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 photo from 1960 shows the Castle building when a barber shop still occupied the north half of the present tavern space.

This photo from the afternoon of July 24, 1911, shows the aftermath of the fire that burned many businesses on Metcalf street in the heart of old Woolley. The photographer stood on the top of the Wixson Hotel, now the Gateway, which was constructed just 16 months before that. The hotel was spared in the fire, partly because young men used wet gunny sacks to stomp out the cinders that flew onto the hotel roof. The view here is to the southwest. The present post-office site is at the back. To the left is the site of Fritsch Hardware, where the fire began. All that remains of the Vienna Bakery is the stone oven in the center of the photo. The woodframe structure housing the bakery burned to the ground as did many other wood buildings on the street. Unknown photographer, possibly Annie Pilcher, whose photo studio is one of the wood buildings on Woodworth, at the rear in this photo.

      The fire started in the early morning hours in an oil barrel in a small shed behind the Fritsch Hardware store at the northwest corner of Metcalf and Woodworth where the florist shop is today in 2001. Ironically the primitive fire department was located across the street. If the department had been trained properly, the volunteers may have nipped the fire in the bud. But in their haste they laid the fire hose along the sidewalk on the Woodworth side of Fritsch and the hoses were burned clean through before they could be effectively used. Strengthened by southwest wind, the fire leaped from Fritsch to Theodore Bergman's Star Grocery, then across the alley to the bakery and the Union Mercantile to the north on the block. Those were rich days in Sedro-Woolley, which was growing rapidly towards 2,000 population, and merchants wasted no time in replacing the buildings, this time with brick to satisfy the insurance carriers. Five fires had visited old Woolley from 1890-1911 but the latter one was by far the worst. By 1913, a brick building housed the Vienna Bakery again on the same lot. The same 1939 story noted that Mescher returned to town sometime in the teens and took over the business again when Campbell moved to Anacortes and operated a bakery there. A fading photo from an old newspaper shows Oscar Strand serving Sedro Ice Company ice cream behind the counter in 1921; ice cream was a big item in those flapper days. Mescher then sold the business to Ray Leeman in 1922; Leeman may have operated it as the Spanish Castle. The Skagit Baking Company bought the bakery in 1930.
      Those were Depression times and storefronts were closing or changing hands up and down Metcalf in the early '30s. The only relief came when Prohibition was repealed on Dec. 5, 1933. Researcher Roger Peterson discovered that Mount Vernon had the first taverns in Skagit county because Sedro-Woolley would not grant a license until the city council met and authorized it. Only 3.2 percent beer was served at the beginning, but happy days were here again, and wine was soon added to the mix. Apparently the B&A Tavern was the first tavern licensed in town. Sometime after that, the tavern that became the castle was opened by Clyde Minkler, who opened it sometime in the next year as the Minkler Tavern.
      Minkler was apparently a good businessman because he made enough money to buy out Skagit Baking Company and then buy the north part of the Fritsch building in 1935, where he opened a new bakery. The 1939 story notes that Clyde had a fountain, ice cream and confectionery department in the bakery, his own ice cream machine and a delicatessen. He also sold bread wholesale and owned a truck that served food stores in the upper valley. Minkler sold old to Hugo Eger in 1940. Later that decade, Eger moved the bakery down to where Janet Joy's Sedro-Woolley Bakery is today. Later the business was owned by Danish immigrant Esben Hansen, who, until he retired for the last time two years ago, still arrived very early in the morning to bake his special Kringle and other Danish pastries for Joy's bakery. Sometime in the 1970s, the Castle expanded to occupy the whole building. Before that, a barber shop occupied the north half of the building.
      Now it is your turn. Can anyone help us fill in the gaps between the '40s and now about the Castle Tavern and bakery businesses? We need photos from different times over the century, along with names of owners of the businesses and details about them. Please email or mail us any information you might have or copies of photos, especially of the interior of either the bakery or the tavern anytime in the building's history. Most important: can anyone tell us who coined the name for the dance step called the Tarheel Stomp and who carved the sign in the Castle and when? Enquiring minds would like to know.

Please sign our guestbook so our readers will know where you found out about us, or share something you know about the Skagit River or your memories or those of your family. Share your reactions or suggestions or comment on our Journal. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit our site.

Sign Our Guestbook View Our Guestbook

Remember, we welcome correction and criticism. Please click on the email slot at the right to report any problems with these pages or to suggest ideas for future stories. This is a completely free site. We fund it by providing an online magazine for paid subscribers. If you are not already a subscriber and you would like to help support our considerable research costs, you can subscribe for just $20.00 per year. As a paid subscriber, you will receive eight yearly issues plus many rare treats between times, including scans of photos and documents that illustrate local history, before they are shared with anyone else. You can go here for Subscription details and you can read the preview edition to see examples of our in-depth research. You may also order gift subscriptions for friends, family or clients who are interested in local history or students or military people who are away from home. Or you can email us for more details. Do you have scanned photos to share? Or you can mail us copies. See addresses to right.

Email us at: journal@stumpranchonline.com Mail copies/documents to street address: Skagit River Journal, 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, WA, 98284.