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 wreck at Rocky Point in 1929 was one more nail in the coffin for the Interurban

• [Depot or stop . . . mileage]
  
• Bellingham depot
        The depot was at the Pike block at Elk [now State] street and Holly, near where the Greyhound Bus terminal was later constructed.
  
• South Bellingham [Fairhaven] 2.46 miles
  
• Happy Valley 3.5 m
  
• Hibridge 4.28 m
  
• Grandview 5.36 m
  
• Chuckanut 6.8 m
  
• Wildcat cove 7.76 m
  
• Clayton bay [begins trestle over bay] 9.2 m
  
• Seawood 11.15 m
  
• Samish 12.32 m
  
• Blanchard 13.64
  
• Edison 15.68 m
  
• Sunset 17.3 m
  
• Field [now beside Field cemetery] 18.53 m
  
• Roray 21.20
        [then the name for town of Allen . . . can anyone tell us more about the Roray family?]
  
• Maiben
        [unknown source for the name . . . do you know?]
  
• Burlington 23.25 m
  
• Varney
        [now roughly the location of Fred Meyers store parking lot or south of it] 24 m
  
• Riverside 25.55 m
  
• Clear Lake road [now College Way] 26.05 m
  
• Mount Vernon 27.5 m
        The depot was at the northwest corner of Kincaid and Main streets, where the Vaux Pharmacy was later built. This was the site where W.H. Franklin set up the Mount Vernon Electric Co. in 1891. He sold his plant to Stone & Webster in 1911.
  

This depot named Varney stood just south of today's Fred Meyer store. We believe that the old wooden structure stored on blocks on the lots north of the store's parking lot is this very same structure. We hope that a Burlington old-timer can confirm this hunch for us and can also tell us about the Varney family.

• [Please help us with these names and the families who may have inspired them]
  
• Burlington
        Depot at Virginia street. If you look closely, you can find remnants of brick paving at Oak street, close by the north-south railroad tracks.
  
• Miller .75 m
  
• Dempsey [presumably named for the Dempsey brothers of Michigan, who financed the Puget Sound & Baker River Railroad, which crossed the tracks at this point, on the way to Sterling] 2.13 m
  
• Sterling 2.7 m
  
• Kimsey [this is mysterious. We know that the Kimsey family lived south of the tracks, by the old Sterling school. But why stop at both places? Was the Sterling stop at the original depot for the Seattle & Northern railroad, slightly west of Kimsey?] 2.75 m
  
• Austin 4.08 m
  
• Sedro-Woolley [Ferry street depot] 4.7 m
        All remnants of the depot site have been covered by concrete. As in Burlington, the Interurban depot was placed near the railroad depot; in this case, the Northern Pacific depot was just a half block away, on the east side of the NP tracks, just north of Ferry street, across the street from the Pioneer Hotel, now the parking lot for the hardware store.
  

. . . carrying practically all of the officials of the cities of Mount Vernon, Sedro-Woolley, Burlington and Bellingham, together with the officials of Whatcom and Skagit counties, the members of various commercial organizations, and a large representation from the Stone and Webster Club of Washington.

• 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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