of the shipments yet to come will include 20,000 fancy varieties of Dutch Iris bulbs.  There are already a half a million Dutch Iris bulbs planted on the Winters’ Floral Farm.

These bulbs are imported under special government permit and are held in bond for a period of two years, after which they may be sold.

Mr. Winters was the first man to experiment with the Mercer Valley soil following the lowering of the lake and his pioneer efforts in the culture of this wonderful soil has induced many others to follow in it’s cultivation.  The entire valley will some day be under intensive cultivation and no one can estimate it’s eventual value to the Bellevue District.”

— Lake Washington Reflector, October 20, 1926

In the early 1930s, the Winters property included additional bulb houses, guest residences, and multiple greenhouses. In 1937, a portion of the estate was sold to Endre Ostbo, who established a rhododendron business and built greenhouses.

The Winters sold the house and bulb house to Anna and Frank Riepl in 1943 for $40,000. They retired to Vashon Island and established a floral business specializing in carnations.

1994.34.01 - Winters House, 1940s.

1994.34.02 - Winters House, 1940s.

Winters House is one of the few buildings associated with the past agricultural activity in the Bellevue area that remains on its original site. Purchased by the City of Bellevue in 1988, the Winters House was restored to its 1929 original design. Through a project spearheaded by the Bellevue Historical Society, the house was listed on the National Register in 1992. It is the only building in Bellevue on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Bellevue Historical Society, which later became Eastside Heritage Center, moved into the renovated home, along with antique furniture donated by Bellevue residents and businesses. Since then, the City and EHC have partnered to provide programming, exhibits, and public access to the historic site.

The building was closed in 2016 for construction of the East Link Extension light rail project along Bellevue Way. Winter’s House remains closed due to construction.

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Resources

Eastside Heritage Center Archives

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, March 30). Frederick W. Winters house. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Winters_House

Winters House. City of Bellevue. (n.d.). Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://bellevuewa.gov/city-government/departments/parks/parks-and-trails/parks/winters-house

Larsen Lake Cabin

The next of our five Bellevue cabins is located at the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm off SE 8th and 148th SE. It was also relocated in 1990 from its original location near Phantom Lake and today serves as a trailhead and link to the Bellevue’s Lake to Lake trail system.

2002.135.01 - Possibly the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm, circa 1930.

In March 1886, German immigrant, Henry Thode, purchased two tracts of land near Phantom Lake and built a house in 1894.  It was a two-story nine room log house made with hand-hewn logs and shingled on the outside.  Henry and his wife Emilia intended to farm, raise cattle and sell milk to the coal workers at Newcastle.  However, Henry was declared insane later that year and committed to a mental institution. 

He died two years later and Emilia remarried Jacob Kamber.  They continued to live in the Phantom Lake House.

In 1932, Shigeo Masunaga and his wife, Taki, leased the Thode House and farmed ten acres.  The family was forced to leave in April 1942 and were incarcerated at Pinedale, California.  They did not return to Bellevue.

After the war, John Matsuoka leased the Phantom Lake land from Mondo Desimone who now owned the land.  John farmed about 40 acres of the property growing fruit and vegetables. The Matsuoka’s lived in the house until 1966.  The dwellings were abandoned after John and his family moved.

2013.050.001 - House being moved in 1989. Yeizo Masunaga, Yeizo's wife, and Mrs. Taki Masunaga at left.

In 1989, the Danieli family donated the site of the Thode Cabin to the city of Bellevue and moved it to Larsen Lake in 1990.  Renovations were undertaken to preserve and highlight the original construction methods and integrity of the cabin.  A foundation, flooring, stairway, roof, and porch were all replaced.  The shingles were also removed showing the original log walls.

If you are walking around Larsen Lake and the Lake Hills Greenbelt, do stop and check out the “Thode House”. This is an easy cabin to visit even though the inside is not open to the public.  A porch with a swing is located at the front of the house and a seasonal farm stand next door.  At the cabin enjoy the swing and take a look at the hand-hewn logs (Fraser Cabin’s logs were machine hewed).

 Resources:

“The Bellevue Story” Connie Squires, 1967

“Bellevue: It’s First 100 Year” Lucile McDonald, 1984

Asachi Tsuchima, 1952, “Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue”

The Island Belle Story

BY margaret Laliberte, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

We don’t think of western Washington as prime grape-growing country today.  But during Bellevue’s early years as a farming community, seven different families grew grapes between about 1912 and the 1940s.  The Kelfner farm was located at the intersection of today’s SE 8th St and 108th Ave. N.E., near where Surrey Downs Park now stands.  North of it, R.T. Reid’s farm lay where the new light-rail station at 1112th and Main Street is nearing completion.  On the north side of the community, between today’s Bellevue Way and 100th Ave. N.E., the eastern slope of Clyde Hill was covered with vineyards owned over the years by the Clarke, Loughran, Hennig, Simpson and Borg families. Some of the farmers sold the grapes fresh, others made grape juice, and Borg’s Summit Winery sold wine, once Prohibition ended.

Photos from the time and ads in local newspapers touted the sale of “Island Belle” grapes, suggesting that they were special in some way unknown to us today. And in fact, they were.  Island Belle was Puget Sound’s very own grape variety.

2002.147.008 - Kelfner produce stand with sign announcing Island Belle grapes for sale.

The Island Belle story begins on little Stretch Island in Case Inlet on the western shore of southern Puget Sound.  In 1890 Lambert Evans settled there and began experimenting with grape cultivation.  He was joined on the island in 1899 by Adam Eckert, a New York grower, who developed a variety by crossing the Concord grape with a native North American grape.  Named Island Belle after Eckert’s elder daughter, the belle of a ball held on the island, the variety does well in the Puget Sound climate.  Very hardy, it withstands Fall frosts and can be harvested into December. It’s a versatile variety, making delicious juice and jelly.  Stretch Island eventually became the center of what was hopefully known as “Puget Sound’s grape belt,” including Harstine Island and the lands along Pickering Passage.  In 1918 the Island Belle Grape Growers’ Union was founded to market the area’s grapes in what was hoped to be, according to an article in Olympia’s Washington Standard newspaper, “a new Puget Sound industry.”  Island Belle became the most widely grown grape variety in Puget Sound country. The record harvest in 1920 returned $1,000 per acre (over $13,700 in today’s dollars). In 1928 California’s Oakland Tribune paper ran the story that Grace Mason had been crowned Miss Island Belle at the Island Belle Grape Grower’s celebration in faraway Shelton.  By 1930 Stretch Island supported two grape juice plants, owned by Eckert and a Charles Somers, who had bought the Evans property in 1918.

So it’s not surprising that Bellevue’s grape growers grew Island Belle grapes as well, although the harvest here typically began two weeks later than further to the south, where the climate was slightly more moderate.  John Kelfner bought his initial stock from a grower on Vashon Island and propagated his vines on his farm. When John Clarke began farming below Clyde Hill in 1919, he planted Island Belle and eventually opened Bellevue’s first grape juice plant.  (He later sold his land to the Hennig and Loughran families.)

2013.046.101 - Hennig grape juice ad.

The Depression years caused western Washington’s grape industry to crater, and it never fully recovered, although Robert Borg continued to grow his Island Belles on Clyde Hill into the 1940s.  A small remnant of the story remains alive today.  In 1978  Dick and Peggy Patterson founded their Hoodsport Winery on Hood Canal, the 16th winery to be licensed in the state.  They bought up virtually the entire harvest of Island Belle grapes from the Stretch Island vineyards, for which there was virtually no market at the time.  Over the years they expanded to create wines from other grapes as well.   In 1994 the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announced it would drop Island Belle from its approved list of wine grape names and rename the grape the “Early Campbell.” But the Island Belle is tenacious. Hoodsport Winery is still in business, and among the offerings of varietal wines on its website is “Island Belle,” “a red wine bursting with flavors of fresh raspberries and cherries. A perfect wine for picnics and barbecues.”

2011.025.003 - Vineyard on the Loughran property in Bellevue, circa 1930.

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Resources

Knauss, Suzanne, Culinary History of a Pacific Northwest Town, Eastside Heritage Center, 2007

McConaghy, Lorraine, ed., , Lucile McDonald’s Eastside Notebook, Marymoor Museum, 1993

Nick Rousso, Grape Farming in Washington, HistoryLink Essay #21302

Jack Swanson,   Puget Sound: Island Belle grape on endangered list, Kitsap Sun, April 19, 1994, https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1994/04-19/292256_puget_sound__island_belle_grape.html (retrieved October 18, 2021

Richard Bell, Island Belle Story, activerain.com/blogsview/790969/the-island-belle-story (retrieved October 18, 2021)

The Campbell Lumber Mill

By Steve Williams, EASTSIDE HERITAGE CENTER VOLUNTEER

One hundred and sixteen years ago in 1905, a huge lumber mill began operations at the northeast corner of Lake Sammamish in Washington State. James Campbell and L.B. Stedman invested $100,000 (over 30 million in today's dollars) and logged a major portion of the land east of the lake during the next two decades. They built an entire company town at Adelaide to support the mill; including a store, hotel, blacksmith shop, tool house, foreman family home and bunkhouses for 50 men.

Key to the whole operation was the Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad which ran along the shoreline between the mill and town. It had been been built by Daniel Gillman in 1889 and provided direct shipment to Seattle and other northwest destinations. Seattle expanded from a population of 3,533 in 1880 to 237,194  in 1910, and all those people needed housing. Because the railroad was there first, most of the mill was actually built on pilings extending out over Lake Sammamish.

OR/L 79.79.145 - Campbell Mill, Lake Sammamish, 1905.

The lumber company had three locomotives of its own and laid 16 miles of track across the virgin timber lands east of Redmond and Lake Sammamish. Bunkhouses for the lumberjacks were built on rail car frames and could be hauled into the woods to the end of spur lines where the trees were being cut. The logs were hauled back to the mill location, also called Campton, and were dumped in the lake for storage until they could be milled into lumber. The water washed off dirt and rocks, and prevented drying out – all of which was better for the saw blades. “Ponding” also allowed the logs to be easily sorted and moved about, and that resulted in pilings and large log booms at the north end of the lake. Old timers said that “There were so many logs that you could practically walk from one side of the lake to the other on them.”

OR/L 79.79.061 - Weber's Tug Boat, "Daisy."

The Campbell Mill operated for nineteen years, but was lost to fire in 1924 when the firemen discovered that their unused hoses had rotted and were full of holes. Many early mills and houses suffered the same fate as embers from wood-burning stoves and steam engines dropped onto wood-shinged roofs. The Lake Sammamish Shingle Mill was also located on the east shore, just south at Weber Point, and The Monohon Mill was further south towards the end of the lake near Issaquah. Beginning in the 1880's, Redmond had at least 12 different mills, but the big time logging was nearly done by 1930.  Within 50 years most of the old growth prime timber had been cut and the land was ready for stump-pulling, row-farming and dairy herds.

Today, if you go boating at the north end of Lake Sammamish you can discover rows of pilings that once supported the mill or held the log booms in place. Now, those pilings make a great protective nursery for young fish, and a hangout for all sorts of ducks and other wildlife. You can also join the Mountains to Sound Greenway in planting conifer seedlings to do your part in restoring a bit of northwest forest. Our forests help limit climate change by storing carbon, reducing flooding, evaporation and lowering temperatures. The extraction economy of a century ago is being replaced by a restoration economy of carbon credits and tree planting today.

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Resources

“Our Town Redmond” by Nancy Way, Marymoor Museum, Redmond, Washington 1989.

“Index of Lumber Businesses & Mills” by Eric Erickson, Issaquah Historical Society 2003.

“Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition”by Shauna & Brennan O'Reilly, Arcadia Publishing 2009.

“Seattle in the 1880's” by David Buerge, The Historical Society of Seattle and King County, 1986.

Redmond Historical Society website - www.redmondhistoricalsociety.org 2021.

Photos from Eastside Heritage Center collection