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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Subscribers Edition Stories & Photos
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit.
Covers from British Columbia to Puget sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan. An evolving history dedicated to the principle of committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor (bullet)

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp (bullet)

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

A Christmas gift for Sedro
Fairhaven & Southern Railway, 1889

The Fairhaven & Southern Railway chugged into Sedro from Fairhaven with its first passengers on Christmas Eve, 1889, just a few weeks after Washington became a state. The photo is of the launch of the first day's run, starting in Fairhaven. This was the beginning of Sedro-Woolley as frontier magnet. The boom only lasted 2 years until the Financial Panic of 1893 leveled many boom towns just as dot.com businesses are leveled now. But what a fantastic ride it was. This is F&S Engine #2, manufactured in Schenectady, New York.

By Ray Jordan, 1974, from his book, Yarns of the Skagit Country
Transcribed by Larry Spurling
The pre-holiday shopping bustle brings thoughts of what could have been the biggest Christmas gift ever delivered to Sedro Woolley, or for that matter the whole county. It was so enormous that even old Santa Claus couldn't manage it. No Christmas tree short of a gigantic Douglas fir could have supported it. No stockings available were generous enough to hold it.
On December 24, 1889, eighty years ago (this is being written in 1969), the first passenger train of the Fairhaven and Southern Railway pulled in to the depot at Sedro on the Bank of the Skagit River. At this time there were two settlements here, Sedro and Woolley, each a small cluster of houses. It is reported that Nelson Bennett, the great railroad builder, had been promised a bonus of $50,000 if he completed the line from Bellingham to Sedro by Christmas of 1889, and he brought her in on time and had his Christmas present.
We haven't found any detailed newspaper accounts of the great day (only later, brief eyewitness stories) since local papers were scarce at the time, but must have been great joy and excitement when the scant population first heard that long, melodious whistle and clanging bell as this monster, belching smoke, steam and cinders, pulled in and a blue--uniformed, brass-buttoned conductor began helping passengers from the plush-seated coaches.
What a welcome change, to people who had been here for several years, from traveling by canoe, on foot, by horseback or by wagon over alleged roads, or by steamer which dropped them off only at points along the river.
An illustration of the travel difficulties of the day is revealed in an excerpt from Mrs. P.A. Woolley's diary jotted down on her trip west to be reunited with her husband. By various stages, in 1889, including trains and boats, she finally arrived in Seattle.

Nov. 24. Expect to take boat for Sterling and how I dread the trip. Nov. 25, still here at Seattle, raining as usual. Nov. 25 on the boat Henry Bailey for Sedro. Nov. 26, arrived at Mount Vernon at noon, remain until morning at Washington Hotel. Nov. 27, leave at eight on the stage; my first ride on a stage in my life and I never could imagine such roads; arrived in Sedro at noon.

We sometimes think that development is slow, so it is difficult to visualize that the first plat in Sedro was filed only 80 years ago, and that only four months later, the first passenger-carrying railroad in the country was unloading immigrants there. We have gotten quite a bit done in a short time, after all.
An interesting footnote concerning this first railroad into Sedro was found in an old clipping about an old settler, Mrs. Eva Van Fleet Beebe, who had a sneak-preview ride, so to speak.

"My father and I were two people to ride on the construction train of the Fairhaven and Southern Railway when they completed their line into Sedro. This was in 1889. We met the train about halfway between Sedro and Woolley and rode down on it as the track was laid. The flat car in front held the ties, the next one he rails and the next one the enthusiastic boosters with the engine farther back. Everyone was in a happy mood and the track was laid in a hurry. "Along in the afternoon, the terminus was reached. This was near [Mortimer] Cook's store in old Sedro. I remember men on the train talking about how valuable those lots were. One man said he had just bought a lot for $500 and considered he had a bargain.

We think it will take a long time for the interest in trains to die. We have seen adults, in this sophisticated age, elbowing the kids out so they could play with the offspring's new Christmas rolling stock. Also, there are many die-hard railroad buffs who preserve everything possible concerning trains and devour the somewhat surprising number of expensive books written on the subject.
Over Snoqualmie Falls way there is a club or association that has its own line, locomotive, cars and all, which the members keep in repair and running order. They even do their own gandy-dancing, and if that doesn't call for dedication, we don't know what does. End of story about Sedro and Woolley's nicest and most practical Christmas present.

Also read our exclusive two-part story of the F&S in Issue 28 of the Subscribers Edition. Part One of the story at this website. It includes the background of the transcontinental railroads from 1853 on; the Canfield Road, which failed; Nelson Bennett and C.X. Larrabee's launch of F&S and the Fairhaven Land Co. in 1888 and a profile of John J. Donovan. In Part Two, you will learn about Skagit county and Sedro's preparation for the first standard-gauge railroad in the state north of Seattle, including: how the two towns of Sedro boomed almost overnight in 1889; how developer Norman R. Kelley almost brought the project to a halt at the last moment and how John J. Donovan rode through a snowstorm to defeat Kelley's injunction; and details about how the F& went into decline and disappeared by the turn of the 20th century. Donovan's ride alone will remind you of an old-time, silent Western movie.
Or you can read the Journal Railroad Section with links to many stories and outside sources. Also, see Issue 28 for another story of the F& by the late Ray Jordan, Sedro-Woolley's ace historian, and see the same issue for a profile of Nelson Bennett. You may also want to see the Journal Check out Sedro-Woolley First for links to all stories and reasons to shop here first or make this your destination on your visit or vacation. If you are researching railroad history and want more information about our sources besides those quoted in story, please email us your questions.

Story posted on May 28, 2005
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Skagit River Journal

A Christmas gift for Sedro Fairhaven & Southern Railway, 1889

A Christmas gift for Sedro
Fairhaven & Southern Railway, 1889