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Published in The Seattle Times online on May 30, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on June 2, 2024

Passion to protect children has fueled patrol program since 1922

By Clay Eals

They’re a rare sight today. But they once were ubiquitous, overseeing hundreds of intersections near schools across Seattle.

We’re talking about tens of thousands of trained students who navigated traffic dangers with bright “STOP” flags, shepherding their peers through hundreds of millions of street crossings before and after school. Their name: the Junior Safety Patrol.

The post was an undisputed source of pride. Listen to sentries interviewed by The Seattle Times in October 1947 at High Point (now West Seattle) Elementary School:

“The little kindergarteners don’t know much about crossing the street,” said Stephen Tuthill, 9. “I think it’s a good thing to have them protected.”

“If we can take care of ’em and serve right as they desire,” said Barbara Gralow, 8, “then we can be on the patrol and do it right.”

“I like this better than anything,” said Jimmy Hoffman, 8, “even football.”

These guards were younger than the more typical 10- to 13-year-olds citywide. They served a barracks-style neighborhood, since redeveloped, that had been built five years earlier to house World War II-era aircraft and shipyard workers. They also were following a pioneering tradition.

In 1922, John Muir Elementary in Mount Baker launched the first student-centered safety patrol in the state. Six years later, aided by the Auto Club of Washington (AAA), Seattle expanded the program citywide. Police officer (later sergeant, then captain) George Kimball guided it until his death in 1961. In his honor, a Beacon Hill grade school was named for him in 1964.

Initially dubbed “Schoolboy Patrol,” the program welcomed girls as early as 1929. It compiled an impressive safety record, broken only occasionally, as in 1949 at a patrolled West Seattle Junction intersection, where a car came “out of nowhere” and killed a 5-year-old girl.

Eventually, says Yvonne Carpenter, today’s school-district’s crossing-guard supervisor, the city ceded the program to the district, and only a handful of Seattle schools use young guards anymore.

Most guards these days are paid adults, often retirees, who work two hours each weekday — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — to protect key intersections. Carpenter’s cadre numbers just 50, down from a desired 120, COVID having taken a toll.

“We are desperate for crossing guards,” she says. “I love my guards. Some have done it for 25 years. Every time they step into the street, they put their lives into their hands. They protect any pedestrians who cross, not just students, and they take it very seriously.”

As Seattle’s guards wind up another school-year’s work, Carpenter salutes what she calls their driving force: “You gotta love kids.”

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Bob Carney, Welela Hagos and Meaghan Kahlo and Yvonne Carpenter of Seattle Public Schools for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals’ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you also will find 10 additional photos, an illustrated 2023 Seattle Public Schools report and, in chronological order, 50 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on May 23, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on May 26, 2024

We really don’t want to spar over the name of this Seattle tavern

By Clay Eals

What’s the timeworn, in-person setting for many a vigorous verbal fight? A place to expound, debate, plead, bicker and wrangle? Hint: The feuding can be fueled by a brew or two.

The answer, of course, is your friendly neighborhood watering hole. Sometimes, however, such jousting can become boisterous, rousing some to fisticuffs or far worse. So we at “Now & Then” suggest that one such establishment had the correct branding from the get-go.

It was the Don’t Argue Tavern.

Proof lies in our “Then” photo, taken a few years after Prohibition ended here and funded by the federal grant-funded King County assessor’s office. It’s a slightly blurry rendition, begging jest that the photographer must have imbibed at the saloon before lifting a camera. Actually, it’s an anomaly, rare among the seemingly countless crystal-clear images captured by the assessment project.

The Don’t Argue’s location was 228 Fifth Ave. N., a largely nondescript neighborhood north of downtown, full of post-Denny Regrade wood-frame structures that fell victim to the wrecking ball in the late 1950s when what we now know as Seattle Center launched itself as the Seattle World’s Fair of 1962.

The site’s early commercial days were innocent. A 1923 Seattle Times ad for a wholesale and retail fruit and vegetable stand at that address was touted as “one of the best locations in [the] city.” But after the tavern took hold, it made news mostly via police reports, combined with inevitable headline wordplay. (“No argument in the Don’t Argue tavern,” read a 1939 blurb reporting the jailing of three customers.)

Such hits dotted news columns for decades. In a January 1954 incident, two “big men over 50,” one armed with a long-barreled gun, locked Don’t Argue owner Grace Allie and her barmaid in a rear storage room at 7:40 a.m., ransacking the cash drawer and safe of $2,300. Eight months later, a “slow drinker” who entered at 7:30 a.m. and nursed beers until 2 p.m. pulled the identical caper, escaping with $700.

By the time the nearby Space Needle took shape, the Don’t Argue building had become dust, and the business moved a block north to diagonal Broad Street, enduring until 1967. Taking over its earlier plot in 1980 was a McDonalds, feasting on a constant stream of Seattle Center visitors until it closed March 31, 2022, to make way for a $50 million nine-floor lab-science building that today is nearly complete.

What to make of the evolution from veggie stand to tavern to fast-food giant to glass-boxed tower? Time and the development bulldozer have an easy answer: Don’t Argue.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Aaron Breitbarth, Cynthia Brothers of Vanishing Seattle and Jade D’Addario digital projects librarian of the Seattle Room of Seattle Public Library for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals’ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you also will find an illustrated brochure and, in chronological order, 30 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column — plus a few just for fun.

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Published in The Seattle Times on-line on May 16, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on May 19, 2024

San Juan Island’s 1859 Pig War brought home the Canadian bacon

By Jean Sherrard

Just as with classic fairy tales, any mention of the Pig War brings lessons to mind: folly, courage, arrogance, the wisdom of restraint. Add an enchanted setting — San Juan Island — and this compelling slice of Pacific Northwest history is well worth revisiting.

Once upon a time, on June 15, 1859, 27-year-old Lyman Cutlar, a squatter on the island, discovered a pig pillaging his potatoes. The lanky Yank had driven the spud-loving critter off his land more times than he could count and the $10 he’d invested in a peck of potato seeds was disappearing with every bite. “Upon the impulse of the moment,” he later wrote, “I seazed my rifle and shot the hog.”

To Cutlar’s credit, he immediately admitted the offense. His 160-acre stake stood on disputed land operated by Canada’s Hudson Bay Company as a sheep farm, managed by its agent Charles Griffin, owner of the deceased pig. Cutlar offered to replace the animal with one of his own or pay cash for it.

This infuriated Griffin: “You Americans are nothing but a nuisance on the island, and you have no business here.” More heated words followed, as did a threat to arrest Cutlar and try him in Victoria. To this, the American provocatively patted his Kentucky rifle.

This seed of what rapidly became an international incident had been planted 13 years earlier.

In 1846, the Treaty of Oregon established the 49th parallel as the international boundary between America and the British Crown colony, exempting Vancouver Island. The nationality of dozens of San Juan Islands, however, had been left unresolved.

The boar’s demise in 1859 brought that prickly stalemate to an end, with American settlers seeking protection from the U.S. military.

From Fort Bellingham on July 27, bellicose U.S. Brig. Gen. William Harney dispatched 66 troops, led by an eager Capt. George Pickett, who was prepared to fight to the last man. In response, three British warships were sent by James Douglas, the truculent British Columbia governor, also spoiling for a fight.

Only the restraint of cooler-headed associates, refusing to go to war over a pig, prevented further bloodshed.

Several months later, the two countries agreed to a joint occupation until a border settlement could be negotiated. To that end, “American Camp” was established on the south side of the island while “English Camp” occupied the north end.

Finally, in 1872, with Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm arbitrating, the San Juan Islands were granted to the United States. A fairy tale ending, perhaps, if only for Uncle Sam.

WEB EXTRAS

For our 360 video, recorded on location at English Camp, please click on through.

For a few more views of the San Juan camps, a couple of lighthouses, and a boat or two, see attached.

English camp:

A marker commemorating the decision of Wilhelm awarding the San Juan Islands to the U.S. – located on the hilltop above English Camp.

American Camp, overlooking Haro Strait.

Double click to see the perched eagle. Or scroll down for a close-up.

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Published in The Seattle Times on-line on May 2, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on May 5, 2024

To open the Aurora Bridge, the president and a telegraph were key

By Jean Sherrard

One of Seattle’s most spectacular — and tumultuous — celebrations began with the presidential push of a historic telegraph key.

Studded with Yukon gold mined by prospector George Carmack, the key had first been pressed by William Howard Taft to open Seattle’s 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. On the day of our “Then” photo, Herbert Hoover’s finger hovered over the button in the other Washington, waiting for the appointed minute to arrive.

The six-lane George Washington Memorial Bridge, yet to acquire its Aurora Bridge moniker, stood empty on Feb. 22, 1932, the bicentennial of our first president’s birth, but thousands of eager celebrants waited at its north and south ends, waiting for the signal.

Among them were jubilant Fremont and Wallingford residents, who had lobbied for years for a north-south highway to bypass the oft-opening Fremont Bridge.

Representatives from Mexico and Canada also paid homage to this vital link in the Pacific Coast Highway chain. Washington Gov. Roland H. Hartley (1864-1952), though a longtime opponent of state highways (he once described them as “hard surface joy rides”), nevertheless prepared a lengthy speech extolling the hugely popular venture.

On Lake Union, 167 feet below, the fireboat Alki also waited, water cannons at the ready, while fieldpieces of the 146th Field Artillery were primed to release an ear-splitting volley.

Among the dignitaries, Caroline McGilvra Burke, widow of Judge Thomas Burke, prepared a time capsule to be sealed into the bridge containing messages from 1932 Seattleites to those 100 years in the future.

At precisely 2:57 p.m. Pacific time, Hoover poked the golden telegraph to kick things off. Almost instantly, trumpets blared, a 21-gun salute roared, streams of water arched into the air and a giant flag unfurled from above.

Interrupted mid-speech, a bloviating Hartley cried into his microphone, “The president has just pressed the key!” But his words were lost in the crowd’s huzzah.

With Canadian emissary Vancouver alderman W.H. Lembke, Hartley sawed through a 1-foot-wide, 68-foot-long Douglas fir (jokingly called a “ribbon” by the assembled) that extended across the bridge’s northern approach. Mexican consul W.P. Lawton enthusiastically squirted oil onto the crosscut blade.

The “ribbon” finally severed, a siren signaled that the bridge was open to foot traffic.

“Youngsters, galloping ahead, were the first to meet across the great span,” reported The Seattle Times. Soon, “the bridge was a black mass of citizens, joining and intermingling across its length and width.”

An estimated 20,000 people had gathered to mark its dedication.

In its final hurrah, the gold-studded presidential key was tapped by President John F. Kennedy to open the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.

WEB EXTRAS

For our narrated 360 video, shot on location, click HERE!

Also, here’s is Paul Dorpat’s original column on this topic from 24 years ago: 2000 06-11 N&T Aurora bridge