Cowchips To Microchips Pages 1 - 10

Redmond Reflections from cowchips to microchips

Funding for this publication provided by

Brad Best City of Redmond King County Cultural Development Authority Redmond Historical Society Frances McEvers collection

“I’m worried, too,” Chuck Bowser tells his cousin John Balmer. “It’s only 1950, and we gotta wait another 49 years for the Redmond Historical Society to be founded so we can join. What are we going to do till then?”

Compiled and Edited by Naomi Hardy

Redmond Historical Society

photo by Miguel Llanos

Old Redmond Schoolhouse Community Center 16600 NE 80th Street—Room 106, Redmond, Washington 98052

This book is dedicated to Redmond’s greatest historian:

Bob Bailie 1919 – 2004

Herein abbreviated SVN, Bob’s Sammamish Valley News has forever documented the road we’ve traveled.

So much history, so little time! We regret that this book can only be a sampling of our community’s rich, lively history. Every category within these pages presented painful choices for inclusion, a trifling price for our wealth of Society members whose generosity of spirit makes such a publication possible. Our mission is to discover, recover, preserve, share and celebrate Redmond’s history. Memoria simper: If we don’t know where we’ve been, we can’t know where we are.

With special thanks to… Project Manager Miguel Llanos; Dan Aznoff for participating in many facets of this project with enthusiasm; Dale A. Martin for donating the full range of his photographic talents; Kay Shoudy for her organizational skills, good judgment, and warm scanner; Margaret Evers Wiese for her superior, indefatigable proofreading. And to all the history buffs, too many to name, who helped create this book of images. First Printing: 2004© Printed in Bellevue, Washington by 411 Printers Graphic Design by Angie Wean of Redmond, Washington “Indian Houses,” woodcut by Richard Bennett Helen Bennett Johnston collection

Introduction

Business and Family Have Come Together Redmond has always had a special blend of vitality and a spirit that unites us as a community of dedicated citizens. This vitality can be traced from City Hall to every resident living in the greater Redmond area. “Redmond Reflections: From Cowchips to Microchips” is an excellent example of Redmond citizens working together. This book, which celebrates the City’s 90th anniversary of incorporation, was made possible by a group of dedicated individuals who share a love of history Brad Best and the drive to preserve our local heritage. The publication was created by the Redmond Historical Society and compiled thanks to hundreds of volunteer hours from its members and friends of the Society. In comparison to other “old timers,” I am a relative newcomer to this community. My first introduction to Redmond took place in 1955 when I purchased a little brick building at the corner of Leary Way and Cleveland Street that had been home to the original Redmond State Bank. The building was built in 1911 by banker Fred Roberts and insurance agent Frank Shinstrom. Today, as we approach the end of our first century as members of the Redmond community, we can only speculate on what future editions of this book would look like. Let us all hope and pray that our beloved city becomes an even more prosperous, peaceful place for coming generations. In the early 1960s, the Greater Redmond Chamber of Commerce adopted a phrase that has become an appropriate expression of our sentiment for the City, and for members of its business community. “Redmond: Where Business and Pleasure Go Together.” How right they were. For me, Redmond has truly become a place where business and family have come together in beautiful harmony.

1938

Brad Best Collection

Washington State Archives

2004

1956

Brad Best Collection

Miguel Llano

1911

Winfred Wallace, photographer

The Best family, from left: Joan, Florence, Karen, David, Brad, Gregory.

sible without help from the Indians. They would trade a large salmon for a brass button. A little red flannel material would secure potatoes, berries, clams or venison. Indian neighbors showed the settlers how to preserve and prepare fruit without sugar or any cooking process. They taught them to cook food very slowly and thoroughly over a period of days in the Indian manner. They taught them how to make moccasins and leather leggings for use in the cold winter, and when the pioneers’ children became ill, it was the tribal healer or Helen Bennett Johnston collection medicine man who knew how to brew the special “Indian Women,” woodcut by Richard Bennett herbs to bring the fever down and ease the pain. The Indians of this area were very religious. Their graves had small shelters built above them to keep off the rain, and they were decorated. —Joan Appleby, librarian Forgue, 79, a member of the Snoqualmie Indian tribe, said the people’s numbers have dwindled to about 340 members. Except for Ed Davis of Fall City, a bishop of the Indian Shaker Church, Forgue believes she’s the next oldest member. Now a widow, Mrs. Forgue was married in Katherine Barker Forgue collection 1916 at the age of 18. At Dwenar Forgue and son, 1917 that time she lived in Monohon, a logging community near Redmond where she was born and grew up. Muckleshoot Indians also resided along the east shores of Lake Sammamish. All of her ten children attended Redmond schools. She said, “I have 37 grandchildren and 27 great grandchildren. They’re all good to me.” Mrs. Forgue’s grandmother, Mary Louie, was a well-known local figure in the early days. Before passing away at the age of 125, Mary Louie was a familiar sight in the Northwest as she walked countless miles. All alone, she’d walk to Renton, Issaquah (then Squak), Seattle, even over the mountains to Yakima to pick hops. In fact, in 1889, she had walked to Seattle from Carnation and arrived just in time to see the great fire. “I took care of her in her later years of life,” Mrs. Forgue said of her grandmother. “She had two sons, Charlie and Johnnie Louie who was my father. My stepfather, the late Jerry Kanim of Carnation, was the chief of our tribe. The last time we had a great powwow was in 1933. It was held in the old Fillmore logging camp cookhouse at Monohon.” Mrs. Forgue is herself a princess. An easy-going, affable lady, Mrs. Forgue spends much of her time sewing, crocheting, watching television, and taking care of her plants. Life’s been kind to her, she said, as she glanced at photographs on the mantle of the many descendants she’s left to follow in her footsteps. Hopefully, there’ll be enough to carry on the name and spirit of the tribe. —Oscar Roloff, 1978

photo by Patsy Barker Hall

D wenar

first people

Life in early Redmond would have been impos-

Katherine Barker Forgue Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Chief Jerry Kanim and his wife, Jennie Horn Kanim

Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Evelyn and Jennie Kanim, 1922

Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Jennie Horn Louie Nelson Kanim

Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Jerry and Kate Borst

Mary Louie was known by many Eastsiders accustomed to seeing her walking with a cane far and wide across the countryside. In 1910, she Hammersberg collection posed here for a photographer on the porch of the Monohon store on Lake Sammamish. With her are storekeeper Mr. Valentine, right, and Guy Baty wearing a hat.

early families

They came for the free land. They were hardworking and brave. They gambled on their own resourcefulness, and they won. Like all Western pioneers, Redmond’s first white settlers faced daily challenges and deprivations, but they were inventive and used help when it was available. In the spring of 1871 when Warren Perrigo and Luke McRedmond staked their claims at the north end of Lake Sammamish, they were the first white men to live in the green valley that escorted the Sammamish River northward from its Perrigo family collection Captain Luke McRedmond source at the lake. But the two settlers Warren Wentworth Perrigo were not alone. Their neighbors were the Native Americans who had hunted and camped along the river and the lakeshore for at least 7,000 years, and they welcomed the newcomers. For the next few decades, the Indians helped the McRedmonds and the Perrigos and others who soon followed to clear their land of virgin trees, so that permanent homes could be built and fields plowed.

George Benjamin Martin

Daryl Martin collection

Perrigo family collection

William and Matilda Perrigo family, 1903

Seated in the middle of this family gathering are William and Matilda Perrigo, surrounded by their 11 children. The two young twins in the bottom left of this photo are William and Maude. Seated on the bench, from left are June, Wells, William, Matilda and Robert. Thomas is the lad standing between his seated parents. Standing in the back row, from left are Mable, Arlington, Marv, Nellie and Marian.

Terri Gordon collection

Christian and Asa Robstad were photographed with their children, Soren, Anna, Harry and Albert.

Kristine Underhill collection

Elizabeth and Adam Tosh

Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Jim Graham, brother of Marie Louie

Gene and Cheryl Magnuson collection

The Charles A. Isackson family of Happy Valley in 1910, are seen here in a photograph originally belonging to Edna Sikes. From left, front row are Agnes, Ellen, Lena, Baby Edna, Mother Anna, Edward, Annie. Top row: Henry, Father Charles, Edith, Gust.

Katherine Barker Forgue collection

Johnnie Louie, father of Dwenar Forgue and Kelly Louie

Gene and Cheryl Magnuson collection

Axel and Doris Kjallin

Terri Gordon collection

Christian Stensland

Terri Gordon collection Kristianson Carlson collection

Carl John Carlson 1851-1936

N. Gust Soderstrom

Henrietta Soderstrom

Soderstrom and Gust Soderstrom were early settlers in Happy Valley. They had four children: Freda, Nancy, Irene and Harold. All four of their children attended and graduated from Redmond schools.

Olaf Gustav Kjallin J.B. Cawthon, photographer

Judy Lang collection

Four generations, from left are Anna Robstad Olsen, Besta England Stensland, Anna England Robstad, Myrtle Olsen Adler.

Gene and Cheryl Magnuson collection

Terri Gordon collection

Conrad and Anna Robstad Olsen are pictured with son Carl, daughter Myrtle, c.1906

Marge Mann collection

Charles Mann

Margaret Evers Wiese collection

Robert, Esther, Little Esther and Harry Cotterill, 1915

Frances McEvers collection

Sally “Granny” Hutcheson, 1861-1945

Liz Carlson Coward collection

Back row, from left are Albert Olson, Art Johnson, Julius Carlson, Olof Olson, Bill Johnson. Front row are Sig Johnson, Agnes Johnson, Anna Johnson, Ned Carlson, Ed Johnson.

Fred and Lucy Reil’s children are seen in this photograph, c.1921: Standing are Fred Jr. and Willis. Seated are baby Walter, Ethel and Charley. Irene Reil Kinney collection

Liz Carlson Coward collection

Agnes Johnson, 1910

Woodrow Reed collection

Reed Family Portrait, 1926 Seated, from left are Addie Bell Burkhart Reed, Woodrow Allison Reed, Herman Sales Reed. Standing, from left are William Sales Reed, Ruth Reed, Leo Burkhart Reed, Genevieve Reed, Gail Francis Reed.

David Bark collection

Leo Schaller was am early logger and dairyman at Inglewood, and later, a service station and store owner on East Lake Sammamish. Parkway.

Perrigo family collection

A few of the original group attending the first pioneer picnic in June of 1936 at Mark and Mable Johnson’s home, from left in front are Mrs. Charles Brown, Charles Brown, June Perrigo Snyder, Nellie Perrigo Morris, Mable Perrigo Johnson, Julia Tosh. Second row are Mark Johnson, Marie Scott, Gus Snyder, Clara Brown Struhm, Dorothy Voorhees Martin, Elsie Perry, Harry Martin, Lahna Hunsacker Snell, Dave Perry.

Perrigo family collection

This is the oldest known photograph of a picnic in our area, and is labeled in the Perrigo family collection as “The First Redmond Picnic.” William Perrigo is the gentleman hugging a tree in the center of the picture. As at all Perrigo gatherings, fiends and neighbors were undoubtedly included among family members.

The Johnson family of Happy Valley, from left are Art, Ed, Bill, Jerry, Sig, Nina, Melfie, Gertie.

Hammersberg collection Liz Carlson Coward collection

Redmond photographer Winfred Wallace took this photograph of the Louis Hammersberg children at Monohon, c.1911. From left are Vi, Cliff, Fred, Harold and sister Vernie in back.

Kjallin family, c.1919 Frances McEvers collection

The surviving Hutcheson siblings in 1950, from left are Ernest, Ada, Marge, Lena, John. These brothers and sisters were five of the eight children all born to Sally and Charles Hutcheson between 1886 and 1903.

Gene and Cheryl Magnuson collection

Woman on far right is Emma Forsburg Kjallin. Sitting next to her are Axel Kjallin and Jeanette Kjallin Carlson (two of Emma’s children) and her husband, Olaf Gustav Anderson Kjallin, with dark beard. Sitting in very center of photo with buttons on her skirt is Hedvig Kjallin Hosea. One of Hedvig’s sisters sits next to her. Other Kjallin daughters present, but unidentified are Frieda, Agnes and Dagmar, who is probably standing above Emma. Emma’s sister and father, Grandpa Kjallin, with white beard, are sitting third and fourth from left.

logging

O ne of Redmond’s first lumbering activities was a mill and logging operation known as Elliot, McCann and Donnelly

photo by Dale Martin

that operated at the head of the Sammamish Slough in 1887, the same year Tom Jose and his sons logged in the area. Compared to water transportation, the railroads were a faster method of transporting logs and lumber, but although the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway came to Redmond in 1887, it would be nearly two decades before logging and milling began in earnest in the immediate area. Mills at Bothell, Monohon and Preston dominated the 1890s along the railroad rightof-way, and Redmond didn’t come alive to the sounds of loggers yelling “timber” and steam whistles telling their story, until a few years later. Then, John and William Campbell came to Redmond. The brothers were nephews of Captain William Renton, the city of Renton’s namesake. They settled in Adelaide and Campton where Gene and Cheryl Magnuson collection they started the Paradise Lake Logging Railroad and Mill Company in Albert Magnuson in Happy Valley, 1940 1900, Campbell Lumber Company in 1905, and the Campbell Mill Company in 1907. Soon, loggers such as William J. Trimble and brothers Olaf and Gunnar Johnson were providing logs for the hungry mills, and in the next wave of new mills were the Avondale Shingle and Lumber Company mill in 1908, and J. T. Peterson’s Redmond Lumber Company mill in 1909. Private and public railroads were important in logging operations, but once indispensable oxen and horses were soon replaced by motor trucks when they became available. Locally, Charles Isackson and Olsen-Johnson both used trucks; Redmond Logging Company (which later became B & B Logging, then Brown & Brown) used both railroad and trucks; Siler Logging Company used the railroad; Anderson Brothers used trucks, as did B & J Logging. As the 1920s faded, Redmond’s nearby forests were severely diminished from decades of successful logging. The Great Depression Mill owner began on Black Tuesday in October 1929. A whole series of mill Del Stephens, 1982 fires and closures occurred. These three unrelated factors ended the heydays of mills and logging in the Redmond area. In the 1930s, a scattering of new mills opened, including the Arthur Johnson Shingle mill in 1932, the Dant & Russell mill in 1935, and the Isackson mill in 1936. Most activities in the 1940s were limited to log and pole hauling by men like Chuck Reil, son of former Mayor Fred Reil, and Avondale pioneer Conrad Olsen. There were also some smaller mills, like those of Dell Stephens in the Overlake area, and Adile Lampaert, who milled lumber needed for his ranching in what is today the parking lot of Redmond Center om Redmond Way. Many logging companies used Redmond as their home base in the 1950s, including Andy Forcier, Earl Gertje, Jim Miller, Gisle & Robstad, C. T. Cross, Marcum & Baker, Moe Brothers, C. E. Pierce, Seth Williamson, W. H. Rub, Alvin E. Johnson, and the Redmond TruckEast Side Journal, 1918 ing Company. Logging was the first economic boom in Redmond, and its glory days were colorful with taverns, hotels, theaters and eateries that catered to loggers’ Saturday paydays. Today, we see century-old pilings rising from the surface of Lake Sammamish, and the remnants of corduroy roads over which oxen struggled to pull giant virgin logs. As we drive down Education Hill on 166th Avenue NE, we are on William Perrigo’s skid road on which he skidded the logs from the forest that covered his homestead. Today, there is only one lumber mill remaining in our area: the Isackson mill in Happy Valley, owned and operated on a limited basis by Duane Isackson. But while the great saws are silent now, at the core Perrigo family collection Pole logging with horses, c.1905 of our heritage we yet possess the logging legacy of hard and honest work, common sense and resourcefulness, cooperation and teamwork, and an enduring appreciation of the land. –– Eric Erickson, Issaquah

Loggers pose at Weber’s Mill. The man in the middle of group, wearing white shirt and cap, is Ed Johnson. Note the two fellows on the roof wearing boxing gloves. East Side Journal, 1918

Liz Carlson Coward collection

Irene Reil Kinney collection

This 1903 photograph was taken three miles northeast of Redmond. The engine is a machine known as a steam donkey, and was used for skidding logs long distances.. Future Mayor Fred Reil stands at the far right, a skid road in the background.

Perrigo family collection

Winfred Wallace, photographer

This crew of loggers cleared some of the land on William Perrigo’s property which then encompassed all of Education Hill. The two women in the photo are Mable and Nellie Perrigo who cooked for the loggers.

Irene Reil Kinney collection

These early loggers provide a human scale for the great trees they felled. This crew is seen on Novelty Hill Road, at Bear Creek in 1903. Hayes Huffman is the first man standing at left.

Darius Kinsey, photographer

Inga Christianson Carlson collection

Working horses, c.1910 Weber’s Mill on Weber’s Point, c.1916 In 1936, Henry Isackson, left above, founded the Isackson Sawmill on RedmondFall City Highway and 224th Avenue NE, which he operated until his death in 1981. Today, his son Duane Isackson still operates the mill, the last one in the Redmond area. In this photograph taken by Oscar Roloff, Henry and an unidentified friend examine a tree that grew up through the wagon wheels of a logging wagon abandoned by Carl J. Larson, c.1917.

Tony Emmanuel collection

Happy Valley loggers worked with a Liz Carlson Coward collection steam engine, c.1909. From left are John Hutcheson, Sig Johnson, Eric P. Johnson.

East Side Journal, 1933

The Cottage Lake Lumber Company was located on Cleveland Street in the building Gossard Lumber subsequently occupied.

Conrad Olsen’s logging crew

Terri Gordon collection

The Walther Hotel burned to the ground on March 13, 1910 and the downtown fire was captured by Redmond photographer Winfred Wallace. The hotel was rebuilt within the year, and in 1913 it was the first meeting place of the new Redmond Town Council.

Z

SVN

Y

The location isn’t known of the Eagles Hall from 1913 to 1915 when the Town Council met there.

The Town Council met in the upper floor of Bill Brown’s building, located on the southeast corner of Leary and Cleveland Streets. Consequently, the two-story brick structure was often called the Town Hall Building. Wedding receptions, funeral services and popular Saturday night dances were some of the other uses of the upper floor at that time.

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Now photo by Miguel Llanos, 2003

City Hall

X

Washington State Archives

The Redmond Town Council held its meetings in this building from 1927 to 1933, when P.W. Allen operated Allen Drugs there. The building was built in 1912, on the southwest corner of Cleveland and Gilman. This photograph was taken in 1939. By that time, the Great Depression had closed his drugstore, but Allen still owned the building, as well as the real estate office building next to it and the historic Brown Building next to that.

] From 1933 to 1934, the Nokomis clubhouse served as Redmond’s Town Hall for Town Council and other public meetings. Built in 1933, the clubhouse is now the Redmond Chamber of Commerce building. Redmond City Hall Sites 1913 XWalther Hotel 1913 - 1915 YEagles Hall 1915 - 1927 ZBill Brown’s Building 1927 - 1931 [Allen Drugs 1931 - 1933 \Grand Central Hotel 1933 - 1944 ]Nokomis Clubhouse 1944 - 1950 ^Fred Reil’s building 1950 - Feb. 1970 _First City Hall Feb. 1970 - Present `Second City Hall In progress aThird City Hall

Then

Hotel Café on Leary Way In 1929, the Grand Central Hotel on Leary Way was the only hotel in town and was a gathering spot for many public functions including Town Council meetings. In the early 1930s, the entire Town Council was arrested during a meeting there — and taken to jail in Seattle for illegal gambling. Fred and Mary Heiser Walther built the hotel in 1910 to replace their Walther Hotel, which burned down earlier that year on Gilman Avenue. In Margaret Evers Wiese collection 1912, German immigrants Henry and Anna Rolfs Evers bought the hotel, which catered to workingmen such as loggers, mill workers, and crews who came to work for rancher Adile Lampaert at slaughtering time. Henry and Anna Evers eventually closed the hotel in the 1930s but continued to live there. Henry died in 1938, and Anna lived there alone until the early 1940s. The hotel building was sold, the guestrooms were closed, and siding was installed to cover the upper windows. The restaurant, known as the Redmond Hotel Café, became a local institution and remained open with various owners until 2002. The little boy in this photo, c.1917, was my father, Robert William Evers. —Margaret Evers Wiese

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^

Judge Fred Reil owned this little building that served as Redmond’s de facto Town Hall for many years. In 1950, when the new Town Hall/fire station/police station was completed, Judge Reil’s office was moved to Anderson Park and used for a public restroom, a purpose it continues to fulfill today in the park. The old Town Hall, seen here in 1950, is undoubtedly our most “historic” public restroom.

Then SVN, 1971

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Betty Gaudy collection

Mayor Fred Reil had been the Town Clerk for 12 years when the first Town Hall was built, and he hauled all the government’s paperwork to the new site in a wheelbarrow. At that time, he was Redmond’s only full-time employee. This snapshot of a Derby parade entry was taken five years later.

Roy Lampaert collection

Hereford cattle on Adile Lampaert’s ranch graze in their home pasture, c.1945. The trees in the background to the north of the ranch mark the site of today’s City Hall, on NE 85th Street.

Now

Redmond City Hall, 1978

a

Mulvanny G2, architects

Redmond Parks collection