We moved from Vaughn to Wilkeson in 1949. It was a very small town, situated in the country, just 7 miles from Mt. Rainier National Park. Just to show you how isolated it was, it was the end of the railroad tracks. There was 1 small community between Wilkeson & Mt. Rainier, by the name of Carbonado. The population of Wilkeson was around 200 at the time. The town consisted of 1 school, 1 drug store, 1 hospital, 1 grocery store, 1 library, a couple of gas stations, volunteer fire department, no police department & several bars. If there was an emergency, Police would have to come from the town of Buckley, 5 miles away. In case of a fire, someone would have to turn on a siren, mounted on a tall pole, located in the middle of town, to alert the volunteer fire department. I’m not sure what equipment they had for fighting fires, but it couldn’t have been much.
My mother was my school teacher. You can see her in the school picture above, on the left & me on the far right. It was a very interesting year. She had to tell me, several times, not to call her mother, but instead, call her Mrs. Weaver. She also didn’t give me any breaks because I was her son. She sent me several times to the Principal’s office. Once, for my best friend (pictured here) throwing snow balls at the Principal’s car as we were walking to school. I think we ended up being late as well.
After she wrote something on the blackboard, she saw me squinting, trying to read what she wrote. After school, she took me to get my eyes checked & that’s when I started wearing glasses. She was very observant. If she hadn’t seen me struggling to read the blackboard, who knows when I would have been diagnosed with eye problems.
We lived in a Government housing project, in the center of town. Each unit had a coal bin that held a ton of coal, that we got each month. We did all our cooking on a coal stove. There were no gas stoves or furnaces back then.
Wilkeson was actually a famous town, for it’s Sandstone. They dug sandstone out of the mountains nearby, cut it into blocks that were used in building construction. Because of it’s superior quality, it can be found in buildings all over the world. Except for a few years (1982 to 1999) the Quarry has been operating right along.
When we were living there, the largest industry was logging. Trucks loaded with logs would come down the mountains all year long. They would often stop to get fuel at one of our gas stations. In the middle of July, we would have snow ball fights, using the snow that was on the trucks, after coming down from the mountains. That was always fun. Mt. Rainier had snow all year long.
In the winter we would take sleds & toboggans up the logging roads & then ride them down into town. We were both brave & crazy. There were less trucks using the roads in the winter & literally no cars. There was no reason for any cars to go up them. There was nothing up there except mountains & trees.
There was never a dull moment in this little town. Many Fidays, which was payday, one of our neighbors, would get drunk, get mad at his wife & shoot off his rifle in the air. He never shot anyone, but could have. One day the Police, in Buckley, were called because a child drank something from under a sink & needed to be taken to a hospital in another town. Another bit of excitement was when a train would come, once a month. Being at the end of the line, we never had regular train traffic.
An old photo of the town. I don’t know when this was taken, but this is pretty much the whole town, just to give you an idea how small it was.
I don’t know if they had them when we lived there, but they had side car races every year. By the looks of the bleachers on the left, this was probably the finish line. We were there one year on my birthday a few years back. Those holes in the background are Coke Ovens. Coke is used to make Iron. When we were living there, there was an old man who lived in one of these ovens. We called him “Coke Oven Joe”. We made fun of him & in the winter, threw snow balls at him.
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