New Alpine Stuff

Alpine, WA October 25, 2011.

Last week Joanne and Marion Calhoun donated some items to the Skykomish Historical Society. Marion's mother, Hazel Kirschbaum, lived in Alpine in the 1920's.

Hazel was a student at the Alpine Public School. This is probably the Alpine School but we don't know for sure.

She was part of the "Graduatin" class of 1925.

The school in 1924.

Hazel's older sister Lura married C.C "Ike" Mooney.

In 1968 Lura drew this very detailed map of Alpine.

Here is a smaller version of the map that will fit on the screen.

Front cover of the 1923 Annual Dinner book.

Pages one and two.

Back cover.

The 1924 book is much larger, I will have it on the blog in a couple of days. There were two pictures that interested me, identified as the Lower Camp. Camp No. 1 and Camp No. 2 are mentioned in the 1923 book, maybe this is a third camp.

Alpine Visit October 10

Alpine, WA October 10, 2011.

Donna and I went to Alpine on Monday, we wanted to have a look around the shingle mill. We started on the north side, marked by the red arrow.

Here is the concrete thing we assume was the base for a steam engine to run the shingle machine. We started digging down the hill below this.

We figured a lot of stuff had been thrown off the platform down the hill, we were not disappointed. This spoke thing was our first find, along with dozens of nails, wire insulators, and broken light bulbs.

I was hoping to find a bunch of cedar sawdust on the side of the hill, it was there in a petrified state. You can see a clump of it, marked by the X. The arrow shows the location of the steam engine base up the hill.

Our prize: a genuine Alpine Lumber Company shingle. It was covered by a large piece of sheet metal, protecting it from the elements.

After working in the rain for about four hours, we headed back to camp, fed and watered the animals and had some dinner.

The Alpine Incline

Alpine, WA October 9, 2011.

The University of Washington Lee Pickett collection has this interesting photo, the description reads "Men and logs on railroad car, Snohomish County, ca. 1913."

The Alpine Lumber Company had three men employed on the incline crew in 1917. We know the Alpine logging railroad was down the hill from the mill, some of the grade is still visible near the Tye River. Presumably the logs would be unloaded from the train, maybe near Alpine Falls, then hauled up this incline to the mill.

A few years ago I walked up the hill past the residential area of Alpine and photographed the mountains north of town, looking north across the valley. Compare the color photo with the 1913 photo, the mountains in both photos appear to match pretty closely. So it looks like this incline was just down the hill from Alpine. If you look at the old photo carefully there seems to be evidence of a recent fire, some of the trees are black and on the right there is no brush or vegetation on the ground.

Tye River Valley

This USGS map shows the Tye River Valley with Alpine (on the right) and property the Alpine Lumber Company owned (in the center). The yellow circles correspond approximately to the photographer's position in the photos below.

Lee Pickett photo looking east down the valley in 1931. The Stevens Pass Highway is on the right and runs diagonally to the center of the picture where it curves around the base of the the hill. On the left there is a bridge crossing the Tye River. This view includes Sections 28 and 29 where the Alpine Lumber Company owned property so the bridge may have been for their logging railroad. The Company started a camp in September 1919 in Section 28 but there don't appear to be any buildings in any of these photos. Alpine is about three miles from here, right center of the photo on the mountain in the background.

Another 1931 photo looking east, the Stevens Pass Highway is on the left and runs diagonally to the center of the photo. The Great Northern Railway tracks are on the right, half way up the mountain.

Looking northwest from Great Northern Railway bridge 413 at Mile Post 1726.3 in 1933.

Looking west down the valley in 1931.The Stevens Pass Highway is at left center, Great Northern Railway tracks are on the left.

View to the southwest from Embro, the old Great Northern depot at mile post 1715. Alpine is across the valley on the right, below the tops of the fir trees in the foreground.

July 10 Visit to Alpine

Alpine, WA July 15, 2011.

A few of us were at Alpine last weekend, I haven't had time to work on any photos yet. We staked out three corners of the sawmill, shown on this map as red circles:

The red x on the map is approximately 30 feet north of the railroad signal.

We scaled off the map and used the creek as a reference point so the stakes may be 10 or 20 feet off from where the mill actually was. We hung some paper plates from the trees above each stake if anyone is interested in looking at our work.

I just completed a CD with 35 pictures of Alpine, available in two styles: Mod and Ultra Mod, both free of charge. It includes all the maps you have seen on this blog, some old photos, modern photos and an introduction written by Tim Raetzloff, Senior Fellow at the planned-for Alpine Foundation. Using the information on this CD you can find the place, navigate around town, locate old buildings, and so on and so forth. If you want one send me your name and address and I will mail it to you.

mattcawby@gmail.com

The Shingle Mill

Alpine, WA July 7, 2011.

The Alpine Lumber Company shingle mill was a couple of hundred feet east of the lumber mill, it is the small building in the foreground in this photo. The smokestacks at the mill are about where we have excavated some of the concrete mill foundation.

The 1919 Annual Banquet and Dance book has a list of the mill equipment that includes one Sumner upright shingle machine, probably housed inside this building.

The Sumner Iron Works produced three models of upright shingle machines: the Standard that cut 16" shingles, the High-Standard that cut 16" and 18" shingles, and the Gold Medal that cut 16", 18", and 24" shingles. Pictured here is the Gold Medal, the Alpine mill may have used a different model though.

 

In June we found a concrete thing near the shingle mill, this may have been a base for the engine that powered the shingle machine. The floor would have been 8 or 10 feet above the engine and it was probably connected to the shingle machine by a belt. In this photo we are looking west toward the lumber mill. The concrete foundation of the mill is about 200 feet in the distance.

The Sumner Iron Works was in Everett and produced sawmill and logging equipment. The Nippon Lumber Company owned one Sumner roader, a steam donkey with a horizontal boiler. Acrowood Corporation, a manufacturer of forest products equipment, now occupies the old Sumner Iron Works factory at 4425 South Third Avenue in Everett.

Alpine Falls

Alpine, WA June 28, 2011.

Today I visited Bob Kelly at the Skykomish Historical Society and we discussed the Alpine photo history CD. In the afternoon I went to Alpine Falls looking for a trail shown on this 1936 map:

Map is from Historic Map Works.

No sign of the trail after a couple of hours of brush whacking. Headed back to the truck, parked at the site of the historic Alpine Falls House of Souvenier. The house is gone, but not the outhouse. It's just a short but dangerous walk away across Highway 2.

Here is a video of Alpine Falls.

Keesha was pretty tired so we headed back down to the lowlands.