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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021 Issue 1 - Namesake, What's Left of Renton's Dairies.pdfThis special newsletter is a gift to our biggest supporters: Benefactor, Patron, Business, and Life members. Your support makes what we do possible. We hope you enjoy this story from Renton's past. Along with coal mining, dairy farming was one of the earliest industries in Renton. Renton’s wide open spaces, its rivers for transportation, and proximity to Seattle’s market for milk, cream, and cheese, all recommended Renton to farmers. What’s left on today’s landscape of this important form of agriculture? Tantalizing few traces remain to remind us of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century town, but they are here if you look for them. In the 1850 when whites began to settle in the Renton area, they found that the Duwamish, Black, and Cedar Rivers were as useful to them as they had been to the Duwamish people for thousands of years. The rivers provided transportation routes and food, and floods watered the land and left it more fertile. People of British, Scandinavian, and Swiss Italian descent settled around the rivers as early as the 1850s. They knew about raising dairy cows and the growing city of Seattle was a ready market for milk, butter, and cheese less than a day away. Unlike the Duwamish people’s food traditions, however, white settlers’ dairies were contingent on land control and ownership. Home-grown real About This Issue... RENTON HISTORICALSOCIETY & MUSEUM Special Issue February 2021 Volume 51 Number 1 Continued on page 3 NAMESAKES: WHAT'S LEFT OF RENTON'S DAIRIES? QUARTERLY by Elizabeth P. Stewart 2 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM2 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM Special Edition February 2021 RENTON HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Sarah Samson Graphic Design & Layout Karl Hurst City of Renton Print & Mail Services RENTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES Colleen Lenahansen, President Laura Clawson, Vice President Jessica Kelly, Treasurer Lynne King, 2022 Rhea Kimble, 2022 Mike Lennox, 2022 Staci VanderPol, 2023 Amy Gorton, 2023 Elizabeth Stewart, Board Liaison MUSEUM STAFF Elizabeth P. Stewart Museum Director Sarah Samson Curator of Collections & Exhibitions Stephanie Snyder Office Aide RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 MILL AVENUE S RENTON, WA 98057 P (425) 255-2330 HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00am - 4:00pm ADMISSION: $5 (Adult) $2 (Child) MUSEUM REPORT Elizabeth P. Stewart Director J ust a quick note to say that when Stephen and Theresa Clymer asked members and regular donors to support us in December, you all were so generous, we decided to share our February Patrons newsletter with all members as a thank you. Some gave their entire second stimulus check of $600 and some donated from their private charitable funds—we even got numerous donations from folks who had not donated ever or not in a long time. After so many months closed due to COVID-19—and no end in sight—these gifts are more important than ever. The Clymers asked you to help close the fundraising gap left by our inability to hold our annual dinner auction and you did. Not only will these funds helps us sustain our operations, they help us plan for the future of the Renton History Museum in the “new normal,” post-pandemic. It is so gratifying to staff, Board of Trustees, and volunteers to know that you haven’t forgotten about us even though our activities have fundamentally changed. We’re so looking forward to seeing you face-to-face! by Elizabeth P. Stewart, Museum Director Museum Director Liz Stewart accepting a King County Council grant from Councilmember Reagan Dunn. SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2021 | 3 Continued from page 1 Cover photo: Nelsen farm house located on West Valley Highway, 2020. The house was built by James and Mary Nelsen in 1905. (Photo by Liz Stewart) Looking west over Renton showing Smithers' farm land, 1909. The church visible on the right is St. Anthony's. The furthest west street is Whitworth Ave. The diagonal railroad tracks are Houser Way. (RHM# 1990.094.3004) estate moguls grabbed up land here, and grazing milk cows was the easiest thing way to hold land until their investment had appreciated enough to sell it off. For some dairying was a way of life and source of pride; for others it was a way to stake a claim. Either way, it was one of Renton’s first industries and it left a mark on our landscape, if you know where to look for it.1 Erasmus Smithers’ mark on Renton is undeniable. Smithers and his wife Diana, the widow of early homesteader Henry Tobin, combined their landholdings after their marriage in 1857, and Smithers began platting the land he was not using for his milk cows. Smither’s plats replaced the Mox La Push voting district with the Town—and then the City—of Renton. The land he held back for farming, at the corner of what is now Rainier Avenue and today’s Sunset Highway and spreading south and west to the Black River, remained open well into the 1900s. For many remote farmers Renton represented the economic and political center outside Seattle.2 Renton had the only hospital and was also a transportation hub. And after 20+ years of developing his herd and marketing his milk, Erasmus Smithers became something of an expert on local dairy farming. In 1877 he told a visitor that “no county lays out doors so well adapted for cheese manufacturing as [the] White river valley.”3 He insisted that for dairy farming, “our heaviest and finest timber lands [in Washington] are far superior for [growing] feed to any California land.”4 4 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM Christian Jorgensen farm along the Black River, 1906 (RHM# 1994.119.3947). land along the Black River southeast of Renton sight unseen and started a farm with 100 cows.8 “I cut this farm out of the woods,” Sen. Squire told a reporter, “and I like to show it as evidence of what a farmer can do in Washington.”9 Northern Pacific Railroad magnate J. D. Farrell co-owned the 300-acre Maplewood Dairy Farm with his brother Charles in 1905, a farm that one observer called “the most nearly perfect ranch in this State.”10 Squire and the Farrells had the capital to create admirable farms, but they were also ready to sell up when a better offer came along. In 1894 R. J. Elliott invested in an 80-acre farm on the lower Cedar River—probably carved out of the Mercer grant— and then bought an adjoining 143 acres from Peter Jarvis.11 By 1906 his farm was widely touted as a state-of-the-art dairy. Before his death in 1922 he replaced the little cottage on the farm with a grander Craftsman-style house.12 The family bottled and pasteurized milk on-site, and in the 1930s R. J.’s son Andrew G. Elliott added a home delivery milk route. Elliott’s cows grazed on what is now part of the Maplewood Golf Course. The Elliotts’ nine-room house and numerous barns remained as touchpoints along Maple Valley Highway—the very last evidence of dairy farming aside from the golf course’s open space—until 2009 when these King County landmarks were torn down by developers.13 An important dairy farm southwest of Renton was that of Danish brothers Christian and Claus Jorgensen, whose farm preserved the open space that would become the present-day Starfire Sports Complex. The two brothers arrived in the Renton area in 1875 after working for some years on dairy farms in California. In 1876 they purchased from King County Sheriff Lewis Wyckoff a 115-acre piece of land where the Duwamish and Black Rivers met. The Jorgensens drained it and made it farmland, raising potatoes, dairy cows, and hay to feed their This was certainly hyperbole. California was rapidly developing a thriving milk and cheese industry, thanks to the many Swiss Italians who settled there and brought their dairy knowledge. But enough other farmers agreed with Smithers to create a mini-boom in dairy farming south of central Renton. Farmers could grow their own feed in fertile soils fed by annually overflowing rivers, but could also easily move their livestock out of harm’s way when the many river floods came.5 After the 1870s real estate investors saw the potential in gathering landholdings right outside Seattle, in areas accessible by river and the rapidly expanding networks of railroads. These early farms preserved large green spaces for the future, but turnover in ownership was rapid. In 1872, for example, a 167-acre homestead around the Renton to Maple Valley Road (now Maple Valley Highway) was granted by Pres. Ulysses S. Grant and the land changed hands twice in the next decade. In 1883 Thomas Mercer, later a King County probate judge, purchased the property and in about 1896 he divided and sold it to farmers who included his nephew, William H. Mercer. William Mercer sold 65 acres in 1899 to (Hans) Peter and Mary Madson, Danish immigrants who finally settled and held the land for four generations.6 The Madsons, their son Peter J., and grandson Chester became successful dairymen and mainstays of what would become known as “Elliott” or “Elliott Station,” named for R. J. Elliott, the largest single landowner in the area. Madson made substantial improvements to the farm he had purchased, clearing more land, building “a substantial house and a good barn,” and finally replacing his house with a more modern one. Madsen Creek, with a slightly different spelling, is named for this family.7 Sometime around 1890 Watson C. Squire, Washington’s first Territorial Governor and later first U.S. Senator, purchased SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2021 | 5 cows. In 1880 Claus sold his portion back to Christian and moved to Snohomish to farm. A 1926 map shows that Christian carved out two separate farms for sons George and Otto. At his death in 1931, Christian Jorgensen’s farm was acknowledged as “one of the show places of the valley”; he had lived and worked there for 56 years.14 The Jorgensens’ farm was part of a network of farms started in the 1870s along the Duwamish River, a quick and convenient route to getting dairy products from Renton and the White River Valley to Seattle’s larger market. The Jorgensens’ farm joined those of Joseph Foster (now Foster Golf Course), and Archie Codiga along the river. Fred, Herman, and James Nelsen, Danish brothers, were not far away in Renton, Renton Junction, and Tukwila respectively.15 These dairymen were congenial competitors and sometime collaborators on issues around transportation, regulation, and access to markets. The Seattle Daily Intel reported in 1877 that “the White river folks are beginning to feel a little isolated” and they proposed “a bridge built across [the] Black river between the Jorgensen and Foster Farms and a side switch [on the Seattle and Walla Walla] and warehouse constructed for the accommodation of their freights and produce.”16 Such a bridge would enable a farmer closer to Auburn to “make two trips a day with his ox-team loaded with produce” to a central location for transport to Seattle.17 Arriving from Denmark in the 1880s and 1890s, James, Herman, and Fred Nelsen established a dairy farming spread that stretched from Renton to Renton Junction to Tukwila’s Southcenter and the area known as Orillia; brother Ole Nielsen established his farm in Elliott. James Nelsen and Ole Nielsen were the first in their family to settle in the Renton area, arriving in 1883. James worked as a farm laborer on ranches owned by Martin Nelson, Christian Jorgensen, and Seattle Mayor Bailey Gatzert. James homesteaded 20 acres, later purchasing an additional 200+ acres of the John Ringsdorff’s hops farm in the Renton Junction area.18 Around about 1889 James sent his nineteen-year-old brother Fred a ticket and asked him to come to the U.S. from Denmark. Fred worked first on Ole Nielsen’s and Christian Jorgensen’s farms. He quickly married Christian’s daughter Dora and by 1901 he owned and operated his own dairy farm. Herman also immigrated in about 1889, at the age of 17, and by 1910 he had settled on a spread carved out of James’s farm. By pooling resources and supporting one another, the Nelsens became highly successful farmers and community leaders; ultimately it was their land which became Longacres Racetrack.19 Nelsen Middle School is named for Fred Nelsen, who served 21 years on the Orillia School Board and 15 years on the Renton School Board. Herman, Fred, and James were charter members of the King County Grange, an important fraternal organization for agriculturalists, and both were politically active in the Democratic Party, running for State House of Representatives and King County Commissioner. James was instrumental in the founding of the King County Dairymen’s Association.20 In 1905 James Nelsen and his wife Mary Dobler Nelsen built a beautiful large farmhouse, now preserved by the Nelsen Historical Trust and surrounded by modern hotels on West Valley Highway just south of I-5.21 It was on the former Ringsdorff landholding near today’s Interurban Avenue and Grady Way that he began his dairy farm. Like the neighboring farmers, he shipped milk via boat to Seattle, a sternwheeler trip that took a captain 12 - 24 hours to steam from Seattle to Auburn.22 James and Mary’s impressive home was built at 16010 West Valley Highway by a R. J. Elliott's land (center) along the Cedar River just east of Renton. Known dairy farms are highlighted. (1926 Metsker map) Jorgensen and Nelsen land north of Renton Junction along the Black and Duwamish Rivers. Known dairy farms are highlighted. (1926 Metsker map) 6 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM ENDNOTES1 In King County in the 1850s dairy farming was not only an immigrant tradition for people of British, Swiss-Italian (or Ticinese), and Scandinavian descent, it was also a way to take control of the land from the indigenous people. Any discussion of early industries must acknowledge their role in pushing indigenous people off the land, as well as the environmental impacts of the denser population and more intensive industry and agriculture that whites brought.2 Ranche & Range, 30 Sep 1897, p.8.3 “From Renton,” Seattle Daily Intelligencer, 2 Jul 1877, p.3.4 “From Renton,” Seattle Daily Intelligencer, 2 Jul 1877, p.3.5 In 1894, a journalist reported that, “The water in the White river…has come high enough, combined with the Cedar, to inundate the whole of the Duwamish and Black River flats.” Farms under water included “the Carr, Western, Squire, McNaught, Van Asselt, Askam, Bagley, Page, Martin Nelson, James Nelson [sic], Graham, Joseph Foster, McKinley, Burns, Abrams and Dunfield farms.” “Rivers Rising Again,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 Jun 1894, p.1. 6 Lorie M. Graff, “Moving History—Pioneering Mercer Homestead House Hits the Highway,” Seattle Times, 27 Oct 1996. p.49; Clarence B. Bagley, History of King County, Washington (Chicago-Seattle: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.), II: 734-37.7 Graff, “Moving History”; “Peter J. Madson,” Bagley, History Danish carpenter, Mr. Olsen, but it was moved across the street in 1964 and remodeled in 1990. Although most of its outbuildings are gone, thanks to the preservation efforts of daughter Helen B. Nelsen, the farmhouse remains the best example of a turn-of- the-century farmhouse, reminiscent of ones built by Erasmus Smithers or Christian Jorgensen and now long gone.23 On the lower Duwamish River, Swiss Italian Archie Codiga purchased land from Joseph Foster in 1906. Codiga was one of many Swiss Italian dairy farmers who settled in the Renton and Seattle area; these included Rafaele Sartori, Alberto and Giuseppe Lafranchi, the Vincenzo Gambini family, and, later, Charles Caraccioli and his family.24 Archie immigrated to the U.S. in 1902 at the age of 16, working first in California and then in the Kent valley before he amassed enough money to buy his own spread on the east and west sides of the Duwamish River, between Foster and Allentown. Codiga’s farm would be the last dairy farm on the upper Duwamish to be continuously operated. Archie continued to milk cows until his death in 1952, living and raising his five children in the same small farmhouse that is today located next door to Codiga Park in nearby Allentown.25 With the Great Depression and then WWII demands for living and factory space, land was at a premium in the mid-twentieth century, and dairy farms suffered. Farmers could no longer afford to dedicate expensive land to the growing of feed for their cattle, and they began to truck it in from eastern King County and then Eastern Washington. Purity demands, tuberculin testing, and pasteurization also added costs to dairying and a national dairy market pushed milk and cheese prices lower. Dairies consolidated in the 1920s and 1930s. Although some dairies continued in the Renton area into the 1950s and 1960s—like Herman Anderson’s Golden Arrow Dairy and Caraccioli Dairy—their days were numbered. But these dedicated agriculturalists left us a legacy of open green spaces that might have been long gone otherwise.26 Do you know of other dairy traces still left on the landscape? Email us at rentonhistorymuseum@rentonwa.gov and let us know. Codiga farm house in the Allentown neighborhood, 2020. The house was built in 1924. (Photo by Liz Stewart) SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2021 | 7 of King County, II: 734-37. The Mercer-Madson House, a Victorian farmhouse that had also housed the Elliott post office briefly, was relocated two miles closer to Renton in 1996 to make way for the expansion of a nearby church.8 Squire served as Territorial Governor from 1884 to 1887 and after statehood was elected to the U.S. Senate twice, serving from 1889 to 1897. “Sen. Squire’s Farm,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 Sep 1890, p.11; City of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board, “Report on Designation: George Washington Carmack House,” May 2009.9 “Sen. Squire’s Farm,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 Sep 1890, p.11.10 “J. D. Farrell’s Maplewood Dairy Farm,” Seattle Times, 3 Mar 1912, n. p. Farrell’s was the first dairy in the Elliott and Maple Valley area certified by the Milk Commission of Seattle to furnish milk for the city.11 Elizabeth P. Stewart, “Elliott Farm: Dairy Hopes and Dreams,” Renton Historical Society Quarterly, 37 (Oct 2006), p.4.12 Stewart, “Dairy Hopes and Dreams,” p.4.13 George Elliott Oral History, 14 Apr 1987 (RHM# 1987.124.007); Charles Aweeka, “Old Dairy Could Be Named King County Landmark,” Seattle Times, 15 Aug 1990, p. F6; Williams Dauber, “Developer Gets Go-Ahead for Project Around Farm,” Seattle Times, 17 Jun 1996, B1. 14 “Chris Jorgensen Rites Scheduled for Tomorrow,” Seattle Times, 2 Dec 1931, p.8.15 The 1926 Metzker maps show the locations of these various farms. Ole Nielsen used a more traditional Danish spelling of the Nelsen name.16 “Want Facilities,” Daily Intelligencer (Seattle), 10 Jul 1877, p.3.17 “Want Facilities,” Daily Intelligencer (Seattle), 10 Jul 1877, p.3.18 “James Nelsen, White River Pioneer, Dies,” Seattle Times, 11 Mar 1952, p. 28; “Mr. and Mrs. Grange,” Seattle Times, 29 Apr 1956, p.161.19 “Mr. and Mrs. Grange,” Seattle Times, 29 Apr 1956, p.161.20 “King County Needs Nelsen,” paid advertisement, Seattle Times, 8 Sep 1918, p.18; “Herman Nelsen, Pioneer Here, Passes in East,” Renton Chronicle, 10 Apr 1947, p.1;“Mr. and Mrs. Grange,” Seattle Times, 29 Apr 1956, p.161; “Fred Nelsen, Renton Civic Leader, Dies,” Seattle Times, 3 Jan 1964, p. 33. Herman Nelsen was also elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 1917.21 Louise Jones-Brown, “Tukwila’s Gem of a Home,” Tukwila Reporter, 18 Oct 2012.22 Hill Williams, “Dog Days—Duwamish Wasn’t Always a Dirty Word,” Seattle Times, 23 Aug 1987, p.8.23 Cultural, Historical and Archeological Memorandum: I405 Tukwila to Renton Improvement Project (I5 to SR 169—Phase 2), Washington State Department of Transportation, Dec 2007.24 Many Ticinese settled first in California, creating a thriving dairy industry and then began to move out from there. Although Ignazio Sartori never moved to Renton, he and his brother Rafaele became influential philanthropists, donating land (or selling it at a reduced price) for the Carnegie Library and its surrounding park, Sartori School, and part of Mt. Olivet Cemetery. See Elizabeth P. Stewart “Namesakes: The Sartori Family,” Renton Historical Society Quarterly 47 (Dec 2016) for their story. My thanks to Mark Lesina for his extensive information about the Ticinese in the Renton and Seattle areas. Julius Caraccioli and his wife and parents were probably the latest Swiss Italian farmers to settle in Renton; they operated the Caraccioli Dairy Farm at the intersection of I-405 and Valley Freeway from 1928 to 1962. “Julius E. Caraccioli,” obituary, Renton Chronicle, ca. 1999, n.p.25 “Dedication Saturday for Archie’s Bridge,” Renton Record-Chronicle, 7 Jun 1967, p.8; Stacey Solie, “Neighborhood of the Week: Allenton (Tukwila),” Seattle Times, 20 Jun 2011. 26 Lauren Vane, “Dairy Farms: A Dying Breed,” Seattle Times, 7 Oct 2007; Marvin Anderson Architects PLLC, “Seattle Landmark Nomination: Stone Way Electric Supply Building (former Golden Rule Dairy),” 6 Aug 2019, accessed at https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/HistoricPreservation/Landmarks/CurrentNominations/LPBCurrentNom_Golden_Rule_Dairy.pdf, 26 Jan 2021. Elliott farm barn, 1989. The barn, other farm buildings, and house (located on the Maple Valley Highway) were torn down in 2009. (RHM# 41.10459) Above: Paper milk bottle hood from Elliott's Dairy Farm (RHM# 1984.052.003) 8 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM IN HINDSIGHT... RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 Mill Ave. S Renton, WA 98057 Claus and Maren Jorgensen and their six children on their farm, 1890. The farm's proximity to the Duwamish River and the railroad, seen in the background, made it easy to get dairy products to the Seattle market. (RHM# 1980.055.1232)