people+place then

Building Intangibles

It was harder to build a functioning community of engaged citizens in Longview than it had been to lay out and build streets, sewers, buildings and starter homes. Especially as the Depression sucked at the spirit and the energy of Longview’s people. Yes, the town rallied volunteers, provided aid, stimulated generosity. But it needed the institutions of community as well, casting its civics and its civility in concrete. Just as with the physical infrastructure, the binding forces — the places to gather, the rites and rituals of socialization — needed to be established and nurtured.

R.A. Long was not at all unaware of this. It was a constant theme. But he preached from the mountaintop, and his Christian faith was gilded like his ornate personal railroad car. Longview badly needed spiritual sustenance, these binding forces, not just coming down from the hilltop, but arising from its muddy streets, too.

Longview Badly Needed Spiritual Sustenance

The Depression probably hamstrung Longview’s community growth as much or more than its core businesses and industry. Long-Bell would struggle mightily to maintain even modest production, and keep as many men employed as it could. But it couldn’t stretch so far as to keep up with the host of social and human challenges that, in the dreamy days of the early 20s, the founders had thought would simply take care of themselves. The planning for Longview was confined mainly to tangibles — land uses, housing , utilities, buildings. Some, but not much, thought was given to how the new city was to be given life — the societal aspects of community planning. It was to be a model city, everyone agreed. But model in terms of appearance. The assumptions seemed to be that life in a city that was designed in an orderly way would automatically also be orderly and pleasant.

John M. McClelland, Jr. R.A. Long’s Planned City cont page 21

In the 1930 census, the city projected by this time to have as many as 50,000 souls, and certainly a minimum of 25,000, counted a population of 10,700. And they were mostly miserable, many of them hanging on for dear life.

Magnificent Distances

The old adage that misery loves company didn’t provide much comfort in what by this time might be dubbed the “Over-Planned City.” John McClelland remarks that because Longview had been laid out to accommodate 50,000 people, but housed only 10,000, the city would appear from the air to be small hamlets of population separated by vast tracts of vacant land.

Because these vacant lots were often perfectly squared off and their boulevards paved, he called it a city of “magnificent distances.” All this vacancy created more problems than simply longer walks to town. McClelland continues:

The several undeveloped blocks north of Kessler School were virtually a jungle of vine maple, tall cottonwood trees and vines. Children walked along it on the way to school and in later years a girl was dragged into this mid-city forest and raped. Another time, a fleeing robber escaped capture for several hours by hiding there.

One early solution was better bus service. Morris, the man on the ground, immediately recognized the need and began expanding the early two-bus service by ordering four more. Buses would leave their Kelso depot every 20 minutes, cross the Cowlitz, head out Ocean Beach Highway to 15th Avenue, which was then a graveled road, and follow it south to the ferry slip which was at the foot of Oregon Way, then returning the same way.

Longview never really solved its “magnificent distances” problem — even with the advent of the automobile the town continued to feel spread out, disconnected and ultimately car-dependent.

The Community House

Mr. Long was determined that, despite economic challenges and disappointing population growth, Longview would not end up an “open town” like most northwest towns were in the 1920s. Especially mill towns.

If there had to be sin in Cowlitz County, it could be confined to Kelso. And for the most part, as it turned out, that is the way it was.

John McClelland, Jr.

R.A. Long’s Planned City

And one wonders why Kelso resented the high-toned interlopers across the river! The founders knew from their history in southern mill towns that to accomplish this they needed to provide a certain amount of what they called “welfare work” in the towns where they had mills. To maintain a force of reliable, honest and loyal workers they would need to show some concern for their personal lives. Mill managers were responsible for this to some extent, but workers needed the ear of someone who was not mill management, and who could act as liaison in between.

In Longview the epicenter of this welfare work was to be the Community House, the name given to a low frame structure built on the corner of Baltimore Street and Oregon Way in Longview, opened in early 1924 and still standing today. Mr. Long pointedly instructed its first director, U.S. Duncan, hired from Billings Montana at a salary of $2,600 a year, which Mr. Long considered excessive:

We are particularly anxious to impress the citizens with the thought that we are strong believers in the spiritual welfare of men and that we want to lend a helping hand in this direction. I take it your thought will be to introduce such religious programs as you feel the situation requires as soon as opportunity offers.

R.A. Long to U.S. Duncan, 1924

Northwest hydropower produces no carbon emissions, thereby significantly reducing the total carbon footprint of the region’s energy production.

Since McClelland describes the Community House as a “combination pool parlor, confectionery, church, movie house and lounge” Mr. Duncan had his work cut out for him. And when he ran up $10,000 in debt in his first year he was summarily replaced. To suggest another man for the job, the founders consulted the national YMCA, and they recommended one of their own. Charles Nutter was given departing instructions to try to convert Community House to a YMCA if at all possible. He started his campaign by ringing a sensitive chord:

To many radicals and many others in labor ranks, any community house when built and operated by a company, is looked upon in the light of a ‘sop’ to the workman…The YMCA, on the contrary, is looked upon generally as an independent ‘stand on its own legs’ organization in which workmen themselves have a voice through committee services. Charles Nutter letter, 1924 Nutter, it seems, succeeded without much effort, and by the end of 1924 Community House was deeded to the YMCA. The Y’s “independence” from Long-Bell, like so much in the fledgling town, was largely symbolic. In 1924 the company contributed $1,200 a month to its livelihood, and by 1925 its total investment in the Y had grown to $171,000.

Instilling the Spirit

It seems appropriate that the first and largest fraternal organization in the new city was the Men’s Brotherhood Bible Class, which met at Kessler School on Sunday mornings. In early 1924, in the absence of any formal city government or even incorporation, the town was still run by Long-Bell managers S.M. Morris and J.D. Tennant. Tennant made class attendance compulsory for virtually everyone in leadership in the company. When Longview got around to electing a city council, Long Bell’s ticket for the election was drawn almost entirely from the Bible class. But the event that really boosted Longview’s spiritual life was Mr. Long’s visit in December 1924. Newly elected Mayor, A.L. Gibbs, quipped that, “It’s wonderful to have Mr. Long and Santa Claus come in the same month,” as Mr. Long pledged to help the city not only build a library, but also to launch a community church. cont page 23

Speaking before the Men’s Bible Class that December he pledged $25,000 to help its members get a loan and challenged them to raise the rest of the money themselves. He also pledged $10,000 for a set of chimes for the church tower.

At the time, Methodist services were being conducted at the Community House by a young minister from Tacoma, Edward Gebert. When approached about the new church project he wasn’t sure the construction camp that was Longview really represented a Christian calling: But when he said so to one of his lumbermen friends in Tacoma, that friend urged him to reconsider. After all, he was asked, where was there a greater need for church than in a city that had no churches? The Reverend Gebert thought it over and decided his friend was right.

J.M. McClelland, Jr.

R.A. Long’s Planned City

Gebert committed to help build Longview’s Community Church, and after the new building was erected at the corner of Kessler Boulevard and Washington Way in Longview, would preach from its pulpit for more than 30 years.

The proposal to build an interdenominational church was hotly debated, with the belief that the “community” part of its name was as crucial as “church,” and that the last thing the young town needed was a rivalry among denominations. Longview Community Church it would be.

Education for All

Like housing, the logistics of education challenged the new city. The “mill towns” that Mr. Long and his colleagues disdained didn’t present these type of problems. Roughhouse villages full of seedy hotels, saloons, brothels and card rooms — and populated by 90 percent single (or available) men — had other preoccupations.