Alpine

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Ninth Annual Banquet and Dance

Mary Daheim loaned us her copies of the Nippon Lumber Company Banquet books for the years 1919 and 1920. Below is the cover of the 1919 book, click on the picture to see all 28 pages.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Alpine Lumber Co. Logging Camp

The Alpine Lumber Company had several logging camps, there are references to Camp 1, Camp 2, and a Lower Camp. Our 1930 photo shows a couple of buildings west of Alpine, we decided to investigate.

On Sunday, September 16, we hiked along the BPA power line from Carroll Creek to the area where we suspected the camp used to be. The old railroad grade, marked with a red line on the map, was clearly visible. East of the camp the railroad grade is now a road, west of the camp it is covered with brush, nettles, and devils club.

We think the logging camp was here, the road that curves to the right is probably the old railroad grade on the map and straight ahead is another grade that heads west. Unfortunately, a creek has washed tons of gravel over the area where the camp appears to have been located, we were unable to find any debris or evidence of structures.

This is looking west from where we believe the camp was, the red line shows where the railroad came out of the woods and went west another couple of miles.

Here we are about 500 feet west of the camp standing on the old railroad grade, marked by an X on the photo. The tracks went past the BPA towers and crossed a bridge...

This is looking east, the tracks passed to the right of the BPA tower and crossed a bridge. We didn't find any remains of the bridge, there is a BPA road there now and anything that was still standing after 1930 was probably bulldozed or burned.

The original Stevens Pass Highway crossed the Tye River near here, in the afternoon we walked down to the old bridge site. In the 1930 photo we can see at least one structure near the bridge, we spent some time looking for that but did not find anything. In 1930 the road followed the Tye River west of the bridge, the river channel has changed course since then and a section of the road has washed out.

Donna is standing on the south bank of the Tye River where the Stevens Pass Highway crossed, this is looking west.

The Stevens Pass Highway, looking east. About 800 feet from here the road turned left and crossed the Tye River. Just behind me is where the road has been washed out by the river.

Keesha waiting for another pepperoni stick.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

In Search Of The Lost Water Pipe

Alpine , WA. Saturday July 7 Tim and I made a trip to Alpine to look for the water intake for the Great Northern Railway 50,000 gallon water tank east of town. The tank was supplied with water from Carroll Creek using a 6" wooden pipe, we used this map as a guide:

We walked up the hill on the east side of the creek, after some heavy brushwacking we came across this artifact, the remains of a wooden pipe.

The pipe has been on the ground since probably 1920, the wood is all rotted. We did not find any surviving examples of wire wound wood pipe but our pipe probably looked like this, a six inch (inside diameter) wood pipe outside the Pickett Museum in Index.

There were quite a few sections of pipe laying on the ground downhill from the intake at the creek, apparently it was above ground near the creek and then was buried underground downhill toward the water tank. I estimate about 1000 feet of pipe was underground. Here is a picture of a trench being dug for a water pipe sometime around 1900, the trench line for our pipe looks very similar to this.

The blue map shows the location of the water tank and water pipe completed in 1920. On the right is a 1930 photo, the area cleared for the water pipe is very distinct.

In May 2011 Donna and I found where the wood pipe entered the water tank.

We found two of these pipe clamp things.

We followed the pipe to the creek and it ended up here, we expected to see a dam on the creek but if there was ever anything there it is gone now.

On the way back to civilization we stopped at the Pickett Historical Museum in Index. Lee Pickett lived in this house, he was a photographer for the Great Northern Railway and also took quite a few pictures of Alpine. The University of Washington has a large collection of his photos here.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Alpine Logging Railroad

Alpine, WA November 15, 2011.

The Skykomish Historical Society has some aerial photos of the Tye River Valley from 1930, you can search "alpine" on the photo collections page to find them. Bob Kelly at the museum gave me some very large size photos and today I made a trip to an area east of Alpine Falls to try and locate a section of the Alpine Lumber Company logging railroad that appears in one of the photos. Here is an overview of the 1930 area with some landmarks.

Here is a modern map showing the same area.

I drove up the Old Cascade Highway and found the railroad grade intersected with the highway and followed it to where it once crossed the Tye River. At the bottom of this picture you can see a Great Northern train going through the Bonneville Cut east of Alpine.

Here is a picture of the railroad grade.

The bridge crossed the Tye River here. Highway 2 is on the left. The river is only about 25 feet wide here, it flows through a narrow channel between two very large rock formations.

I know the 1891 Great Northern horse pack trail was in this area, near Scenic it was north of the Tye River, at Alpine Falls it was on the south side. I figured this was a good place to cross so I backtracked up the railroad grade and started looking for a road east of the railroad. I found this and followed about a thousand feet east.

This probably continued on to Martin Creek City, a collection of cabins built during construction of the Martin Creek bridge and tunnel. Photo is from the Skykomish Historical Society.

Keesha picked up a scent as soon as we got out of the car.

I was prepared to meet a foraging bear but this 10 point buck almost ran into us a few minutes later.

I don't know how this happened, a very large rock balanced on a cedar stump. The rock has protected the top of the stump from the weather, there are still ax marks visible on the under cut so the rock has been there since shortly after the tree was cut down.