HomeMy WebLinkAbout1850s - Namesake, What's Left of Renton and Tukwila Dairiesi<L T
HISTORICAT
SOCIFI
1/TY 8,z ! MUSFUM
Special Issue Volume 51
February 2021 (1T T Q R'T� i-+�R T= Number 1
�ESAKES: WHAT'S T ,EF'T
OF RFI TOY ' S DAIRIES?
by Elizabeth P. Stewart
Along with coal mining, dairy farming was one of the earliest
industries in Renton. Renton's wide open spaces, its rivers
for transportation, and proximity to Seattle's market for milk,
cream, and cheese, all recommended Renton to farmers.
What s left on today's landscape of this important form of
agriculture? Tantalizing few traces remain to remind us of
the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century town, but they are
here if you look for there.
e 1850 when whites began to settle in the Renton area, they
found that the Duwamish, Black, and Cedar Rivers were as
useful to them as they had been to the Duwamish people for
thousands of years. The rivers provided transportation routes and
food, and floods watered the land and left it more fertile. People
of British, Scandinavian, and Swiss Italian descent settled around
the rivers as early as the 1850s. They knew about raising dairy
cows and the growing city of Seattle was a ready market for milk,
butter, and cheese less than a day away. Unlike the Duwamish
people's food traditions, however, white settlers' dairies were
contingent on land control and ownership. Home-grown real
Continued on page 3
Abou. This Issue...
This special newsletter is a gift to our biggest suppo ters: Benefactor,
Patron, Business, and Life members. Your support makes what we
do possible. We hope you enjoy this story from Renton's past.
Special. Edition
February 2021
RENTON HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Sarah Samson
Graphic Design & Layout
Karl Hurst
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RENTON HISTORICAL
SOCIETY BOARD
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Colleen Leuahansen, President
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Jessica Kelly, Treasurer
Lynne King, 2022
Rhea Kimble, 2022
Mike Lennox, 2022
Staci VanderPol, 2023
Amy Gorton, 2023
Elizabeth Stewart, Board Liaison
MUSEUM STAFF
Elizabeth P. Stewart
Museum Director
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Exhibitions
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REPORT
just a quick note to say that when Stephen and Theresa
Clymer asked members and regular donors to support us in
December, you all were so generous, we decided to share
our February Patrons newsletter with all members as a thank
you. Some gave their entire second stimulus check of $600 and
some donated from their private charitable funds we even got
numerous donations from folks who had not donated ever or
not in a long time.
After so many months closed due to COVI D-19 and no
end in sight these gifts are more important than ever. The
Clymers asked you to help close the fundraising gap left by our
inability to hold our annual dinner auction and you did. Not
only will these funds helps us sustain our operations, they help
us plan for the future of the Renton History Museum in the
"new normal," post -pandemic. It is so gratifying to staff, Board
of Trustees, and volunteers to know that you haven't forgotten
about us even though our activities have fundamentally
changed. We're so looking forward to seeing you face-to-face!
Xtoit Cooly Cotiocil
ir.44,4,4,44,44L4 04.e
Museum Director Liz Stewart accepting a King County Council grant
from Councilmember Reagan Dunn.
Elizabeth P. Stewart
Director
CULTURE
2 I RENTON HISTORY NTDSEttim
Looking west over Renton showing Smithers' farm land, 1909. The church visible on the right is St. Anthony's.
The furthest west street is Whitworth Ave. The diagonal railroad tracks are Houser Way, (I2HM# 1990.094.3004)
Continued from page 1
estate moguls grabbed up land here, and grazing milk cows was
the easiest thing way to hold land until their investment had
appreciated enough to sell it off. For some dairying was a way of
life and source of pride; for others it was a way to stake a claim.
Either way, it was one of Renton's first industries and it left a mark
on our landscape, if you know where to look for it.'
Erasmus Smithers' mark on Renton is undeniable,
Smithers and his wife Diana, the widow of early homesteader
Henry Tobin, combined their landholdings after their marriage in
1857, and Smithers began platting the land he was not using for
his milk cows. Smither's plats replaced the Mox La Push voting
district with the Town and then the City of Renton. The land
he held back for farming, at the corner of what is now Rainier
Avenue and today's Sunset Highway and spreading south and
west to the Black River, remained open well into the 1900s.
For many remote farmers Renton represented the
economic and political center outside Seattle.' Renton had the
only hospital and was also a transportation hub. And after 20+
years of developing his herd and marketing his milk, Erasmus
Smithers became something of an expert on local dairy farming.
In 1877 he told a visitor that "no county lays out doors so well
adapted for cheese manufacturing as [the] White river valley."'
He insisted that for dairy farming, "our heaviest and finest
timber lands [in Washington] are far superior for [growing] feed
to any California land.'
Cover photo:
Nelsen .farm house located on
West Valley Highway, 2020.
The house was built by James
and Maiy Nelsen in 1905.
(Photo by Liz Stewart)
SPECIAL ISSUE QUAETERLAL 20211 3
Christian Jorgensen farm along the Black River, 1906
11M# 1994,119,3947).
This was certainly hyperbole. California was rapidly
developing a thriving milk and cheese industry, thanks to the
many Swiss Italians who settled there and brought their dairy
knowledge. But enough other farmers agreed with Smithers to
create a mini -boom in dairy farming south of central Renton.
Fanners could grow their own feed in fertile soils fed by
annually overflowing rivers, but could also easily move their
livestock out of harm's way when the many river floods came.'
After the 1870s real estate investors saw the potential in
gathering landholdings right outside Seattle, in areas accessible by
river and the rapidly expanding networks of railroads. These early
farms preserved large green spaces for the future, but turnover in
ownership was rapid. In 1.872, for example, a 167-acre homestead
around the Renton to Maple Valley Road (now Maple Valley
Highway) was granted by Pres, Ulysses S. Grant and the land
changed hands twice in the next decade. In 1883 Thomas Mercer,
later a King County probate judge, purchased the property and
in about 1896 he divided and sold it to fanners who included his
nephew, William H. Mercer. William Mercer sold 65 acres in 1899
to (Hans) Peter and Mary Madson, Danish immigrants who finally
settled and held the land for four generations.`' The Madsons, their
son Peter J., and grandson Chester became successful dairymen
and mainstays of what would become known as "Elliott" or
"Elliott Station," named for R. J. Elliott, the largest single
landowner in the area. Madson made substantial improvements
to the faun he had purchased, clearing more land, building "a
substantial house and a good barn," and finally replacing his house
with a more modern one. Madsen Creek, with a slightly different
spelling, is named for this family.'
Sometime around 1890 Watson C. Squire, Washington's
first Territorial Governor and later first U.S. Senator, purchased
land along the Black River southeast of Renton sight unseen and
started a farm with 100 cows.' "I cut this farm out of the woods,"
Sen. Squire told a reporter, "and I like to show it as evidence of
what a farmer can do in Washington."' Northern Pacific Railroad
magnate J. D. Farrell co -owned the 300-acre Maplewood Dairy
Farm with his brother Charles in 1905, a farm that one observer
called "the most nearly perfect ranch in this State."10 Squire and
the Farrells had the capital to create admirable fauns, but they
were also ready to sell up when a better offer came along.
In 1894 R. J. Elliott invested in an 80-acre farm on the
lower Cedar River probably carved out of the Mercer grant
and then bought an adjoining 143 acres from Peter Jarvis."
By 1906 his faun was widely touted as a state-of-the-art dairy.
Before his death in 1922 he replaced the little cottage on the faun
with a grander Craftsman -style house.'= The family bottled and
pasteurized milk on -site, and in the 1930s R. J.'s son Andrew G.
Elliott added a home delivery milk route. Elliott's cows grazed
on what is now part of the Maplewood Golf Course. The Elliotts'
nine -room house and numerous barns remained as touchpoints
along Maple Valley Highway the very last evidence of dairy
farming aside from the golf course's open space until 2009 when
these King County landmarks were torn down by developers.'3
An important dairy farm southwest of Renton was that
of Danish brothers Christian and Claus Jorgensen, whose faun
preserved the open space that would become the present-day
Starfire Sports Complex. The two brothers arrived in the Renton
area in 1875 after working for some years on dairy farms in
California. In 1876 they purchased from King County Sheriff
Lewis Wyckoff a 115-acre piece of land where the Duwamish
and Black Rivers met. The Jorgensens drained it and made it
farmland, raising potatoes, dairy cows, and hay to feed their
4 I OE TON HISTORY M0000MI
R. J. Elliott's land (center) along the Cedar River just
east of Renton, Known dairy farms are highlighted.
(1926 Metsker map)
cows. In 1880 Claus sold his portion back to Christian and
moved to Snohomish to farm. A 1926 map shows that Christian
carved out two separate farms for sons George and Otto. At his
death in 1931, Christian Jorgensen's farm was acknowledged as
"one of the show places of the valley"; he had lived and worked
there for 56 years. L4
The Jorgensens' faun was part of a network of fauns
started in the :1 870s along the Duwamish River, a quick and
convenient route to getting dairy products from Renton and the
White River Valley to Seattle's larger market. The Jorgensens'
faun joined those of Joseph Foster (now Foster Golf Course),
and Archie Codiga along the river. Fred, Herman, and James
Nelsen, Danish brothers, were not far away in Renton, Renton
Junction, and Tukwila respectively.'' These dairyrnen were
congenial competitors and sometime collaborators on issues
around transportation, regulation, and access to markets. The
Seattle Daily Intel reported in 1877 that "the White river folks are
beginning to feel a little isolated" and they proposed "a bridge
built across [the] Black river between the Jorgensen and Foster
Fauns and a side switch [on the Seattle and Walla Walla] and
warehouse constructed for the accommodation of their freights
and produce."" Such a bridge would enable a fanner closer to
Auburn to "make two trips a day with his ox-team loaded with
produce" to a central location for transport to Seattle."
Arriving from Denmark in the 1880s and 1890s, James,
Herman, and Fred Nelsen established a dairy farming spread
that stretched from Renton to Renton Junction to Tukwila's
Southcenter and the area known as Orillia; brother Ole Nielsen
established his faun in Elliott. James Nelsen and Ole Nielsen
were the first in their family to settle in the Renton area, arriving
in 1883. James worked as a farm laborer on ranches owned
Jorgensen and Nelsen land north of Renton Junction
along the Black and Duwamish Rivers. Known dairy
farms are highlighted, (1926 Metsker map)
by Martin Nelson, Christian Jorgensen, and Seattle Mayor
Bailey Gatzert. James homesteaded 20 acres, later purchasing
an additional 200+ acres of the John Ringsdorff's hops faun in
the Renton Junction area.'' Around about 1889 James sent his
nineteen -year -old brother Fred a ticket and asked him to come
to the U.S. from Denmark. Fred worked first on Ole Nielsen's
and Christian Jorgensen's fauns. He quickly married Christian's
daughter Dora and by 1901 he owned and operated his own dairy
farm. Herman also immigrated in about 1889, at the age of 17, and
by 1910 he had settled on a spread carved out of James's farm.
By pooling resources and supporting one another, the
Nelsens became highly successful farmers and community
leaders; ultimately it was their land which became Longacres
Racetrack.'' Nelsen Middle School is named for Fred Nelsen,
who served 21 years on the Orillia School Board and 15 years
on the Renton School Board. Herman, Fred, and James were
charter members of the King County Grange, an important
fraternal organization for agriculturalists, and both were
politically active in the Democratic Party, running for State
House of Representatives and King County Commissioner.
James was instn►mental in the founding of the King County
Dairymen's Association.=°
In 1905 James Nelsen and his wife Mary Dobler Nelsen
built a beautiful large farmhouse, now preserved by the Nelsen
Historical Trust and surrounded by modem hotels on West Valley
Highway just south of I-5.2' It was on the former Ringsdorff
landholding near today's Interurban Avenue and Grady Way that
he began his dairy farm. Like the neighboring farmers, he shipped
milk via boat to Seattle, a sternwheeler trip that took a captain 12
- 24 hours to steam from Seattle to Auburn."- James and Mary's
impressive home was built at 16010 West Valley Highway by a
SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2021 15
Codiga farm house in the Allentown neighborhood, 2020. The house was built in 1924. (Photo by Liz Stewart)
Danish carpenter, Mr. Olsen, but it was moved across the street in
1964 and remodeled in 1990. Although most of its outbuildings
are gone, thanks to the preservation efforts of daughter Helen
B. Nelsen, the farmhouse remains the best example of a turn -of -
the -century farmhouse, reminiscent of ones built by Erasmus
Smithers or Christian Jorgensen and now long gone.'-'
On the lower Duwamish River, Swiss Italian Archie
Codiga purchased land from Joseph Foster in 1906. Codiga
was one of many Swiss Italian dairy fanners who settled in the
Renton and Seattle area; these included Rafaele Sartori, Alberto
and Giuseppe Lafranchi, the Vincenzo Gambini family, and, later,
Charles Caraccioli and his family.' Archie immigrated to the U.S.
in 1902 at the age of 1.6, working first in California and then in
the Kent valley before he amassed enough money to buy his own
spread on the east and west sides of the Duwamish River, between
Foster and Allentown. Codiga's faun would be the last dairy
faun on the upper Duwamish to be continuously operated. Archie
continued to milk cows until his death in 1952, living and raising
his five children in the same small farmhouse that is today located
next door to Codiga Park in nearby Allentown."
With the Great Depression and then WWII demands
for living and factory space, land was at a premium in the
mid -twentieth century, and dairy farms suffered. Farmers could
no longer afford to dedicate expensive land to the growing of
feed for their cattle, and they began to truck it in from eastern
King County and then Eastern Washington. Purity demands,
tuberculin testing, and pasteurization also added costs to
dairying and a national dairy market pushed milk and cheese
prices lower. Dairies consolidated in the 1920s and 1930s.
Although some dairies continued in the Renton area into the
1950s and 1960s like Herman Anderson's Golden Arrow Dairy
and Caraccioli Dairy their days were numbered, But these
dedicated agriculturalists left us a legacy of open green spaces
that might have been long gone otherwise.'
Do you know of other dairy traces still left on the landscape?
Email us at rentonhistorymuseum@rentonwa.gov and let us know.
ENDNOTES
1 In King County in the 1850s dairy farming was not only an
immigrant tradition for people of British, Swiss -Italian (or
Ticinese), and Scandinavian descent, it was also a way to
take control of the land from the indigenous people. Any
discussion of early industries must acknowledge their role
in pushing indigenous people off the land, as well as the
environmental impacts of the denser population and more
intensive industry and agriculture that whites brought.
2 Ranche & Rane, 30 Sep 1897, p.8.
3 "From Renton,' Seattle Daily lntelligencer, 2 Jul 1877, p.3.
4 "From Renton," Seattle Daily lntelligencer, 2 Jul 1877, p.3.
5 In 1894, a journalist reported that, "The water in the White
river...has come high enough, combined with the Cedar, to
inundate the whole of the Duwamish and Black River flats,"
Farms under water included "the Carr, Western, Squire,
McNaught, Van Asselt, Askam, Bagley, Page, Martin Nelson,
James Nelson [sic], Graham, Joseph Foster, McKinley,
Burns, Abrams and Dunfield farms." "Rivers Rising Again,"
Seattle Post-lntelligencer, 2 Jun 1894, p.l.
6 Lorie M. Graff, "Moving History Pioneering Mercer
Homestead House Hits the Highway," Seattle Times, 27 Oct
1996. p.49; Clarence B. Bagley, History of King County,
Washington (Chicago -Seattle: The S. J. Clarke Publishing
Co.), IL 734-37.
7 Graff, "Moving History"; "Peter J. Madson," Bagley, History
6 I iENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
Elliott faaui barn, 1989, The bane, other farm buildings,
and house (located on the Maple Valley Highway) were
torn down in 2009. (RHM# 41.10459)
of King County, Ii: 734-37. The Mercer-Madson House, a
Victorian farmhouse that had also housed the Elliott post
office briefly, was relocated two miles closer to Renton in
1996 to make way for the expansion of a nearby church.
8 Squire served as Territorial Governor from 1884 to 1887 and
after statehood was elected to the U.S. Senate twice, serving
from 1889 to 1 897. "Sen. Squire's Farm," Seattle Post-
Intelligencer, 14 Sep 1890, p.11; City of Seattle Landmarks
Preservation Board, "Report on Designation: George
Washington Carmack House," May 2009.
9 "Sen. Squire's Farm,"Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 Sep 1890, p.l1.
10 "J. D. Farrell's Maplewood Dairy Fann," Seattle Times, 3
Mar 1912, n. p. Farrell's was the first dairy in the Elliott
and Maple Valley area certified by the Milk Commission of
Seattle to furnish milk for the city.
11 Elizabeth P. Stewart, "Elliott Farm: Dairy Hopes and Dreams,"
Renton Historical Society Quarterly, 37 (Oct 2006), p.4.
12 Stewart, "Dairy Hopes and Dreams," p.4.
13 George Elliott Oral History, 14 Apr 1987 (RHM#
1987.124.007); Charles Aweeka, "Old Dairy Could Be
Named King County Landmark," Seattle Times, 15 Aug
1990, p. F6; Williams Dauber, "Developer Gets Go -Ahead
for Project Around Farm," Seattle Times, 17 Jun 1996, B 1.
14 "Chris Jorgensen Rites Scheduled for Tomorrow," Seattle
Times, 2 Dec 1931, p.8.
15 The 1926 Metzker maps show the locations of these various
fauns. Ole Nielsen used a more traditional Danish spelling of
the Nelsen name.
16 "Want Facilities," Daily Intelligences (Seattle), 10 Jul 1877, p.3.
17 "Want Facilities," Daily Intelligencer (Seattle), 10 Jul 1877, p.3.
18 "James Nelsen, White River Pioneer, Dies," Seattle Times,
11 Mar 1952, p. 28; "Mr. and Mrs. Grange," Seattle Times,
29 Apr 1956, p.161.
19 "Mr. and Mrs, Grange," Seattle Times, 29 Apr 1956, p.161.
20 "King County Needs Nelsen," paid advertisement, Seattle
Times, 8 Sep 1918, p.18; "Herman Nelsen, Pioneer Here,
Passes in East," Renton Chronicle, 10 Apr 1947, p. l ;"Mr,
Above: Paper milk bottle hood from Elliott's Dairy
Farm (RHM# 1984.052.003)
and Mrs. Grange," Seattle Times, 29 Apr 1956, p.161;
"Fred Nelsen, Renton Civic Leader, Dies," Seattle Times,
3 Jan 1964, p. 33. Herman Nelsen was also elected to the
Washington State House of Representatives in 1917.
21 Louise Jones -Brown, "Tukwila's Gem of a Horne," Tukwila
Reporter, 18 Oct 2012.
22 Hill Williams, "Dog Days Duwamish Wasn't Always a
Dirty Word," Seattle Times, 23 Aug 1987, p.8.
23 Cultural, Historical and Archeological Memorandum.: 1405
Tukwila to Renton Improvement Project (15 to SR 169—Phase
2), Washington State Department of Transportation, Dec 2007.
24 Many Ticinese settled first in California, creating a thriving
dairy industry and then began to move out from there.
Although lgnazio Sartori never moved to Renton, he and his
brother Rafaele became influential philanthropists, donating
land (or selling it at a reduced price for the Carnegie Library
and its surrounding park, Sartori School, and part of Mt.
Olivet Cemetery. See Elizabeth P. Stewart "Namesakes: The
Sartori Family," Renton Historical Society Quarterly 47
(Dec 2016) for their story. My thanks to Mark Lesina for his
extensive information about the Ticinese in the Renton and
Seattle areas. Julius Caraccioli and his wife and parents were
probably the latest Swiss Italian farmers to settle in Renton;
they operated the Caraccioli Dairy Farm at the intersection
of 1-405 and Valley Freeway from 1928 to 1962. `Julius E.
Caraccioli," obituar , Renton Chronicle, ca. 1999, n.p.
25 "Dedication Saturday for Archie's Bridge," Renton Record-
C'hronicle, 7 Jun 1967, .18; Stacey Solie, "Neighborhood of
the Week: Allenton (Tu wila)," Seattle Times, 20 Jun 2011,
26 Lauren Vane, "Dairy Farms: A Dying Breed," Seattle Times,
7 Oct 2007; Marvin Anderson Architects PLLC, "Seattle
Landmark Nomination: Stone Way Electric Supply Building
(former Golden Rule Dairy)," 6 Aug 2019, accessed at https://
www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Neighborhoods/
HistoricPreservation/Landmarks/CurrentNominations/
LPBCurrentNom_Golden_Rule_Dairy.pdf, 26 Jan 2021.
SPECIAL ISSUE QUART ER1.1'. 2021 7
RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM
235 Mill Ave. S
Renton, WA 98057
II\DS GHT...
Claus and Maren Jorgensen and their six children on their farm, 1890. The farm's proximity to the Duwamish River and the
railroad, seen in the background, made it easy to get dairy products to the Seattle market. (RHM# 1980.055.1232)