THEN1: An Anders Wilse 1898 portrait of Seattle’s bustling waterfront depicts where many merchants sold supplies to eager Alaska-bound stampeders. Out of more than 100,000 treasure hunters, 30-40,000 reached the Yukon interior, of which an estimated 4,000 found gold. Only a few hundred became rich. (Paul Dorpat collection)NOW1: John (left) and Steve Lundin, co-authors of “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs,” stand near Pier 58, near soon-to-be-completed Waterfront Park. Originally the site of Schwabacher’s Wharf, here was where the S.S. Portland docked on July 17, 1897. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on July 17, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on July 20, 2025
In 1898, their grandfather and a school chum answered the cry of ‘GOLD!’
By Jean Sherrard
On July 17, 1897, after the steam ship Portland docked in Seattle bearing treasure from the Yukon, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s front-page-topping headline incanted, “GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!”
A day later, the New York Times ran its own front-page article, “Wealth of the Klondike.”
With the rest of the country, two Cornell Law School students, Mark Odell and Ellis Aldrich, read these accounts of vast easily acquired wealth and tossed their hats in the ring.
By March 1898, the ambitious chums had secured funding from a syndicate of investors, likely including Syracuse’s Lyman C. Smith, after whom Seattle’s Smith Tower was named. They dropped out of school and boarded a train for the Northwest.
NOW2: Published by Last Word Press, “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs” runs 340 pages, with 111 black-and-white photos.
In their just-released book, “From Cheechakos to Sourdoughs: Two Ivy Leaguers’ Quest for Yukon Gold,” Odell’s maternal grandsons Steve and John Lundin tell a compelling tale drawn from journal entries, letters and 12 rolls of photographs found in a shoebox.
Hot on their grandfather’s trail to the Yukon, the Lundins offer an indelible portrait of the young “stampeders” and their transformation from greenhorns (“cheechakos”) to veteran prospectors (“sourdoughs”).
Within a week of arriving in boomtown Seattle, the industrious Odell and Aldrich purchased more than a ton of supplies from local outfitters and booked passage on the S.S. Alki to Skagway. Throughout, Odell’s observant voice enlivens the narrative.
Steaming up the Inside Passage, he marvels at the “wonders of the sea” whose “delicate changing azure tints” seemed to conceal “mermaids [who] had just slipped off into the dark green waters.”
Arriving in lawless Skagway on April 3, the pair prepared for the first of their countless ordeals — many days of hauling their mass of supplies over
THEN2: Hundreds of would-be prospectors climb the “Golden Stairs” at Chilkoot Pass, each carrying loads weighing 50 to 100 pounds. Dozens of trips were required to transport each ton of supplies.
legendary Chilkoot Pass. “From a distance … it looks much like a string of ants creeping up a small mound,” Odell wrote. “Such scenes I never saw nor imagined.”
The snowbound cabin at Wolverine Creek
Over grueling months, the partners continued their northbound journey, often narrowly skirting disaster. Building a cabin near Wolverine Creek, a Yukon River tributary, they mined and prospected throughout a brutal winter, digging 30-foot deep
A placer mine in the snow
“placer” shafts through permafrost in forbidding temperatures. “Holy Smut!” Odell noted on Nov. 11. “It was 51 degrees below last night!!!!!”
Approaching mental and physical exhaustion, the two ended their quest for treasure, making a laborious
Inside the cabin
return from the Yukon February-March 1899, a full year after setting out.
After 126 years, the Lundins write, one mystery remains. Contemporary newspaper accounts suggested that Odell and Aldrich arrived in Seattle laden with gold. But both sourdoughs firmly denied it to the end of their lives.
THEN3: Mark Odell circa 1920. After his Yukon adventure, he made his home in Seattle. Formerly a celebrated Cornell rower, he helped start the first University of Washington crew program. (Courtesy Steve and John Lundin)
WEB EXTRAS
For a narrated 360 degree video of this week’s column, click right here.
For a fascinating 90-minute PNW Historians Guild lecture by the Lundins, head in this direction!
John Lundin holds his grandfather’s billfold which traveled to the Yukon and back. Steve holds up Mark Odell’s tiny diary.A close up of the Odell diary, with notes from April 1898, shortly after arriving in Skagway.
This magnificent work of art by one of the northwest’s greatest indigenous artists is well worth a visit.
Oliver’s ‘Salish Welcome’ was first installed 15 years agoDuwamish Tribal Chair Cecile Hansen addresses the gatheringThe UW Shellhouse Canoe Family offered traditional songsJason Huff from the Seattle Office for Arts and CultureSeattle Public Utilities Landscape Restoration Manager Josh MeidavOwen Oliver, son of sculptor Marvin Oliver, shares recollection s of his late fatherMarylin Oliver Bard with Cecile HansenCecile Hansen, Lisa Steinbrueck and Brigette EllisThe UW Shellhouse Canoe Family gather at the base of the 16′ Salish Welcome sculpture
THEN1: The Monohon depot, servicing the Northern Pacific Railroad, is shown circa 1909. This may be the stationmaster and his family in their gated garden, the railroad’s yin-yang logo hanging from a gazebo. (Paul Dorpat collection)NOW: Standing on the train-depot site on a rainy day in May are (from left) Issaquah Historical Museums Executive Director Paul Winterstein, Maynard Pilie, historian Phil Dougherty, Claradelle and Harry Shedd and David Bangs. They’re hoisting an original Monohon sign from the museums’ collection. An unidentified dog walker pauses on the former train tracks. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on June 26, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on June 29, 2025
Lake Sammamish town’s fiery 1925 demise echoes today
By Jean Sherrard
History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Accordingly, burning 100 years ago were conflagrations whose embers rekindle today with the threat of literal and figurative five-alarm fires.
On Thursday, June 25, 1925, the thermometer atop Seattle’s18-story Hoge Building recorded the then-warmest temperature in Northwest history. As the mercury climbed to 98 degrees, the city’s two major dailies sported banner weather headlines.
Although “numerous small fires” had broken out across Western Washington, the Seattle Times assured its readers that “they were reported under control.” Further, “fire wardens [will] exercise every precaution as long as the dry weather remains.”
The hamlet of Monohon, with dozens of millworkers’ houses overlooking Lake Sammamish, was home to the J.E. Bratnober sawmill, where a cast-off cigarette caused complete loss. (Courtesy Eastside Heritage Center)
The next day, however, hopes evaporated when the Lake Sammamish mill town of Monohon, four miles north of Issaquah, went up in smoke. The fire began just after noon, reported the Post-Intelligencer’s R.B. Bermann, when “a cigarette tossed aside in the [sawmill’s] washroom started a conflagration which raged unchecked until the whole settlement was virtually destroyed.”
Along with dozens of homes, Monohon’s railroad depot, hotel, general store and the J.E. Bratnober sawmill were “blotted from the earth,” Bermann said, “as though some gigantic monster had stepped on [them], crushing everything to the ground.”
The intense heat had shriveled vegetables on their vines and blackened trees within hundreds of yards. Young chickens in their coops were “baked to a crisp.”
Firefighting efforts were stymied when the road running through town was engulfed in flames. Inadequate hoses and pumps having failed, “attempts to check [the fire] with dynamite … blew blazing timbers all over town, starting dozens of new fires.”
Historian Phil Dougherty, whose HistoryLink essay offers a thorough and colorful account of the disaster and its aftermath, wrote, “The mill rebuilt and survived
After the June 26, 1925 fire, nothing remained but the mill’s conical incinerator. (Courtesy Issaquah History Museums)
in various incarnations until 1980, but Monohon itself was gone.” Though no deaths or injuries were reported, “everything that had made this little town of 300 souls almost the Valhalla of Lake Sammamish — gone.”
A century later, these events continue to send up smoke signals.
The National Forest Service, whose hotshot crews of firefighters have battled wilderness infernos for the past hundred years, has been decimated by workforce cuts from the Trump administration.
As recently detailed in The Seattle Times, significant personnel losses are reported by individual forests across Washington state.
Forest Service officials privately predict disaster for the upcoming fire season, one Washington manager saying that without experienced employees, “the West will burn.”
This is one rhyme we can only hope against hope not to repeat.
Part of a Post-Intelligencer photo pastiche published two days after the fire. At left, salvaged furniture sits in stacks just west of town. The inset photo records the June family with son Wesley, 2, after they lost their home and belongings. (Seattle P-I Archives)
WEB EXTRAS
Noting a compass correction: As several readers have commented, Monohon is not 4 miles west of Issaquah, but due north. I was misled by the P-I article printed the day after the fire, which sent me in the wrong direction!
A fascinating and somewhat alarming side note: only two weeks later, on July 10, 1925, the Scopes “monkey trial” was about to commence, in which the pugnacious perennial populist presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan prosecuted a science teacher who broke a Tennessee law forbidding mention of evolution in the classroom. On the Scopes trial centennial, a bell tolls for scientific inquiry and education, ringing out another rhyming echo.
THEN1: On Oct. 13, 1926, midway through construction of the Doric-colonnaded Capitol Building, its masonry dome peeks through scaffolding, one foot shorter than the iron dome atop the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (Paul Dorpat Collection)NOW1: A western view of the Capitol Building, taken from the roof of the Insurance Building. Sometime over the next two years, its Wilkeson-quarried sandstone exterior is scheduled for cleaning. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on June 12, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on June 15, 2025
Tallest US Masonry Dome stands as our state’s homage to democracy
By Jean Sherrard
A visit to Olympia, which I highly recommend, is a tonic for what ails us. From the lofty architecture of the Legislative Building (aka the Capitol Building) to the generous, Olmsted Brothers-designed landscape, the sense of uplift is palpable.
As in our nation’s capital, the edifices of government were designed to reflect neo-classical themes of the Enlightenment, plus a shout-out to ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy.
In an era when, increasingly, questions arise about the legitimacy and efficacy of our democratic republic, these soaring expressions of harmony, proportion and humanism offer enduring comfort.
First, a few pertinent facts:
Our state Capitol building, at 287 feet, is the tallest masonry dome in the United States and among the tallest in the world. The dome itself weighs 30.8 million pounds. The building’s exterior is made of warm-colored Wilkeson sandstone from Pierce County. Built to last, the structure has survived three major earthquakes, most recently the Nisqually Earthquake in 2001, followed by three years of seismic upgrades and structural rehabilitation.
In their authoritative overview, “Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A.,” architectural historians Henry-Russell Hitchcock and William Seale suggest that in Olympia, “the American renaissance in state capitol building reached its climax.”
The long road to achieving this ideal began when Olympia founder Edmund Sylvester donated a 12-acre
This photo was taken Nov. 18, 1889. It shows what was then the state capitol with flags and banners for the delayed inauguration of Elisha P. Ferry, the state’s first governor. Washington had become the 42nd state the week before, but the new government couldn’t take over until a technicality had been cleared.
bluff as a site for the territorial Capitol. In 1856, the Legislature moved into a two-story wood-frame building on the site, which served first the territory and then the state until 1903.
Early plans for the capitol campus had been shelved following the 1893 financial Panic. The governor
The former Thurston County Courthouse, purchased by the Legislature in 1901, served as the state’s Capitol Building, housing both legislative and executive offices from 1905 to 1927. In 1928, fire gutted its central clock tower. (Paul Dorpat Collection)
authorized purchase of the Thurston County Courthouse, in whose cramped quarters the Legislature met beginning in 1905.
In 1911, a new State Capitol Commission held a nationwide design competition, enlisting Seattle architect Charles Bebb to serve as lead judge. Out of 30 mostly local submissions, two architects from New York City seized the prize.
For Walter Wilder and Harry White, junior architects in their mid-30s, designing the group of capitol buildings was their first and only major commission. Unexpectedly, their work stretched over the next 18 years.
When announcing the award, the commission also wired the Olmsted Brothers — the renowned Brookline, Mass., landscape firm already known for its many Washington state contributions — asking if they could “prepare plans for Capitol Building grounds.”
The Olmsted designs were adopted and installed by 1930. Their addition of verdant gardens, trees and wide boulevards completed our state’s graceful, human-scaled homage to nascent democracy in a city quite fittingly named Olympia.
WEB EXTRAS
Here’s a “now” of the Thurston County Courthouse, purchased for use by the legislature.
The former courthouse, familiarly called “Old Cap,” overlooks Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia. In the foreground stands a statue of our state’s third governor, John R. Rogers, who arranged for purchase of the building in 1901 for use as the state Capitol. (Jean Sherrard)
For our narrated 360 degree video of this column, click on through here, pardner!
A look across the campusView from the bluff looking towards downtown Olympia
THEN1: Dancers perform with veils in the newly opened Sylvan Theatre in 1922. Since that time, it has seen music and theatrical performances as well as hosting graduation ceremonies and other university events. (Courtesy UW Collections)NOW1 (for on-line use): Aspiring MFA candidates from the School of Drama improvise on the greensward in front of the 164-year-old columns. From left, standing: Sebastian Wang, Taylor McWilliams-Woods, Jerik Fernandez, Minki Bai, Yeonshin Kim, Marena Kleinpeter, and Betzabeth Gonzalez; on the ground, Adriana Gonzales. In an impromptu ad lib, each actor chose characters from Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Can you guess who’s who? (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 29, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on June 1, 2025
Enduring from 1861, columns bring ‘LIFE’ to UW’s Sylvan Theater
By Jean Sherrard
This idyllic grove with four tall columns contains elements that might seem contradictory: youthful expectation and ambition framed by academic tradition and a whiff of mortality — in short, the stuff that educators’ dreams are made on.
The quartet is among Seattle’s oldest extant architectural artifacts. Originally old-growth cedar trees, toppled near Hood Canal and floated to Henry Yesler’s waterfront sawmill, the 24-foot-tall columns
The Territorial University Building at Fourth and University stood on the downtown site of today’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel. Designed in 1860 by John Pike, after whom Pike Street was named, the two-story structure was razed in 1910. (Courtesy UW Collections)
adorned the portico of the 1861 Territorial University building downtown.
Carved by early postmaster O.J. Carr and cabinet makers A.P. De Lin and O.C. Shorey, the sturdy, fluted columns, topped with scroll-shaped “volutes” in accordance with Ionic style, offered potent symbols of classical education. (Shorey and De Lin later applied their carpentry skills to casket-making in pioneer Seattle, founding the funeral home that became Bonney-Watson.)
Some called it hubris when a town with fewer than 200 mostly male inhabitants built a two-story white academy on an overlooking bluff. But it also indicated exuberant faith in the region’s future. For Arthur Denny, donor of much of the academic institution’s land, and Daniel Bagley, an influential Methodist preacher, a university was the tail that was to wag the dog of civic life.
As Seattle boomed and 1889 statehood loomed, the homegrown University of Washington abandoned the then-crowded business district for largely undeveloped holdings then-north of the city in 1895. The original building, though a sentimental favorite, was left to molder before being torn down in 1910.
In 1911, the columns were installed on the Quad in front of Savery Hall.
Its four columns were salvaged and added to the expanding campus in 1911.
Edmond S. Meany, head of the History Department, supplied each column with a name: Loyalty, Industry, Faith and Efficiency, adding up to “LIFE.”
After a decade of being stranded outside Savery Hall on the Quad, the university held a contest to determine their final placement.
Marshall Gill died following surgery on June 21, 1921, one year after submitting the prize-winning design for a setting to feature the UW columns.
The winner: 19-year-old Marshall Gill, architecture student and son of the late Mayor Hiram Gill, who had died a year earlier during the influenza pandemic. His design for an outdoor “Sylvan theatre setting” southeast of Drumheller Fountain was acclaimed as “an appropriate and fitting tribute to the … impressive solemnity” of the columns.
Young Gill, however, witnessed only the first fruits of his labor. Within weeks of the grove’s creation, he died of a brain embolism following a tonsillectomy at age 20.
The stone park bench memorializing Marshall Gill sits next to the columns. (Jean Sherrard)
Two years later, School of Architecture alumni installed a stone bench and commemorative plaque at one end of the grassy stage.
In this tranquil spot, treasured by generations of UW students, Marshall Gill created a lasting monument — his only surviving design — to youth, artistry and history.
Columns with homage to Isidora Duncan
WEB EXTRAS
For our narrated 360-degree video, captured on location, click right here.
Also, in a separate video, our MFA actors introduce themselves, reflecting on their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Click on the photo below to see it.
In late-breaking news, here’s a pertinent photo and email just sent in by reader Roseanne Kimlinger:
I had kind of a “Wow!” moment of recognition reading Now and Then in today’s Pacific NW magazine. The Gill memorial bench in your photo looks an awful lot like the one these three UW students are sitting on in the photo I’ve attached! They are my aunt and two of her friends, the year was 1928.
I may have to head over to campus to check it out. Amazing that bench is still there.
Thank you for an unexpected Sunday morning delight!
Snapped in the mid-1950s from a nearby boy scout camp…Taken on 31 October, 2019, Spirit Lake remains, still choked with millions of logs from the erruption.
THEN: The 14-story Alaska Building, Seattle’s first steel-and-concrete skyscraper, captured in 1920. First constructed in 1905, it was home to the regional Social Security Administration’s 14th floor offices through World War II. Smith Tower stands one block south. (Courtesy MOHAI)NOW: At the corner of Second and Cherry, a baker’s dozen of Social Security supporters gather on a bright spring afternoon, hoisting placards: (from left) Yuki Kistler, Marcia Sanders, Gordon Smith, Lee Bruch, David Lee, David Jensen, Michael O’Grady, Karen Chartier, Steve Toomire, Jeanne Sales, unidentified, Kathie and Clare. The Alaska Building is home to Marriott’s Courtyard Hotel. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 15, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 18, 2025
Social Security, recipients say, ‘makes America truly great’
By Jean Sherrard
When aptly named Frank Messenger arrived in Seattle in late 1936, appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to direct the city’s first Social Security field office, on his shoulders may have rested the weight of history.
Frank Messenger, appointed by Roosevelt to direct the Seattle field office of the Social Security Administration, is seen here in Portland, Oregon in 1931.
A veteran of World War I, then called the Great War, Messenger had served abroad as a trade negotiator for the Department of Commerce before heading the Treasury Department’s procurement offices in 21 states.
But in helming the nascent effort to weave a safety net for those devastated by the Great Depression, Messenger hit his stride. By early 1937, the rapidly expanding Seattle bureau had moved from cramped Room 213 in the downtown Alaska Building to take over the entire 14th floor.
From that perch, Messenger delivered the New Deal’s signature message of hope and promise. In a 1942 Seattle Times interview, he endorsed his office’s mission.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, using taxation to provide a basic safeguard against “the hazards and vicissitudes of life.”
“If you like people,” he said, “this is an interesting spot.”
Nothing gave him greater job satisfaction, he said, than “telling a young widow [with small children] that she wouldn’t lose her home” or seeing “a trembling old hand sign a brand-new Social Security card” or witnessing “the smile of delight on a youngster’s face” when giving a first card to the child.
“This,” Messenger exulted, “is America!”
Eighty-three years later, the message is under siege. Though insisting Social Security benefits will be protected for nearly 69 million retirees, the current administration has upended the agency, promoting falsehoods about fraud while slashing its workforce by many thousands.
Online, we recently asked local recipients to sum up what Social Security means to them. Their responses:
Patricia Falsetto, retired therapist: “It’s not a giant Ponzi Scheme, but a guaranteed income after retirement, a fund which I personally have been paying into since I was 16 years old.”
John Rahn, retired professor: “An irreplaceable lifeline for retired people with little savings.”
Marcia Sanders, retired teacher: “Instead of exploding it, let’s look at ways to fix it. How about raising the Social Security wage limit above $176,000? Seems like a no-brainer. ”
Karen Kent, retired geriatric mental-health therapist: “I saw many elders whose only income was Social Security. [Without] that income, they would end up homeless or committing suicide to avoid homelessness.”
Linda Bevis, retired teacher: “With Social Security under threat, it makes it much more difficult to predict or plan what my future will look like.”
John Owen, retired City Light engineer: “Social Security is a manifestation of some of the most important values that we share as citizens. It is a fundamental example of what makes America truly great.”
I retired from teaching a little more than a year ago. I rely on a pension and Social Security to have a decent, dignified retirement. I paid into both of those funds over the years. Unlike the members of Howard Lutnick’s family, who wouldn’t complain if a Social Security check were late, I would complain, just as I would complain if a paycheck were late. I earned that money and I depend on it to pay my bills. I don’t have a billion dollar reserve that would cause my income from a Social Security check to be insignificant.
I know that as things stand currently, Social Security will eventually run out of money. I understand why people younger than me feel they won’t get any, and that every year people have to wait longer and longer before they are eligible for it. However, instead of exploding the system, let’s look at ways to fix it. How about continuing to take Social Security out of wages, beyond $176,000? That seems like a no-brainer.
Linda Bevis:
I just retired from teaching last month. In the Fall, when I sent my letter of retirement in to my college, I was factoring in Social Security payments to my monthly retirement income. Now, I don’t know if those payments will come through for me or anyone. It makes it much more difficult to predict or plan what my future will look like.
Francis Janes:
I believe that social security is foundational to our promise to seniors that they live their retirement years with dignity and security. Social security affords seniors peace of mind and a means to pay basic living expenses.
Social security payments affords me the flexibility of living in a way that allows me to explore new hobbies, volunteer with community groups, mentor young people, visit new lands and experience new cultures.
Ginny Weisse:
What does social security mean to me.
Just that Security!
One works and pays into the program and counts on the benefit to be there for you when you retire.
Social security provides essential help/support for the elderly, disabled and Social security may be the only income for some.
John Rahn:
I’ll just say, I have been paying social security tax since
I was 16, and I am still paying it at 81.
It’s an irreplaceable lifeline for retired people
with little savings.
Karen Kent:
As a geriatric mental health therapist who did home visits, I saw many elders whose only income was social security. Even living in low income senior housing, they wouldn’t survive with a cut in that income. They would end up homeless or committing suicide to avoid homelessness.”
Patricia Falsetto:
Social security is not an entitlement or a giant Ponzi scheme. It is supposed to be a guaranteed income after retirement, a fund which I personally have been paying into since I was 16 years old. I am now 74 and attempting to live on my social security. Most of my life I have worked in various places which were non-profit and served the greater social good. In later life I went to graduate school to become a mental health therapist and worked in community mental health for almost 20 years before my retirement 6 years ago. I chose these careers not because of the money I would make but because of the help that I could offer others. My parents both owned small businesses and retired with the confidence that their social security would see them through. And it did. Not because they felt they were getting a handout, but because that was the savings account created by the government to ensure they would have some kind of income besides what they could save. I understand that seriously wealthy people are exempt from paying into social security. I find it outrageous that people in our current government care so little and are so indifferent to the welfare of those with more age and less wealth than them. If they are not required to pay into the fund to help others perhaps they should check which way their moral compass is pointing and focus on that rather than judging and condemning people they don’t understand. I seem to hear the shade of Marie Antoinette whispering in their ears saying “why don’t they just eat cake”.
John Owen:
My parents lived through the Great Depression and paid into Social Security from it’s inception until the conclusion of their working days. Both of them worked very hard throughout their lives but, lacking any education beyond high school, their jobs were fairly low paying so they got by on a very modest income. Consequently, they were never able to accumulate much in the way of retirement savings.
My dad died when he was 71 so he never really got much retirement time in. We never did the math but I’m certain he paid much more into Social Security than he was able to withdraw.
My mom worked until, in her early 80’s, she was no longer able physically to make it up and down the stairs to the stock room in the Hallmark store where she was employed. At that point she finally had to retire and Social Security became her only source of income. It wasn’t much but she was very familiar with getting by on ‘not much’. Thanks to her monthly Social Security check she was able to live in dignity for the last decade of her life. Without it she would have been destitute.
In contrast to my parents, I’ve been lucky enough to have had a career which blessed me with a pension and enough financial headroom to enable me to put some money away for retirement. If my Social Security check stopped showing up, there would be some serious belt tightening required in our household but we would not lose our house or go hungry. My parents did not have that luxury and neither do millions of other Americans who are not as fortunate as I have been. One of those millions of Americans is my own brother. He, like many others who have little else besides Social Security to keep them afloat, lives in a legislative district that consistently favors the party that now plans to take those benefits away.
Francis Perkins, the Secretary of Labor under FDR, was the architect of the policies that became the Social Security Act, Medicare and Medicaid. She was also responsible for the creation of host of other things we now take for granted like the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation and workplace safety just to name a few. When I think of what Social Security means to me, I think of what she had to say about it:
“The people are what matter to government…and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”[1]
“It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”[2]
“…we will go forward into the future a stronger nation because of the fact that we have this basic rock of security under all of our people.”[3]
In other words, Social Security is a manifestation of some of the most important values that we share as citizens. It is a fundamental example of what makes America truly great.
THEN: The sidewheeler Alida is shown in 1870 from the north end of Yesler’s Wharf. Logs in the foreground were destined for Yesler’s sawmill, only blocks away. This photo is the second earliest extant portrait of Seattle’s waterfront. (Courtesy Ron Edge)NOW: This view looks east along the recently opened Marion Street pedestrian overpass. The open water surrounding the Alida in our “then” photo has been filled in over much of the past century. Today’s seawall stands nearly 500 feet west of the original shoreline. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 1, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 4, 2025
Before its fiery demise, the Alida sidewheeler briefly served 1870 elites
By Jean Sherrard
Some might call it a one-hit wonder, but for a few months in 1870, the Alida, the sidewheeler steamer in our main “Then” photo, reigned on Puget Sound. Uncrowded Seattle, fewer than 20 years old, had barely topped 1,100 in population. Ambitious, rough-hewn residents focused on laying foundations for the future.
In one of the earliest extant photos of the waterfront, snapped from the west end of Henry Yesler’s wharf, a log boom from Yesler’s mill seems dense enough almost to be walkable.
Just above the Alida’s sidewheel can be made out the dirt intersection of Marion Street and Front Street (now First Avenue). Center left, the steeple of Rev. Daniel Bagley’s five-year-old Methodist Protestant Church (popularly called “the Brown Church”) points heavenward.
An early photo of the Territorial University building, built in 1861 near the corner of Fifth and University. The ionic columns in its portico were made of cedar from Hood Canal and milled at Yesler’s mill. In 1910, the structure was razed. Its columns were moved north to the University of Washington campus, where they stand today. (Paul Dorpat collection)
Bagley was a prime mover behind the construction of the Territorial University (today’s University of Washington) whose dome-shaped cupola graces the center horizon.
Snapped by photographer George Moore, a west-facing view of the first Central School (upper center) near Third and Madison, the first schoolhouse erected by the Seattle School District. The new school had two classrooms for 120 students. When it opened Aug. 4, 1870, it was standing-room only. (Courtesy Ron Edge)
Keen eyes also will make out, at upper right, the original bell-towered Central School, Seattle’s first public schoolhouse nearing completion.
The Alida, commissioned by the entrepreneurial Starr brothers, eager to obtain a federal subsidy to deliver mail between Olympia and Victoria, was constructed in two locations. Its 115-foot hull was laid in Olympia in 1869, while its upper decks, luxuriously appointed with a dozen comfortable staterooms, were installed the following June at Hammond’s Boatyard near the foot of Columbia Street.
Capt. E.A. Starr, jockeying for influence, invited Seattle’s “it” crowd for an inaugural voyage on June 29, 1870, and it seems likely that the prominent citizens are those seen assembled on the upper deck for a round-trip trial run to Port Townsend. By all accounts, the four-hour, eight-minute trip delighted the passengers.
Reported the July 4 Daily Intelligencer, “During the passage down, the beautiful weather, the delightful scenery, the rapid and easy progress made, and, last though not least, the excellent instrumental and vocal music which was furnished by the ladies, all contributed to the enjoyment of the occasion.”
Within weeks, however, the Alida, intended to supplant older, slower steamers, proved too unstable for the daunting passage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Starrs soon replaced it with the 168-foot North Pacific, a heavier, more powerful vessel that bested all comers.
The Alida was consigned to calmer waters, steaming among Olympia, Seattle and other Puget Sound ports until 1890 when the sidewheeler met a fiery end. Moored at Gig Harbor, the elegant flash in the pan burned to the waterline, set alight by embers from a raging brush fire.
WEB EXTRAS
As promised, here’s the oldest known photo of the waterfront, taken in 1869, one year before our “then”.
Most definitely click to enlarge for full effect. Maybe click again!
Taken by George Robinson of Seward’s departure for Alaska in 1869. This astonishing four-panel panorama was stitched together by the inimitable and mighty Ron Edge.
Also, for our usual narrated 360-degree video, captured on the waterfront from the Marion Street overpass, click here!
Every column featuring maritime topics enlists the finest historians who help ensure we use only the choicest ingredients! Michael Mjelde (former editor of ‘The Sea Chest’) and Stephen Edwin Lundgren are always fit for purpose.
Lundgren adds a few notes to the mix, starting with a fascinating reflection on the 1869 photo just above:
About the Robinson photograph of Seward sailing away to Alaska in July 1869. It’s the sidewheeler Wilson C. Hunt, identifiable by the unique steeple housing for the vertical piston engine.
Accounts of Seward’s trip say he arrived in Sitka on the steamer Active. Prior to that he arrived from SF in Victoria July 20.
Here Lundgren quotes from a lengthy Historylink article written by an authoritative Phil Dougherty:
“The next morning he left for a tour of Puget Sound on the steamer Wilson G. Hunt, accompanied by a party of more than a dozen men and women that included Thomas Somerville (d. 1915), a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Somerville later wrote a vivid narrative of the trip titled ‘The Mediterranean of the Pacific’ that appeared in the September 1870 edition of Harper’s magazine.”
… First stop Port Townsend, then Port Ludlow. Port Gamble, Port Madison, then Port Seattle (just kidding) for an evening visit, thence same evening past Tacoma to Steilacoom overnight, next day to Olympia. Returned “reaching Seattle about 9 p.m., where it was greeted with a 13-gun salute. After a brief stop at Yesler’s Wharf, the Hunt continued north, passing Whidbey Island the next day.” where he transferred to the Active. (https://www.historylink.org/File/9969)
So this Seattle photo – July 22, 1869 – shows the sidewheeler “Hunt” heading north to Nanaimo enroute to Alaska via a larger ship, the Active. (Wilson G. Hunt was larger than the Alida? 185.5×25.8×6.75 461 g.t. versus Alida’s 115 feet)
The Active was also a sidewheeler, 173 feet length, in commercial service 1849-1852 as the Gold Hunter (original name), then 1852-62 as the Coast Survey shp USSCS Active, including Puget Sound service in 1856 during the Indian war. One of few Union ships on West Coast during Civil Way (1861 US Navy service). Returned to commercial service, 7 years later in the summer of 1869 to Alaska with a government survey scientific team to observe a solar eclipse, with Seward aboard. Damaged, beached and wrecked near Humboldt, California June 6, 1870.
Another intriguing note from Lundgren:
This could be the Starr vessel Isabel, dates are inclusive, obviously adequate for open water. It resembles the Alida but longer, more cabin room, enclosed bow freight deck, engine & stack further forward.
The Isabel seems to have been mostly in Canadian service until it got damaged and repaired, at which time Ed Starr bought it probably on the cheap for the Straits of Juan de Fuca leg, which as those who read the sad tale of the Clallam know are very dangerous waters.
Michael Mjelde chimes in:
I got out my copy of Roland Carey’s The Steamboat Landing on Elliott Bay, published by the author in 1962, this evening and note how he specified the Alida being originally ‘partially’ built in Olympia as the Tacoma in 1869, and being completed at the Hammond yard in 1870.
The Alida eventually went beyond Port Townsend to Victoria as indicated by brief article in the Victoria Colonist in which they mention that they “sponsoned” her out in a Victoria shipyard because she tended to roll. I don’t know how long she was a ‘mail’ boat but she did serve in that capacity.
For your information, I have a copy of the index of certificates (NARA-Seattle) issued to vessels licensed to carry passengers by the Steamboat Inspection Service.which, at that time was in Port Townsend. Alidais listed twice in that volume. Unfortunately, the page showing how many passengers she was licensed to carry is missing but the reference to Alida starts in 1875.
You may recall she was quite narrow at 18 feet plus paddle boxes; by comparison, Virginia V was eight feet wider; whereas there was only a difference of six feet in their registered length.
Note that she didn’t ‘officially’ become Alida until she was issued that first register by US Customs. Although her initial construction was in Olympia in 1869, the incomplete hull was towed to Seattle (according to Carey, she received her engines in Seattle) and officially became Alida in Seattle.
THEN: The Cadillac Hotel, built within six months of the 1889 Great Seattle Fire, provided 25-cent a night lodging for workers in boomtown Seattle. Seriously damaged during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, the hotel was purchased and rescued from demolition and restored by Historic Seattle.NOW: The residential Cadillac Hotel leased its lower floors to the National Park Service and the Seattle unit of the Klondike Gold Rush Museum (its alternate is in Skagway) since 2005. The museum, a popular venue for school tours, first opened in 1979 near Occidental Square by order of Congress. (Jean Sherrard)
Published in The Seattle Times online on April 17, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on April 20, 2025
Should Seattle’s Klondike museum close? Just ask its visitors
By Jean Sherrard
On a blustery, mid-March weekend, at a beloved federal facility targeted for closure by the current administration, it was time to strike it rich with opinions.
The museum’s front desk
At Seattle’s Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, inside Pioneer Square’s restored Cadillac Hotel, I launched a poll.
My first prospect was a tall, bearded, mountain of a man. Formerly a Lake Tahoe-area ranger, he was touring the Northwest. He shook his head, declining to identify himself. But as he watched a Gold Rush video, he seethed.
“Nothing I say would be printable,” he said. “If I told you what I really felt, it would ruin my vacation.”
No less passionate, others eagerly went on the record.
Theresa Lacey and Tom Calder read books by lamplight in a Gold Rush cabin exhibit. Theresa feels the pull of history: her great-grandmother, a widow with six children, came west on the Oregon Trail.
Theresa Lacey and Tom Calder of Redmond had just heard of the potential shuttering and made a beeline downtown.
“It feels just like burning books,” Lacey said.
“If we don’t know about the past,” Calder added, “we don’t know where we’ve been or where we’re going.”
Jason Hein, with daughter Vivian, said the museum provides a parallel lesson for today. In a dig at AI and
Jason Hein stands in front of an exhibit featuring John Nordstrom, among the few “stampeders” who made a profit in the gold fields. “It worries me when government tries to remove places like these,” Hein said. “We shouldn’t be erasing stories that inform people about historical facts.”
its investors, he said of the Gold Rush, “For the vast majority seeking the mirage of promised wealth, it was a complete bust.”
The lessons also are generational, Vivian noted: “Kids can come here and see how their ancestors lived and see how the city they live in was built.”
Connie Wall and Dawn Walker, longtime Olympia pals and “national park geeks,” said between them they’ve visited 30-plus national parks. They took the possible closure personally.
“It threatens who we are as people,” Wall said.
“As Americans,” Walker chimed in.
Jenny Dyste and David Monroe stand near a display of packaged goods sold during the Gold Rush. For Dyste, the museum holds a family connection. “My great-grandfather was one of those people who tried to strike it rich by going to Alaska,” she said. “He never made it home, killed by an avalanche.”
Ex-rangers David Monroe and Jenny Dyste, who ferried across the Sound to visit, saluted the museum’s organizational context.
“The national parks,” Monroe said, “are the greatest thing America has done. It’s a gift to the people of the United States.”
Lifelong Northwesterners John and Sandi O’Donnell were making their first visit.
John and Sandi O’Donnell stand near the story of brave women who ventured to the Klondike.
“I’m celebrating my 63rd birthday by buying a National Parks Senior Pass today,” John said.
Sandi lamented the “heartbreaking” prospect of closure. “This place is a national monument.”
Could I find supporters of closure? Try as I might, it just didn’t pan out.
Theresa Werlech of Mercer Island has worked as a tour guide for 35 of her 88 years. Escorting dozens of student choir members from Arizona, she summoned a hopeful analogy.
Longtime tour guide Theresa Werlech stands on an electronic scale that estimates her weight in today’s gold value.
“This place is an absolute jewel,” she said. “I’d be devastated if it closed. Let’s hope that the Klondike continues to go in search of gold.”
WEB EXTRAS
A handful of photos show off the museum’s lovingly designed interior, upstairs and down.
Groups of local seniors are represented in the museum’s fan baseInteractive displays appeal to young and oldThe museum’s downstairs is filled with artifacts, installations and dioramas
For our narrated 360 video of this column, please head over here!
The Alaska Building in 1904 – Seattle’s first steel-framed skyscraper (courtesy Ron Edge)
Help create a fun and timely Now & Then column featuring the local history of Social Security!
The Alaska Building was home to the first Social Security Administration offices in Seattle in 1937. Its enthusiastic regional director was the aptly named Frank Messenger.
The corner of Second and Cherry. The first Social Security bureau was on the Alaska Building’s second floor. (courtesy Ron Edge)
Join us Sunday, April 13, at 2pm at the northeast corner of Second and Cherry in front of the Alaska Building to demonstrate your support for a strong and healthy social security system.
Bring your SSA cards (or facsimiles) to hoist in the air for the group photo. All are welcome!
Also, another opportunity to make your voice heard. Send us your succinct thoughts about Social security for possible use in the upcoming column. All comments will be posted here on the blog as well. Please email seattlenowandthen@gmail.com with the subject line “Social Security.”
