Happy Birthday, Washington State — remix

Five years ago, we took credit on these pages for Washington State's 120th birthday. Well, we won't do that again.

Instead, we'll take credit for its quasquicentennial!

We said it then and we'll say it again: it was no coincidence that railroad builder D. H. Gilman signed this Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway Company stock certificate in 1888, and that U.S. President Benjamin Harrison signed Proclamation 294 admitting Washington into the Union the following year.

Today, we think the pace of life has rapidly increased with electronics, computers, smartphones — instant this and instant that. And so it has. But that's just what it felt like as the final decades of the 19th Century hurtled toward the 20th. The railroad turned a laborious multi-day journey from Seattle to Snoqualmie into a picnic. Literally. An excursion to Snoqualmie Falls became a recreational day trip. And folks in Snoqualmie? Whatever they wanted could be brought in by rail. Quickly. Life was transformed. So resist that sleepy historic town stereotype and let the flavor and flourish of those days swirl around you. The Depot and other wood buildings from the period can help you picture it.

President Harrison. Courtesy FCIT.

Trains have operated out of the Snoqualmie Depot — the same building — since 1890. The sound of our footfalls may be different without lace-up boots and hard heels. But the creak of the boards would be familiar to those who stepped across the platform and into the ladies' waiting room to purchase their tickets. Incidentally, lengths of rail currently in front and back of the Depot pre-date the building. So if you step over the track to get to the platform, you may touch the very rail that was here when President Harrison signed that proclamation on November 11, 1889.

What else was here then? The two-story building behind the Depot was built not long after — in 1902 — for the Modern Woodmen's fraternal organization. Across King Street, the tavern is the original first floor of a two-story hotel built in 1910.

Across the main street from the Depot, at 8096 Railroad Avenue, another wood building harbors stories of Snoqualmie dating from 1909. And not much more than a block away at the corner of River Street and Falls Avenue, the hip roof porch and posts are among the features that maintain the historical appearance of another 1909 building, although additions and changes have been made to the structure since its original construction for Reinig Brothers General Merchandise.

Is the Snoqualmie of today — a main row of businesses facing the Depot, with additional enterprises peppered around neighboring streets, all in the shadow of Mount Si — so very different from the Snoqualmie shown here in 1897? The Depot-centered activity that greeted Washington's birth as a state has its echoes in activity surrounding the Depot today. More than 1,000 people rode the train during the last weekend of October. And the Northwest Railway Museum recently launched a steam program. So when you board the newly rehabilitated coach 218 with its mahogany paneling and mohair-covered seats, you might have an opportunity to ride in the wake of a steam locomotive. Just like the passengers who looked out those coach windows when the State of Washington was just a whippersnapper.

Santa Cruz Portland Cement 2 pulls coach 218 in 2014.

Salute!

In honor of Memorial Day, the Northwest Railway Museum is offering reduced fare train rides for members of the military: active duty, guard, reserve, retired, and their dependent families. See the splendid scenery of the Cascade Foothills through the windows of a vintage railcar.

Your current military id and $5 are all you need for a ride on the Museum’s train Saturday, May 26 – Monday, May 28, 2012.

What a great deal, and fun for the whole family, too. All are welcome of course. Check the schedule on www.trainmuseum.org. The first train departs the Snoqualmie Depot at 11:01 AM and the North Bend Depot at 11:31 AM.

Show your current military id at the ticket window of either the Snoqualmie or North Bend Depots. The Ticket Agent will issue a special ticket to you for only $5.

More on the Messenger of Peace

Chapel Car 5 Messenger of Peace is competing for funding in the Partners In Preservation Seattle/Puget Sound initiative. At stake for the chapel car is up to $100,000 in funding and your votes will help decide if it gets funded! Vote today and every day until May 12 at http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/

The chapel car is a pretty exciting project. Win or lose, it is getting a lot of attention. Check out what local officials had to say about the chapel car:

The chapel car was built in 1898 and served the American Baptist Publication Society for 50 years. Retired in 1948, the car had an after-life as a road side diner, cottage, and is now set to be rehabilitated to become a museum exhibit.

Chapel cars helped settle communities and develop the west. They helped establish community values in far-flung settlements, promote the Railroad YMCA, and revive congregation. Their story is nearly forgotten but now a surviving example - with your help - will be rehabilitated and used to tell their story.

Learn more about the chapel car at http://www.MessengerOfPeace.org/ and vote to fund it at http://www.PartnersInPreservation.org/

Now serving...

Historically, when you needed to go somewhere, you headed to the train station. Now, when you just gotta go, we’ve got you covered too: new restrooms are open in the Snoqualmie Depot. A three month and nearly $160,000 investment has resulted in awesome new restrooms for downtown Snoqualmie. This innovative strategic partnership is a first in as far as Spike has been able to discover: the Museum owns the facility, paid for with a lodging tax grant from the City of Snoqualmie, but the City of Snoqualmie maintains the facility. In return, the facility is available as public restrooms and, because the Snoqualmie Depot is staffed seven days a week, the facilities are more family-friendly than a stand-alone restroom along Railroad Ave. The Museum gets that added benefit of additional visitation that may have otherwise missed or passed up the Snoqualmie Depot. The City gets the benefit of a safe and high quality restroom, something that always ranks high in importance for families, especially those with young children.

Construction has been underway since early January; progress was detailed here and here. They were designed by Seattle's MillerHull Partnership and constructed by Mr. K's Construction of North Bend. Come and check them out! Enjoy some coffee or tea at one of the great businesses across the street such as Koko Beans or Isadora’s. When you’ve finished, the new City of Snoqualmie public restrooms can take care of your wee!

Coming soon . . . new depot restrooms!

The Snoqualmie Depot restroom renovation project is progressing nicely. The project was outlined in a January post here and since then the old restrooms have been removed, the new walls and floor installed along with electrical and plumbing rough-in. This week, tile installation is underway. There are so many improvements the public will hardly recognize the place!

The new design incorporates an electric door opener to make the front door easier for wheel chair and walker users, and to assure ADA compliance. The design includes new low-flow toilets with slightly wider stalls than the old restrooms, and the flusher will operate with a sensor. And the gentlemen’s urinals will be waterless. Sink faucets will have sensors to activate water flow, which will stop when hands are removed. New hand driers will use high velocity air to dry hands. Lights will operate with motion sensors that will turn off when the facility is empty. The baby change tables will be relocated to the accessible toilet stalls so even the youngest patrons will have privacy.

The restroom floors are being tiled with medium gray ceramic tiles. The walls behind the toilets and sinks are tiled with white subway tiles installed with epoxy adhesive. The look really “feels” like a train station! Best of all, tile has a really long life cycle so millions more visitors can use the facilities.

The scope of work included replacement of the platform steps outside the restroom door and that work was completed in February. The platform elevation was raised nearly 4 inches to eliminate the entry threshold, a potential barrier to wheel chairs and ADA compliance. This also necessitated replacement stairs on the east end of the platform. As a bonus, the new stairs provide access to both the front and back of the depot.

New restrooms are scheduled for completion in time for the first train in April. A dedication (no doubt featuring a "royal flush") is being planned for later in the spring, so stay tuned!

A new city hall for Snoqualmie

A healthy and prosperous community has many dimensions, and according to A healthy community: a strategy for giving report released by the Seattle Foundation in June 2009, arts and culture are a vital part of it. But a healthy community is also more than a museum, and includes substantial investment by many stakeholders including private property owners and government. So the Northwest Railway Museum is pleased to see completion of a new Snoqualmie City Hall in historic downtown. This is an impressive vote of confidence in the community, and will prove to be a substantial economic stimulus.

The $6 million project was dedicated on 9 January 2010 and consolidates most city services and functions in one location. It is just one block from the Snoqualmie Depot and represents a significant investment in the historic downtown Snoqualmie. Snoqualmie could have easily built the new city hall on Snoqualmie Ridge or near the new fire station on the parkway, but chose to invest in the heart of the original town. This took great courage and determination, and additional expense to mitigate poor soils and a location in an urban floodplain. But the results are spectacular and are a credit to the community.

Check out the stunning views Mt. Si, the historic Methodist church, and the River Street railroad crossing seen from Mayor Matt Larson’s office. Congratulations to the City of Snoqualmie, and thank you for making this substantial investment in the historic downtown.

Giving Thanks in 2009

15 things the Northwest Railway Museum is thankful for (in no particular order):

1. Sprinkler systems! (The Snoqualmie Depot was spared from major fire damage by sprinkler heads located on the structure’s exterior.)

2. Successful flood recovery. (On January 8 the Museum experienced the most significant flood event in its history and recovered in time to operate trains in April as scheduled.)

3. Broad base of community support from a truly successful community. (Participation through programs, volunteering, contributing funds, donating goods and services, and helping protect the museum from fire, flood and even petty crime.)

4. Popular programs. (2009 experienced record-setting participation in the Museum’s programs.)

5. Beautiful scenery in a great location. (A beautiful location helps the Museum be successful, and is part of railroad's legacy in the Northwest.)

6. A Collection of Northwest railway history truly representative of the region. (Locomotives, a depot, bridges, freight cars, coaches, lanterns, books, photographs, maps, and examples of pretty much anything else imaginable that was used to build, operate or maintain a railroad.)

7. Great volunteers. (Over 200 people have participated this year in everything from flood recovery to staffing all programs.)

8. Dedicated staff. (Five full time and four part time staff provide management and general support for museum programs.)

9. Supportive local government (Snoqualmie, North Bend and King County have all helped the Museum become more successful.)

10. Awesome elected officials at all levels of government from the City of Snoqualmie Council all the way to Congress.

11. Irreplaceable support from the State of Washington and the United States. (Together, the State and Federal government are funding nearly 40% of the new Train Shed.)

12. Museum members. (Membership remains as one of the Museum’s critical support mechanisms.)

13. Generous funders. (Recent new support received from 4Culture, North American Railway Foundation, the Quest for Truth Foundation, the City of Snoqualmie and dozens of individuals.)

14. Effective and dedicated Board of Trustees. (Museum is governed by 11 volunteer trustees. Members include rail historians, museum volunteers, and community representatives.)

15. The best bells and whistles of any museum in the County!

Happy Birthday, Washington State

Why be modest? We’ll take credit for Washington State’s 120th birthday.

Washington became the 42nd state when President Benjamin Harrison signed a proclamation on November 11, 1889. It’s not coincidental that D. H. Gilman was signing Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway Company stock certificates (shown here) in 1888, or that investors were planning the town of Snoqualmie in 1889, or that the Snoqualmie Depot was built in 1890. Railroads were crucial to Washington Territory’s development and statehood.

Before railroads, you got here by wagon or ship. The first trains began operating in Washington Territory in the 1870s. In 1883, a spike driven in Montana completed the second transcontinental railroad, this one reaching the Pacific Northwest. (The first connected the East Coast to California.) Washington State’s population surged to 357,232 by 1890, a five-fold increase in 10 years. (In case you’re wondering, we’re past 6 1/2 million now.) Seattle's population grew from 1,107 residents in 1870 to 3,533 in 1880 . . . to 42,837 in 1890. Trains, of course, didn’t only bring an influx of people. Trains carried goods and materials essential to the region’s growth and development.

The Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern connected Snoqualmie to Seattle in 1889, the year Washington became a state. Does the Northwest Railway Museum have any artifacts from that era?

The Snoqualmie Depot, shown here around 1896, was built in 1890. About 150 feet of original track remain in front of the depot today. The final image shows original SLSE rail laid in 1889. This was the main track until about 1963. Rail behind the depot is also from the period. However it wasn’t laid here until 1999. It came from local logging lines.

Bridge 35 over Snoqualmie River’s South Fork provides a view of the most common bridge design of that period. The through-pin-connected Pratt truss bridge was built in 1891, although it spanned a river in Montana before being relocated to North Bend in 1923.

The Northern Pacific day coach 889 is considered the oldest railway car/large object in the Museum’s collection. It was purportedly built in 1881, though it could have been built a few years later. (We have no definitive research yet.) The Canadian Pacific 25 was built in 1881 but didn’t find its way west until the 1890s.

You can see a picture of a steam locomotive built in 1885 (not in our collection) on the Washington State Steam Railroads and Locomotives website.


Sources:
Secretary of State blog
Seattle History Examiner
History Link
Seattle Times
Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History: Oregon, Washington, by Donald B. Robertson

Hoboes allowed on Halloween Train

If you’re looking for something creepy and frightening this Halloween . . . you won’t find it at Halloween Train.

Nothing here to spook the wee ones that love train rides so much. The Northwest Railway Museum offers three days of delight-filled, history-rich autumn fun for all ages: old-fashioned cider press demos, a train ride of course, a craft to make and keep, a model train display, and bluesy ballads and fiddle tunes performed live by the Holy Hoboes. Show up in costume, and you’ll get $2 off your train ticket.

Special treat alert! Swing by George’s Bakery (127 W North Bend Way, North Bend), and get a free cookie when you show your Halloween Train ticket.

Where:
All special activities are at the Snoqualmie Depot
When:
3 days - Sat. Oct. 24, Sun. Oct. 25, & Sat. Oct. 31
Train schedule:
Click here to view the Fall train schedule
Train fare:
Click here to see train fares ($2 off if you wear a costume)
Holy Hoboes performance schedule:
All 3 days - 12:40-1:25 PM and 2:05-2:50 PM

Remember to come in costume! If you show up as a hobo, we promise we won’t throw you off the train.

The sights we saw along Railroad Avenue!

Snoqualmie Railroad Days was so much fun this year, we can’t wait to give you a sneak preview of Railroad Days 2010.

August 2009 was the first time the Northwest Railway Museum hosted Snoqualmie’s annual festival. Thanks to all who helped! The Field of Fun transformed the Snoqualmie Depot grounds, where hundreds of children bounced themselves silly in inflatables, raced bananas in North Bend Theatre’s Banana Boogie, and laughed and sang along with Nancy Stewart, Eric Ode, and Clay Martin’s Puppet Theater. 877 runners completed 1k, 5k and 10k courses in the Snoqualmie Fun Run. View results and a gallery of photos. 65 vendors sold paintings, crafts, insulated glass, you name it. 44 Grand Parade entrants marched, danced, rode and unicycled through Snoqualmie. Congratulations, winners! View parade and festival photos. The police department estimates 3,500 festival-goers, which nearly quadrupled downtown Snoqualmie’s population for a day!

Snoqualmie Valley Railroad trains sold out. Fair-goers also rode the rails aboard a railway motorcar. The Museum demonstrated a tie spacer, which is a diesel-powered machine for aligning railroad ties; a Pettibone Speedswing, which is a small crane that operates on roads and railroad tracks; and a winded museum director showing tamping techniques and rail spiking. Don’t know what those are? Well, that’s what the demo’s are for! We’ll see you next year, when the Museum will feature additional demonstrations and activities throughout 3 festival days.

That’s right, we’re back to a full-sized festival in 2010, beginning Friday, Aug. 20, 2010. You can look forward to the Legends Car Club Classic Car Show on Sunday, Aug. 22. RunSnoqualmie will host the Fun Run Saturday, Aug. 21, and the Northwest Railway Museum will dedicate its new Train Shed exhibit building. Should be about triple the fun!

What makes Railroad Days different

Seventy years after its launch as a fundraiser for Snoqualmie's volunteer fire department, Railroad Days - now a free annual festival - is under new management. And who better to take it on than a railroad?

Early this year, with the City of Snoqualmie’s wholehearted approval, the Northwest Railway Museum adopted the community festival. Come check out the results this Saturday, August 22! You’ll find everything you’d expect from a friendly town festival, including a pancake breakfast, fun run, Grand Parade, live music, food and art vendors. The Children’s Field of Fun offers live entertainment, games and the North Bend Theatre Banana Boogie: young folks build banana racers and compete on a special raceway. Plus, kids get their own Root Beer Garden, while adults get their Beer Garden.

But what makes Railroad Days different from other community festivals are the themed activities springing from Snoqualmie’s rich railroad history. Hop aboard a train in North Bend, arrive in style at the Snoqualmie Depot, and be sure to catch the railroad and logging equipment tours and demos.

Saturday trains depart North Bend 11:26 am, 12:56 pm, 2:26 pm and 3:56 pm (that one lands you in Snoqualmie with no way back to North Bend). Trains depart Snoqualmie at 11:01 am, 12:31 pm, 2:01 pm, 3:31 pm and - this next one takes you to the Falls and back to Snoqualmie only - 4:11 pm. Also, although there are no festival activities this Friday, the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad is running special trains Friday, August 21, departing North Bend at 12:26 pm, 1:56 pm and 3:26 pm (no return to North Bend), and departing Snoqualmie at 12:01 pm, 1:31 pm, 3:01 pm, plus 3:41 pm to the Falls and back only. Adults pay $10, seniors (62+) $9, and children (2-12) $7.

Get the whole scoop on Railroad Days...

View details on train rides and depot locations...

Train Shed official ground breaking

The site was cleared and graded, equipment was mobilized, the temperature was a comfortable 72 degrees, and then the sun came out making it a perfect Northwest evening. So on the eve of the beginning of the foundation construction (specifically, of the driving of 76 augercast piles) supporters gathered for a brief ceremony. Standing in what will be the main entrance of the new Train Shed, shovel was put to dirt. Performing the honors were (L to R) City of Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, Museum President Susan Hankins, Benjamin and Kaela Getz (who together were representing all youth), Museum Executive Director Richard Anderson and Washington State Representative (5th District) Jay Rodne.

Speaking at the ceremony held Wednesday, August 5th, 2009, Representative Jay Rodne spoke of the important role the Northwest Railway Museum plays in connecting generations. "This project is about preserving the past, but it is also about our future: our youth."

Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson who has been instrumental in supporting the project also spoke adding, "This is an important project for Snoqualmie and I hope it will be one of the things my administration will be remembered for."

Museum Executive Director Richard Anderson took the opportunity to announce a funding partnership with the North American Railway Foundation who will be supporting two public access components of the project. Their support will total more than $62,000 and is another important step in completing this cultural facility.

Museum President Susan Hankins thanked everyone for supporting the project and talked about the importance of community. Hankins spoke of the long road (rail, of course) it took for the Museum to get to this moment and of the significant work remaining to complete the vision.

But surely the highlight of the evening was the opportunity for over 100 supporters to visit the new site and see for themselves how big 25,000 square feet is. Many who attended gathered for a group photo and were afterwards rewarded with ice cream donated by Kyle T. from Tweede’s Cafe in North Bend. Thanks Kyle!

Five time-tested ways to keep your cool

1) Enjoy the breeze and the view from Coach 272 when you ride the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad.

2) Stroll the Centennial Trail past the Museum’s rail yard, and continue a half mile to Snoqualmie Falls to catch some spray.

3) Board the train in Snoqualmie, and cool off with a cone or a shake at Scott’s Dairy Freeze in North Bend before completing your journey. Or board in North Bend, and take your ice cream break at the Chew Chew Cafe in Snoqualmie.

4) Inspect the Museum’s Northern Pacific Steam Rotary Snowplow, and consider how delectable these days will seem when temperatures dip below freezing next winter.

5) Enjoy the slower

pace of Snoqualmie. Step inside the historic wooden depot. Sit on a bench out front and contemplate all the people who have stood on the platform over the past 120 years.