Ghosts of the mill by Seth Truscott

VALLEY RECORD SNOQUALMIE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010  DAILY UPDATES AT WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM  75 CENTS

Parents campaign for school boundary options Elementary review is not popularity contest, school official says

Tykes have to be fast to grab eggs at Valley Easter hunts Page 2

BY ALLISON ESPIRITU Staff Reporter

Seth Truscott/Staff Photo

SPORTS

Chasing the ghosts of a vanished community, Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum member Dave Battey uncovers the playground foundations of long-lost Snoqualmie Falls Grade School. The lost town is the focus of a new museum exhibit.

Go east, young man: Lacrosse makes local inroads Page 12

Ghosts of the mill town History museum explores vanished community BY SETH TRUSCOTT

INDEX VALLEY VIEWS BOB’S VIEW ON THE SCANNER BUSINESS CALENDAR SCENE CLASSIFIED ADS

4 6 7 8 11 16 18

Vol. 96, No. 45

Editor

The forested pathways surrounding the site of Weyerhaeuser’s deserted Snoqualmie Falls lumber mill hide secrets. But some people know how to uncover them. Dave Battey, a retired telephone company employee and history sleuth for the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, is one such man. On a cold March morning, Battey hopped a guard rail near his home and hiked down an elk trail just off 396th Drive. His destination: the ghostly remains of the Snoqualmie Valley’s original YMCA. The elk trail is more than it seems. Under layers of leaf litter, Battey’s boots find the old loop road, once a main thoroughfare in the now-vanished

community of Snoqualmie Falls. “It’s all asphalt,” said Battey. Steps away, seemingly lost in the forest, is a paved school yard, hidden under the leaves. Here, the forest is reclaiming its own. Weyerhaeuser moved houses, bulldozed pavement and replanted the town with firs 40 years ago. English ivy, escaped from some mill worker’s garden, entwines the trunks near the vanished community center. In its heydey, the Snoqualmie Falls community hall drew children and adults from as far as Carnation. “It was quite spectacular, probably the biggest Y this side of Seattle,” Battey said. Today, just finding where it stood is a challenge. Battey’s only clue to the Y’s whereabouts is a steel pipe among the trunks. Holding up an old photo, Battey zeroes in on a tiny signpost in the photo that directed firefighters to a water source. “The community hall was really right

here,” he said. The pipe is the only visible vestige to a building that nurtured thousands of lives.

Quick growth The company town of Snoqualmie Falls sprang up fast — and vanished almost as quickly. Snoqualmie Falls had its genesis in the creation of the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company in 1914 by Weyerhaeuser and the Grandin-Coast Lumber Company. Homes and services were needed for the mill workers, and the town coalesced as the lumber company began operations in 1917. Bunkhouses provided initial homes for the loggers and mill workers. Over a period of about four years, true neighborhoods developed — places called The Flats, The Gulch, Riverside and the Dirty Dozen, so-called for its SEE GHOSTS, 3

Snoqualmie Valley School District officials weighing more than 1,300 comments and responses in this spring’s elementary school boundary review process caution residents that the change is not a popularity contest. Concerned parents flooded two public comment meetings held Monday and Tuesday, March 29 and 30, at North Bend Elementary and Snoqualmie Middle School, but none took the microphone. Rather, school officials asked parents to write their comments on cards, which were then read to the district’s boundary review committee, made up of school staff. Jeff Hogan, committee facilitator and district director of instructional technology, noticed a phenomenon at the second meeting that was different from the first. “What was heard on Tuesday night was unique,” Hogan told the Record. Monday’s meeting saw more support for options A and C, while Tuesday’s meeting saw increased support for option F. SEE OPTIONS, 2

YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF SNOQUALMIE  NORTH BEND  FALL CITY  PRESTON  CARNATION

TIRE SALE

DON’T FORGET Remove your studs by April 10th

OUR MOST POPULAR TIRES ON SALE COME SEE US TODAY!

610 E. North Bend Way, North Bend • 425.831.6300

Visit us online at:

lesschwab.com

347933

PHOTOS

913 SINCE 1

WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM

GHOSTS FROM PAGE 1 downwind proximity to the mill’s smokestacks. The Orchard neighborhood, built in 1919, was a social experiment to attract stable families, breaking the old stereotype of loggers as rough, hard-carousing men. The last house was constructed in 1924. At its peak, the self-contained community had its own water and electricity system, post office, hotel, barber shop, hospital and YMCA, serving the mill’s 1,200 workers. To Battey, Snoqualmie Falls was clearly an urban environment. “This was a town,” he said. “The houses were reasonably close together. Everyone felt like they were part of their individual neighborhoods.”

Vanishing town By 1930, homes were being removed at Snoqualmie Falls. Gradually, employees and services in Snoqualmie Falls moved into the greater Valley. Nelems Memorial Hospital, now being converted to senior housing by the Snoqualmie Tribe, replaced the Snoqualmie Falls Hospital in 1948. The bulk of the homes that could be moved were rolled across a timber bridge into Snoqualmie in the 1950s. The site of the Orchard is now a Glacier Northwest gravel pit; trees are reclaiming the other neighborhoods. Among the last mill town agencies to close was the YMCA. “They tried to get the rest of the Valley to keep the YMCA going,” Battey said. “It was too far out of the way. But people came to this thing from Carnation in its heyday. It was a regional draw.” Even after Snoqualmie Falls residents moved away, the Y remained a gathering place until it closed its doors in 1971. On June 30 of that year, the last piece of mail received its Snoqualmie Falls date stamp in the mill town’s post office. The last generation born at Snoqualmie Falls Hospital is now in their mid-50s. Occasionally, a bewildered child of the mill town revisits Snoqualmie Falls, struggling to find a lost home. Battey’s family farm sits just over the hill from the mill. When a visitor pulls into his driveway, he can tell at a glance whether they are searching for the lost town. “Our house is the only thing they can recognize,” Battey said. “Sometimes they have tears in their eyes. They can’t grasp the fact that this is all gone.”

• MORE NEXT WEEK: “Ghosts of the mill town” is the first in a two-part series on the lost community of Snoqualmie Falls. See the full story online.

Snoqualmie Valley Record • April 7, 2010 • 3

Wrecking ball hits former hospital Tribe found Nelems site too dilapidated to save BY SETH TRUSCOTT Editor

The former Nelems Memorial Hospital in Snoqualmie has been demolished to make way for Snoqualmie Tribe elder housing. Tribal Administrator Matt Mattson said the 1947 structure offered too many challenges for a successful renovation. ContractorBubba’sTrucking of Carnation will clear the site, located east of Snoqualmie Casino on Southeast North Bend Way, within a week. “It was far more expensive to try to remodel it than to tear it down and rebuild new,” Mattson said. The tribe’s $1.4 million project would build four housing units for seniors. Construction begins this summer. Preference will be given to low-income elders. To reside there, elders should apply to the tribe’s Housing Committee. The tribe purchased the Nelems site in 2005. “By the time we took ownership, you could barely tell it was an old hospital, except for the morgue in the basement,” Mattson said. When the tribe originally purchased the building, it was thought that some parts of the building, such as the foundation, could be saved. But that strategy was discarded.

The building was not in good shape, Mattson said. “I don’t think it was functional for any use whatsoever,” he said. The tribe had to remove asbestos from the building last year. Bubba’s Trucking owner Chuck Hinzman said that some parts of the building were sound and sturdy, but the side walls were rotten. “I can’t pull the stucco off the side walls,” he said. “I’m afraid the building will collapse.” Demolition crews found the hospital’s old morque under the floor. They’ll have to jackhammer its five-foot-thick concrete walls to bits. Much of the materials, including wood beams, brick and plaster, will be recycled or reused, Hinzman said.

Building history Nelems was a precursor to Snoqualmie Valley Hospital, which opened in 1983. Superintendent Bernice Nelems built the 12,000 square foot hospital in 1948 for $32,000, according to a Jan. 1, 1948, Valley Record article. The building replaced Snoqualmie Falls Hospital at the Weyerhaeuser mill. The building was named Nelems Hospital as a memorial to Nelems’ mother, father and sister. The Nelems family operated it until 1969 when it was sold to a group of physicians and re-named Nelems Memorial Hospital.

Seth Truscott/Staff Photo

Chuck Hinzman sweeps up debris at the former Nelems Memorial Hospital building in Snoqualmie. The Snoqualmie Tribe demolished the site to make way for elder housing. The hospital was where a generation of Snoqualmie Valley residents were treated, and where a generation of Valley babies were born. When it opened, the building had 23 rooms — five fewer than today’s hospital — as well as a solarium, living room, surgery, kitchen, and quarters for staff in the basement. “For 1948, this was a small but modern hospital,” said Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum member Gloria McNeely. Six of her grandchildren were born there, and McNeely’s son Denny was treated for a compound leg fracture during the last football game of his senior high school career.

She recalled the care there as exemplary. While noting that the building was never a candidate for historic registry listing, McNeely expressed some regret that the building could not find a continuing role in the elder housing plans. The Snoqualmie Tribe has also executed a purchase agreement for the current Snoqualmie Valley Hospital, located on Ethan Wade Way in Snoqualmie. The tribe is negotiating an extension on its payment schedule to King County Hospital District 4, asking for a minimum monthly payment plan. The tribe plans to turn Snoqualmie Valley Hospital into a tribal health center.

Got Kids that Leave LiGhts on?

BEST FRIENDS OLD FRIENDS NEW FRIENDS AT

We can help. Motion sensor light switches can save you money. We’re so sure you’ll love them, we want to install one in your home for FREE* *Free motion sensor switch with service calls over $200 (One offer of any kind per customer). Offer expires 4/30/10. 348140

(excludes dispatch fee)

A new apartment lifestyle for seniors who wish to remain as independent as possible for as long as possible.

For your convenience, we are open and available for service appointments on Saturdays. Please visit our website to learn more about our company and our monthly specials.

Call for details and a personal tour.

425-369-6122 425-888-6102 www.accurate-electric.com

348158

For information or a tour call 425.888.7108 650 East North Bend Way, North Bend

100% written guarantee • Licensed, fully-screened technicians Two hour scheduling window • Straightforward pricing Fully-stocked trucks save you time and hassle

Bonded Insured ACCURE*946CA

WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM

Snoqualmie Valley Record • April 14, 2010 • 3

Return to Riverside

MOONLIGHT MADNESS

at Ridge Supermarket IGA Prizes • Games • Samples

Wear a Wacky Hat and get a $5 Discount off orders of $3000 or more 00

331013

Saturday, April 17, 2010 • 8pm

7730 Center blvd. s.e. snoqualmie ridge Staff photo, above / Photo by Harold Keller, inset

www.ridgesupermarket.com

North Bend resident Harley Brumbaugh revisits his boyhood home, the former Snoqualmie Falls neighborhood of Riverside. Where rows of homes once stood, now only the corridor of sycamores remain. Inset, the community of Riverside as it looked circa 1940. The site is now a King County historic landmark.

Editor

Visit the Reinig Road Sycamore Corridor, a registered Youth life King County landmark, today and you will find rows of Setting the standard for youth behavior was Harold Keller, the huge, stately trees, forming a natural cathedral of arching director of the community hall and YMCA in the mill town. If a branches and thick trunks. teen under Keller’s eye goofed off too much, he might find himBut a visit with North Bend resident Harley Brumbaugh, self a persona non grata at the Y. armed with an old black and white photo, reveals a very “There went your social life,” Brumbaugh said. different place. Harold’s son Ward Keller remembers his The corridor of trees was once the Riverside father, who ran the YMCA from 1942 to 1965, as Mill town neighborhood, part of the lost community an energetic, hard-working man. at the museum of Snoqualmie Falls built around the nowYoung people learned everything from knitclosed Weyerhaeuser mill. Seven decades The story of the Snoqualmie ting to rifle marksmanship at the YMCA. The ago, Riverside looked like any other suburban Falls mill and town is the senior Keller used the rivers of the Valley to teach neighborhood, with houses set back from Snoqualmie Valley Historical swimming to children who didn’t have access to younger, smaller sycamores, reached by conMuseum’s primary exhibit for a pool. He went to the Arthur Murray studios crete steps. Today, only the trees remain. 2010. As the museum opens to learn the latest dance steps, then taught them this month, it will feature each year to junior high school students. Riverside Rats images and stories of the town Keller said he was amazed by what the YMCA and how it changed the Valley. Brumbaugh grew up in Riverside. Son meant for young people. To learn more, visit www.sno“We never had any problems with kids during of a steam shovel operator and a homequalmievalleymuseum.org. that time,” he said. maker, he roamed the streets and meadows of Snoqualmie Falls with the boys from his Sound of the mill neighborhood. “We called ourselves the Riverside Rats,” Brumbaugh said. The school, YMCA and store all overlooked the gigantic “It was a Tom Sawyer existence.” mill and its smokestacks. Brumbaugh recalls the ambience of The boys used a chicken coop for a club house. Bylaws sound to the place. included “No girls allowed.” “You could always hear the whining and the clank-clank of Living in Riverside meant more freedom for Brumbaugh lumber going through,” he said. “There would be percussive and his pals than most children in Snoqualmie Falls. They jabs of whistles. The main mill whistle was a baritone — a low lived closer to the urban environment of Meadowbrook than ‘wooh!’ You expected those things. You could see the cinders anyone else, so the boys were able to collect old beer bottles on your windowsill at school.” and sell them back to the tavern owners across the river. An aspiring professional musician, Brumbaugh saw a dif“Kids who lived in the Orchard, on the other side of the ferent world when he commuted to Seattle for trumpet lesmill, they were sort of confined,” Brumbaugh remembered. sons. But he always appreciated the mill’s sense of unity. Every Thanksgiving, boys from the two neighborhoods To many longtime residents, the vanished mill town was faced off in a touch football game. The boys had to mind clearly the strongest influence on the Valley of the last centheir own fouls, because there was no referees. tury. The mill’s economic engine drew workers from as far as “We had great freedom as kids,” Brumbaugh said. “But we Redmond, coalescing a community. all worked. We were expected to produce for the family.” The community of Snoqualmie Falls began to shrink in the Brumbaugh was expected to keep the family wood pile 1930s, and was completely gone by the early 1970s, as homes stacked year-round. He and the other boys also helped and services moved out into the greater Valley. elderly residents with their firewood. Most people grow up and leave their communities behind. “We had the meadows, we had swimming, fishing,” To Brumbaugh, “Snoqualmie Falls left us.” Brumbaugh said. “We had each other. We felt as though To Keller, the loss of the YMCA at the mill left a 45-year gap we were in a community. Nobody really screwed up. I can’t in recreation for Snoqualmie residents. remember the police ever coming.” “Hopefully, this project they have at the Ridge will be the Every student who attended the Snoqualmie Falls Grade beginning of restoring the YMCA’s efforts,” he said.

Get a Strong Team to Pull for You I am proud to be a part of the Community and invite you to discover how I can assist you with your home financing needs.

Heidi Green, Home Mortgage Consultant 22500 SE 64th Place • Ste. 220 • Issaquah, WA 98027 206-406-2074 Valley Resident since 1987 336256

BY SETH TRUSCOTT

School knew each other, though enrollment fluctuated with employment. “We got superior ratings in music,” Brumbaugh said. “It was because we had roots. We knew who we were.”

Step into Spring with a fresh look

$20 off

350507

Valley man recalls growing up in lost mill town

all women’s color through April Call Jessica Lentgis at the Hair Nook

425.443.9784 cell 425.455.0818 salon

10116 416th Ave SE • North Bend

4 • April 14, 2010 • Snoqualmie Valley Record

www.valleyrecord.com

Valley Views

SNOQUALMIE

History rolls on at mill site, new hotel

Valley Record SNOQUALMIE

Publisher William Shaw wshaw@valleyrecord.com Editor Seth Truscott struscott@valleyrecord.com Reporter Allison Espiritu aespiritu@valleyrecord.com Creative Design Wendy Fried wfried@valleyrecord.com Advertising Terri Barclay Account tbarclay@valleyrecord.com Executive Circulation/ Sean McGinnis Distribution circulation@valleyrecord.com Office Denise O’Keefe Manager dokeefe@valleyrecord.com

ur page 2 story this week continues the saga of the lost town of Snoqualmie Falls. Like many locals, I was aware that there used to be a community across the river from downtown Snoqualmie. But actually seeing the shadowy remains of that town — the steps to the nownonexistent Snoqualmie Falls Hospital, a gnarled cherry tree planted three generations ago by a long-departed Japanese student of the Falls school — was a true eyeopener. The story of Snoqualmie Falls is an amazing saga, which really Seth Truscott hasn’t ended yet. Valley Record Editor Part of the old town is still owned by Weyerhaeuser, where it has been reclaimed by forest. Some parts are among the mill site that Ultimate Rally Experience is negotiating to buy from Weyerhaeuser. If the purchase goes through as planned, owners Greg Lund and Bob Morris intend to conserve and promote the history there. It’s impossible to give much more than an introduction to the mill town’s story in these pages. For those who would like to go deeper, the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, located in downtown North Bend, is the place to go.

North Bend changes The thought of changing communities underscores what is happening right now in North Bend. Last week, the North Bend City Council made its decision to allow a new and modern hotel on the south side of Interstate 90’s exit 31. This has been one of the most hotly contested issues in a Valley community in recent years. Meetings on the hotel plan made the Mount Si Senior Center a standing-room-only venue, and a planning commissioner resigned at the height of the furor last fall. Hundreds of people had something to say on the matter, with some folks demanding a new place for visitors to stay, others decrying the change a national chain hotel means for their community.

Local police checked out the claims of neighbors that the site will drive up crime rates, and did find that crime will rise — but with the hotel, not neighbors, as the victim. North Bend’s city planners worked to lay down design standards easing a big building’s impacts on the local viewshed, but those obviously won’t please everybody. Regardless, a decision has been made, and history moves on.

Hotel race

Valley communities have been in a race for a new hotel for some time. Four communities have a stake — North Bend, Snoqualmie, the Snoqualmie Tribe and the Muckleshoots. In Snoqualmie’s city limits, a hotel has been discussed atop Snoqualmie Ridge, at the planned new campus

of Snoqualmie Valley Hospital. It’s a safe bet that the Snoqualmie Tribe will one day open a big hotel next to their casino, probably when economic times are flusher. And sooner or later, the Muckleshoot Tribe will proceed with plans to expand the Salish Lodge and Spa. For now, North Bend has taken the lead in the lodging race. That’s good news to folks like the entrepreneurs behind Ultimate Rally Experience, as well as other Valley businesses who would benefit from North Bend’s push to position itself as a recreation gateway. Just how bad it will be for near neighbors or the North Bend scenic landscape, only time will tell. • E-mail Editor Seth Truscott at editor@valleyrecord.com.

Earth Day is April 22. How do you help the environment?

Mail PO Box 300, Snoqualmie, WA 98065 Phone 425.888.2311 Fax 425.888.2427 www.valleyrecord.com Classified Advertising: 800.388.2527 Subscriptions: $29.95 per year in King County, $35 per year elsewhere Circulation: 425.453.4250 or 1.888.838.3000 The Snoqualmie Valley Record is the legal newspaper for the cities of Snoqualmie, North Bend and Carnation. Written permission from the publisher is required for reproduction of any part of this publication. Letters, columns and guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the Snoqualmie Record.

“I’m doing paperless billing and being creative by cutting up plastic grocery bags and crocheting them into reusable grocery bags. Debbie Conrow North Bend

“If I have a chance, I do carpool.” Jennifer Boivin Snoqualmie

“I compost and feed the birds a lot.”

“I recycle aluminum cans and compost.”

Lloyd Whitehurst North Bend

Stan Dollar North Bend