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Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 30, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Nov. 2, 2025

 In new ‘secret’ book, dancing maidens sweeten Tacoma’s stature

By Clay Eals

Modeled on Grecian nymphs, two French-cast statues of dancing maidens have welcomed visitors at downtown Tacoma’s showcase Wright Park for an astounding 133 years.

Their pale patina glows against the rich green of the 27-acre park’s abundant woods. Yet the maidens also hide, says Chris Staudinger, within the persistent persona of a city of 228,000 that’s shadowed by its Space Needled northern neighbor.

Tacoma, dubbed the City of Destiny when it was named the Northern Pacific Railroad’s western terminus in 1873, is “close to my heart,” says the 40-year-old ex-journalist. In the past nine years, Staudinger’s guided-tour business, Pretty Gritty Tours, has grown to 26 employees who mount a busy slate of excursions around the state, especially in Tacoma.

“It is such an incredibly important and historically rich city that gets passed over by a modern lens all the time,” he says. “There’s so many firsts or huge achievements that took place here. But the City of Destiny is still better known as the ‘Tacoma aroma.’ And I aim to fix that.”

In his 190-page book, “Secret Tacoma: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure” (2025, Reedy Press), Staudinger transforms the odiferous paper-mill/smelter reputation into a fragrant, fun collection of 94 unique, quirky spots that anyone would want to visit or revisit.

Notably, they include Tacoma’s oldest existing building, the 1873 Old St. Peter’s Church, which still operates in the city’s Old Town, and, not far away, the 1907 Engine House No. 9, now a pub.

Back at Wright Park, the maiden statues, like many of Staudinger’s entries, bear a colorful backstory. They arrived with Clinton P. Ferry (1830-1909), a booster known as the “Duke of Tacoma.” Ferry acquired them and other pieces, intending them for a new marital home, during a late-1880s European trip with his second wife.

One day on that trip, as recounted in Murray Morgan’s Tacoma-centered tome “Puget’s Sound,” Ferry returned early to their Parisian suite and caught his wife and her French tutor in flagrante delicto. Heartbroken, Ferry ended the marriage and gave his collected art to the city of Tacoma.

Over the years, the sculptures acquired nicknames — “Annie” (for her Annie Wright Seminary, now Schools, and for the wife of park donor Charles Wright) and “Fannie” (for nearby Fannie C. Paddock Memorial Hospital, now Tacoma General Hospital) — as well as a few bruises. Fannie’s right hand once reached her chin but now crosses her midsection. And today her right foot is missing.

Each mini-chapter in “Secret Tacoma” ends with a “Pro Tip.” The one for the maidens is “Be good to your loved ones.”

Short and, yes, sweet.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Boo Billstein and Chris Staudinger 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 will find a video interview, 2 documents, 4 additional photos and 5 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 23, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Oct. 26, 2025

‘Secret Sauce’ saves island’s special gathering place, the Nordland General Store

By Jean Sherrard

Just east of Port Townsend, Marrowstone Island — so dubbed by Capt. George Vancouver on May 8, 1792, the same day he affixed “Mount Rainier” to a conical volcano southeast — harbors a bucolic sanctuary.

With a population of just under 1,000 that swells with vacationers each summer, the island’s unincorporated town of Nordland was founded by Norwegian immigrant Peter Nordby (1862-1919) who bought and platted its 187 acres in 1892.

Four years later, in 1896, Congress approved construction of Fort Flagler, a U.S. Army coastal artillery post at the island’s north end.

For more than a century, the Nordland General Store, built circa 1922, has stood at the island’s heart, selling groceries and supplies to locals and visitors alike.

Early records also illustrate a flip side to the business — its centrality to the community as a gathering place. The annual Strawberry Festival, first held a century ago, continues to draw celebrants peninsula-wide.

In recent decades, a lively Tractor Days parade has drawn farmers and lawn jockeys, rumbling their heavy machinery past the store every Memorial Day weekend. Other festivities include a pumpkin-weight guessing contest held before Halloween, a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in which Santa arrives by boat, and a Polar Bear Dip at noon on New Year’s Day.

In the early hours of Nov. 5, 2020, the store was sustained major damage from an electrical fire. The building was declared a total loss. “A little piece of

Marrowstone Island died when the Nordland Store was destroyed by fire,” reported the Peninsula Daily News.

Then-owners Tom and Sue Rose, nearing retirement, made the painful decision to put the business on hold. Townsfolk were unnerved, faced with the prospect of losing the island’s soul.

Longtime Marrowstoner Barcy Fisher and a more recent arrival, Patti Buckland, friends for more than 30

years, collaborated on an audacious business plan. To save this touchstone, why not convert the store to community ownership?

Cue huzzahs and applause. Inspired investors stepped up with nearly $400,000. 592 neighbors and friends chipped in $250 each for lifetime memberships to the co-op. What’s more, dozens of volunteers stepped up to help rebuild. Within 10 months, on May 25, 2024, the Nordland General Store staged its grand reopening. Rain notwithstanding, Buckland says, the event was attended by hundreds of exuberant neighbors.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “what we’re all about is serving our community. It’s not just about groceries. It’s about connection. That’s our secret sauce.”

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 9, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Oct. 12, 2025

Explosive legacy underlies Rainier Valley’s serene hilltop park

By Clay Eals

In this age of political pyrotechnics, what could be more welcome than a compact, peaceful park with a trail that winds through tall trees and native plants?

Inside this blufftop preserve we find no evidence, other than its namesake, that it once hosted an anything-but-tranquil fireworks factory that produced flares and explosions seen, heard and renowned the world over.

We are in the Columbia City neighborhood at Hitt’s Hill Park, named for Thomas Gabriel (T.G.) Hitt (1874-1958). An immigrant chemist from London by way of Victoria, B.C., he parlayed a childhood fascination for things that go boom into an international business based atop Rainier Valley’s highest slope.

In 1905, two years before Columbia City joined Seattle, Hitt Fireworks Co. took shape in what became 26 tarpapered shacks, each hand-numbered in red on galvanized grey signs, and spaced several yards from each other to prevent manufacturing accidents from obliterating the whole lot.

A frequent overseas traveler to negotiate deals, Hitt employed up to 200 people on his hill.

Products ranged from panoramic set pieces for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and other prominent fetes around the country to extra-loud “Flashcrackas” and other novelties that fit in the palm of a hand.

His craftsmanship also bolstered Oscar-winning Hollywood films, in the war scenes of “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930) and the burning-of-Atlanta sequence of “Gone with the Wind” (1939).

Not all was safe and sane, however.

Fiery onsite calamities occasionally made banner news, especially when on May 8, 1922, exploding powder killed 17-year-old employee Nora Bailey. One day later, the suicide of a same-aged female friend was attributed to her demise. Angry locals demanded the plant be banned from the city, but the city resisted, providing that Hitt obey fire-marshal regulations.

The heyday of Hitt, also a perfumer and inkmaker, started fading after his accidental arsenic poisoning in the 1930s, says great-grandson Ray Akers, but family continued the enterprise past his death into the 1970s. The company’s arc paralleled society’s love-hate relationship with fireworks, eventually resulting in Seattle banning their manufacture (and, later, their private use) and business moving abroad.

By century’s end, invasive ivy, blackberries and rats flourished onsite. Locals including Akers fought back plans for dozens of houses to be built on the 3.2-acre parcel. Open-space advocates successfully lobbied the city to make it a park and volunteered muscle and money to transform it into a natural refuge.

Today, the only major noise in the sanctuary comes from periodic jet overflights. The uninitiated would never suspect it once had been home to big bangs and fabricated flash.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Katie McClure and John Bennett 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 will find 6 additional photos and 30 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 2, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Oct. 5, 2025

Ready for 50 years of riveting riddles? Game on in Woodinville!

By Jean Sherrard

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” may recall a scene featuring youthful protagonist Bilbo Baggins exchanging riddles with the gruesome, elder Gollum who threatens to eat him if he fails to answer.

The historical questions we pose here may be playful and seemingly of local import only. But I would argue the stakes are high. Every place matters, every story counts, especially when history itself is on the line.

In its century and a half, Woodinville — just east of the north end of I-405 — contains more than a whiff of rural wizardry. Bounded by gentle rivers and lakes, and now a town known for dozens of picturesque wineries, its earliest brain-teasers are well worth exploring.

“Why was it named Woodinville?” asks a smiling Cherry Jarvis, co-founder of the Woodinville Heritage Society, celebrating its 50^th anniversary.

“So much timber maybe?” co-founder Phyllis Keller answers with a chuckle.

For those who don’t know the forest from the trees, the giveaway: Ira and Susan Woodin fled “urban” Seattle in 1871 and rowed up Sammamish Slough in search of new beginnings.

OK, that was easy. But the next sticklers may require attending an event. For details, read on.

Those following the Woodins found work in the village’s surrounding forest and farmland. They included lumber magnate Frederick Stimson, who built a baronial mansion in 1911 and opened a prize-winning dairy. He named it Hollywood Farm. Why? Were holly bushes abundant? Did Charlie Chaplin pay a visit?

A Woodinville blacksmith, born Johann Koch in Germany’s Baden-Baden, set up shop near the town cemetery. Why did he change his name to John Cook?

Tools of Cook/Koch’s trade (anvil, forge, hammer and tongs) pose even more mysteries. Why does his anvil anchor his grave?

Popular Norm’s Resort on bucolic Cottage Lake became nationally famous. Was owner Norm Fragner an early PR genius?

When one of our state’s largest wineries, Chateau Ste. Michelle, sought land to fulfill world-class aspirations, why did Woodinville stand out?

Such queries are enough to create enduring ties that bind.

“When we founded the heritage society in 1975,” recalls co-founder Jarvis, “Woodinville was small enough that we all knew each other.” Today, the town population approaches 14,000. “Together, we can honor the past,” says Kevin Stadler, the society’s president, “while inspiring connections for generations to come.”

Want to catch the inspiration?

Join “Now & Then” co-columnist Clay Eals and me at 10:50 a.m. (doors open at 10:15 a.m.) Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at Brightwater Environmental Community Center, where Woodinville Heritage Society will host a gathering of passionate, crackerjack history buffs who will supply “pocketses” of answers to all these riddles, and much more.

WEB EXTRA

So we return after a delightful program featuring the Woodinville Heritage Society historians to answer a few of the questions posed in the column.

A video of the hour-long program should be forthcoming with further solutions – we’ll post it as soon as it becomes available.

• Why did Frederick Stimson, lumberman, name his estate Hollywood? Most likely, says direct descendant MaryAnn Feczko, because of family connection to Southern California, specifically Los Angeles. Two Stimson brothers ended up living there and Frederick visited them often. So Charlie Chaplin never visited the farm, although President William Howard Taft put in an appearance!
• Woodinville blacksmith Johann Koch changed his name to John Cook to avoid anti-German sentiment during World War I. In future decades, he reverted to Johann Koch, which appears on his unique anvil tombstone. He requested that the anvil be inscribed “The Woodinville Blacksmith” but as he was not the only smithy in town, the inscription was altered, depriving him of a solo act.
• Norm Fragner of Norm’s Resort was, by all accounts, a genius of PR. His unique logo spread across the country on signs and post cards — bringing to mind the somewhat earlier Wall Drug marketing campaign in the 1930s promoting Wall, S.D., as a destination. Reportedly, signs for Norm’s Resort could be found from Alaska to the Mexican border.
• Finally, the reasons Chateau Ste Michelle chose Woodinville were various, if somewhat obvious. The already bucolic setting of the the Stimson estate combined with proximity to a major urban center provided the ideal environment to replicate a traditional French winery. Over the decades, dozens of winemakers have followed suit.

When the video presentation is completed, we’ll post it here with some fanfare. Congrats again to the Heritage Society on its 50th anniversary!