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 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

This Andy Loft photo of the Burlington Interurban depot circa 1920 shows how a depot worker keeps the tracks clear of water and debris during frequent flooding. We hope that a reader will have a photo of Andy

This is a 1920-era post card that shows the Sedro-Woolley depot on the south side of Ferry street, now the parking lot for North Cascade Ford. The depot has been moved to the crossroads of Hwy 20 and Cook road.

      By Aug. 31, 1912, Messrs. Stone and Webster, two sharpies from Boston, owned all the electric rolling stock and track from Seattle to Bellingham. They flipped the switch, and the first of many, many hourly runs from Bellingham to Mount Vernon buzzed away. The line was officially known as the Pacific Northwest Traction, Bellingham and Skagit.
      The trains were more like trolleys, with an overhead hot wire supplying electricity, generated by dams in the Cascades, to four 300-horsepower motors. The train made 24 stops between here and Bellingham, Loft says, with a spur line to Sedro-Woolley.
      The railhead to Mount Vernon was met by a bus that sped to Everett, when another electric train would take you to Seattle. For $1 you could ride to Mount Vernon, or $1.40 round trip. Seattle was $3 one way from Bellingham, and $4.65 round trip. The trains toped out at 60 miles an hour, although one went as high as 62, Loft says.
      "That was a cheap trip," he says, a fact not lost on those who remember it. "The old-timers ask me, 'Well, Andy, when are you going to bring the Interurbans back?' "
      Andy, spotted as "the top guy" by a supervisor, went to work on the Interurban freight line at 18 and became a conductor at 21.
      What sent the Interurbans away were buses, automobiles and the natural obstacles the train had to face. The bridge over the Skagit river, the concrete pilings of which still remain, was condemned in 1928, and the train never ran again. An Interurban freight line continued for a few more years after the bridge was repaired.
      Economics kept the passenger line in the past tense, however. Using buses was at least as profitable, and a roadway is easier to maintain than a rail line. A four-and-a-half mile trestle had to be built from Blanchard north across the flats [actually Samish bay] and the bridge at Chuckanut was equally "iffy."
      But young Loft already was out of trains by then. A 1925 accident took him off the job, and the sharp-eyed supervisor put him to work selling electric appliances to soak up some of the power they were generating. [Ed. note: the same thing happened in Sedro-Woolley, where ex-city clerk Ted Alverson managed the interurban office and sold appliances there that were widely advertised in local newspapers.]
      Stone and Webster's rapidly growing company was selling electric appliances to soak up some of the power they were generating. Andy, naturally, worked his way up to sales manager. He even ran cooking schools to show homemakers how to use electric ranges.
      Puget sound Power and Light Co. eventually spun off its appliance business. They sent Andy to manage the Mount Vernon office, which he did until retiring in 1963. Along the way he became a prominent member of the Elks, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, managed the Mount Vernon Milkmaids baseball team and was county Republican chairman for three years. He avoided running for public offices, despite invitations to do so, he says.
      The Lofts' only child, Jeanne, died at 16.
      "That kind of broke us up for a long time," he says. A hint of pain remains in the words, and Jeanne's prominently displayed picture shows a beautiful, happy young woman. The Lofts traveled in Europe and Asia after retirement, riding the trains whenever possible. He says he got a lot o mileage out of showing foreign conductors a picture of himself, in his conducting days.
      Andy Loft now serves on the Skagit Council on Aging and on the Northwest Washington regional council. He says he is proud of his work on the Mount Vernon Manor. It keeps him busy.
      "I enjoy doing this work with the old people here," he says. "It's been fun. Loft has fond words for Puget Power, where he serves on the 12-member retirees council. He is and probably will remain the company's only 50-year employee. He never went on strike in all his years and never joined a union after finishing his conducting career. He says an organizer once pressured him to join, which sold him on not joining.
      "I didn't like his attitude at all," he says. "I felt that they (Puget Power) paid you the best they were able," Andy says, adding he never did complain about his salary.
      A friend of Loft's from Bellingham [Galen Biery] was able to turn a collection of black and white photos into more than 100 old-fashioned glass slides, and a local camera store owner provided a rare, antique slide machine [lantern slide projector] to show them.
      Loft says he has presented the Interurban show more than 100 times, Puget power has filmed a 30-minute television version, which was shown recently on a Bellingham station. Along with keeping busy, Andy credits himself with getting along with people. He says he picked up the skill as a conductor.
      "There's no use in having a fighting attitude," he says. "That doesn't do any good. There's a way to deal with people and I've enjoyed that kind of work." Andy has arthritic knees but apparently few regrets. the handshake is still firm, the memory amazingly clear, the smile finely etched in the lines on his face.

• List of all stories in this issue about the Stone & Webster Interurban, with links and suggestions for further reading.
  
• We transcribe an article from a 1913 issue of the Mount Vernon Argus that detailed the route of the Interurban. And more Journal research about the birth and demise of the line.
  
• Help us identify mystery photos and caption them, and submit scans of your own photos for Paul Dorpat's new Washington book and our updated Mystery Photos section. Chapter One features Chuckanut drive, the Interurban and Great Northern.
  
• A 1982 article about Andy Loft, "Mr. Interurban," who worked for the company for four decades and spent his retirement decades teaching groups, schools and businesses about the importance of the line.
  
• A schedule for interurban depots and stops and the mileage in between them. Story of the first day of operation in 1912, schedules for the trains and locations of the depots.
  
• Transcripts of newspaper stories from 1906-11 about the planning and construction of the Interurban.
  
• Dollar Way in Sedro-Woolley, the first paved highway in the county, which Stone & Webster built as a demonstration project to earn the right of way for the Interurban.
  

• Warren Wing. To Seattle by Trolley. Edmonds, Washington: Pacific Fast Mail, 1988. Wing is one of our favorite authors. His research and citation is impeccable, his selection of photos and presentation of them enhance the text and he has both a sense of place and time. His research and reference to little known people who made their mark is illustrated in this example: "We are all familiar with the inventions of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Yet Frank Sprague, who was their equal, is virtually unknown. Sprague was both an engaging person and an authentic genius. Besides perfecting the electric streetcar his other inventions included the system of multiple unit control that allowed elevated and subway trains to be controlled from a single cab, and the high speed elevator. The reason his name is not as well known today is that the sold his patents to Westinghouse, Otis Elevator and others, he did not insist that his name be associated with the final product. The building of modern skyscrapers, subways and light rail systems would have been impossible without his inventions."
  
• Daniel E. Turbeville III. The Electric Railway Era in Northwest Washington, 1890-1930. Bellingham: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies (WWU) Occasional Paper No. 12, 1979. Turbeville is an Oregon native who received an M.A. in geography from Western Washington University in 1976. He served as map curator at Western and worked with James Scott of the CPNW to produce the Illustrated Inventory of Historic Bellingham Buildings, 1852-1915. His book on the Interurban is a very important resource that we consult several times a month.
  
• William D. Middleton. The Interurban Era. Born in Davenport Iowa, the grandson of the first chief surgeon of the Rock Island Lines, Mr. Middleton is a 1950 engineering graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and did graduate work in engineering and journalism at the University of Wisconsin and then was an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy. He retired in 1993 and lives in Charlottesville Virginia. He has written several books on this topic: The Time of the Trolley (1967), When the Steam Railroads Electrified (1974), From Bullets to BART and The Last Interurbans.
  

You can read the history websites about our prime sponsors: Allelujah Business Systems/Copies/Mailbox, 133-B State St., Sedro-Woolley, 360 855-1157 Preserve your family keepsakes . . . allcopiersystems web page Schooner Tavern/Cocktails at 621 Metcalf street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, across from Hammer Square: www.schoonerwoolley.com web page . . . History of bar and building Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop at 817 Metcalf street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 82 years. Joy's Sedro-Woolley Bakery-Cafe at 823 Metcalf street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 82 years. Heirloom Gardens Natural Foods at 805B Metcalf street, the original home of Oliver Hammer. 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. Would you like to buy a country church, pews, belfry, pastor's quarters and all? Email us for details. DelNagro Masonry Brick, block, stone — See our work at the new Hammer Heritage Square See our website www.4bricklayers.com

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