Port Crescent: A Forgotten Town

 

Port Crescent, Clallam County, Washington, is a historic ghost town today. Once a booming timber port in the late 1800s, today all that's left is a small cemetery situated in a popular camping ground. 

This was once a thriving community with railroad cars brought huge logs to this deep-water port. Port Crescent flourished briefly as an industrial hub thanks to this deep harbor and proximity to timber-rich land. In its day, the town boasted a hotel, general store, post office, sawmills and even a dance hall. When the Northern Pacific Railroad bypassed the town, the place slowly dwindled and eventually it was abandoned.......... all except those resting in the historic cemetery.

This town figures into my family tree:  my son, Benjamin, married Vera in Port Angeles. She was a descendant of Emanuel Wasankari, born 1862 in Finland. He and his brother, August, born 1856, also in Finland, immigrated to Clallam County before statehood (1889). August arranged for Kindricka Pudilla to come from Finland to marry her and had a license dated 8 Jun 1889. But on the day her ship arrived, August was ill and Emanuel met her at the Port Crescent dock..... and promptly married her on June 20th!  Poor dear August never married. 

At 40 Miles An Hour

 

Page 4 of the June 3, 1903 issue of The Spokane Press carried this article that was just too good not to share:

"No. 5, westbound, which left Pendleton Wednesday morning on time in charge of Conductor Maher, was doomed to experience a great novelty before reaching Portland, says the Pendleton East Oregonian. While counting his tickets, the train speeding along at 40 miles an hour, within 30 minutes of Portland, an elderly gentleman who proved to be a doctor informed him that a woman, Mrs. Sears of Sumpter, in the chair car, was in a delicate situation and would undoubtedly add another passenger to his list before reaching Portland. 

"The conductor was horror-struck. It was too near the end of the run to allow such an annoying thing to happen. Besides, No. 5 was on time, and he would not stop and lose five minutes arguing the case with the woman for a month's salary. He swore vengeance on Conductor Nash, who turned the woman over to him in this condition. His first thought was to ask Jim Randall, the engineer, what to do, as he always did on all previous perplexing occasions. But he happened to think that Jim was always out on the road when such things happened at home and his wife attended to them, so Jim would not know. 

"He then determined to put on a bold front and ask the woman to wait till she got to Portland; she had waited this long, she could certainly put if off 25 minutes longer. While he was frantically wondering what to do, things were happening over in the chair car, and by the time he had resolved to make the best of it, a 10-pound bouncing boy had been added to his passenger list and his bosom swelled with pride to think of the good luck of the youngster who might have been born in the North Powder desert, had it not been for the fact that his train was on time.

"His feeling of enmity towards the little woman who had caused the trouble was swept away. He admire her for her judgment as she had evidently intended to reach Portland before the momentous event happened and had only missed her guess by 20 minutes, a feat which even an O.R. & N. conductor would not accomplish."

Anybody have a Mr. Sears, born in 1903 on a railroad coach between Pendleton and Portland, Oregon on their family tree???

(Thanks to a delightful little Spokane publication, Spokane Time Traveler, for this bit.)

Costco Came To Seattle in 1983

 

And where were you on September 15, 1983, if you were living anywhere near 4401-4th Ave So, in Seattle? Were you among the crowds on that historic opening day of the new Costco wholesale store?

The Costco Connection, July 2026, told the story titled "Golden Anniversary." The concept of a warehouse club began in San Diego in 1954 with FedMart. In 1976, the first Price Club warehouse opened in San Diego. Partners Brotman and Sinegal pioneered a new warehouse club company in Seattle and called it Costco. By 1983, Costco and Price Club had merged and in 1997 the company became simply, Costco. Our own Evergreen State became the birthplace of the company's iconic no-frills, membership-based warehouse model with headquarters in Issaquah, Washington. 

The partners were ambitious visionaries. In direct competition from other retail competitors, Costco in 1987 opened their Optical, Bakery, Produce and Meat departments. The famous "hot dog and soda" combo debuted in 1985 and still is only $1.50. 

There are now 35 Costco warehouse stores in Washington. And surely more will come. And there are 650+ stores spread all across America.............Maui or Fairbanks, Costco is the same! (Except for snow.)

Costco customers in 1983 in that first store in Seattle could choose from a nice selection of corded telephones. 

Washington's Connect to Washington

Did you know that Washington State has ties to the Father of our country, George Washington?? Read on..............

The Columbia Basin Herald, issue 12 Aug 2026, told the story:  "Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood (in Ephrata, Grant County), pushed up against the Beezley Hills, guarded by a white picket fence is a piece of Americana with ties that go all the way back to the founding of this country." 

"Historic documents traced the footsteps of Bushrod Corbin Washington (1839-1909) and his family’s trek west from West Virginia. Bushrod was the great-great-great-grandson of George Washington’s brother John. History would tie two great families together on the new frontier. Bushrod’s wife Emma Edwards Willis was the great-great-great-granddaughter of James Madison, the father of the fourth president of the United States and called the Father of the Constitution by some."

Artifacts belonging to President George Washington and his descendants, the first Washington family to move to the Evergreen state, proudly line the walls for all to enjoy in this home, now placed on the Washington State Historical Registry.

Built in 1909, by his grandfather and father, where Nathaniel "Nat" Washington, Jr., who was a Washington state legislator for 30 years ,lived. Today the home is a historic tourist destination and a small hotel run by the current owner. 

Maybe plan a visit to Ephrata? Besides its natural hot springs, its history as a World War II training base and nearby access to Grand Coulee Dam, add a visit to the Nat Washington house............ come learn about Washington's connection to Washington.

Hood Canal: Washington's Natural "Canal"

 

"The Hood Canal waters journey from China, from San Francisco and from Alaska, past Victoria and down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Leaving Puget Sound with a hard right, as if the water had a mind of its own, it cannels below the snow-capped Olympic Mountains for 45 miles until it eddies into Annas Bay..... when it elbows east it seems to hook into a separate ecosystem, not only of geography but also of mind; it becomes a source for creamers, drifters and vagabonds. It creates a vacationland of warm days and inspiring scenery and its shores attracted four of America's great fortunes: California gold, Alaska gold, Washington timber and Seattle's Microsoft..."

So begins the Images of America book on Hood Canal. This delightful read has fully four pages of the history of Hood Canal. I quote from this book.................

Named after the Right Honorable Lord Samuel Hood, member of the British Board of Admiralty, by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792 who called it the "mouth of the loveliest river." The first building on Hood Canal was a blockhouse at Union (which has an interesting history itself). In 1851, loggers arrived; Pope and Talbot built a mill at Port Gamble. The treaty of Point No Point in 1855 scattered the local tribes. By the 1860s, tug boats were hauling logs up the Canal to Port Gamble. Lake Cushman sprouted a new dream for the area: tourism, which continues to this day. In the late 1930s, the CCC corps constructed many improvements around the Canal.

"The Hood Canal is a jewel of mountain scenery and beautiful water and it has been loved....first by native peoples, then by loggers, then artists and the wealthy and now by all the rest of us."

Fun Facts About Spokane

 

Spokane is barely thirty miles from the Idaho border and nearly 400 miles to the Pacific Ocean. How many Washingtonians have never been west to Seattle or Forks, or east to Spokane? Maybe these bits will entice you to come east to visit.

* The Spokane River flows directly through the heart of the city. Not many places can claim that.

* Spokane boasts the largest urban waterfall in America; Spokane Falls surges thousands of gallons of water annually through basaltic cliffs.

* There are more than 75 lakes within a short, easy drive from Spokane.

* The Centennial Trail connects Spokane to Coeur d'Alene with paved miles inviting walkers, runners and cyclers (no motorized vehicles). 

* Spokane boasts 87 parks within the city limits!

* The Inland Northwest Wine Scene continues to grow; some 20 wineries invite tasting.

* From Spokane, if you drive 20 minutes or 20 miles, you can be in a vastly different geography: Go west, scablands; go east, mountains; go south, wheat; go north, rivers. 

* Did you know Bing Crosby, John Stockton and Craig T. Nelson all claim Spokane heritage? 

* And Spokane is home to the Garbage Goat! (Google it if you don't know.) 

Funnies Time!

 

 Ready for some fun? Whoever "did" this photo must be a really fun parent, right??

* Is there a 4th of July in England?  Yeah, right after the 3rd of July.

* What happens to cows that get too much sun?  They produce evaporated milk.

* What do you call a snowman in summer?  A puddle.

* Why don't seashells take baths? Because they wash up on the beach.

* Who keeps the ocean clean?  Mermaids.

* What do ghosts like to eat in summer?  I-scream!

* Why don't oysters share their pearls? Because they're shellfish. :-) 

* Why did the sun not go to college? Because it already has a million degrees.

* Who's Irish and stays outside all summer?  Patty O'Furniture.

* How do you prevent a summer cold? Catch it in winter.

* Where does seaweed look for a job? In the kelp-wanted section.

* What' s the difference between a piano and a fish? You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.

* What did the ocean say to the beach? Nothing. It just waved.