ARLINGTON — Homesteaders lived among hundreds of acres of virgin forest. The smoke from the wood they burned to clear fields for crops made it impossible to see the sun on summer days.
Blocks of cedar shingles floated down the Stillaguamish River from Darrington to Arlington.
Hotels in town were full of single Scandinavian men who worked in timber mills. A creamery made and sold butter and canned milk.
This is Arlington 1910: the Arlington that is being remembered in the latest project of the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum.
Museum volunteers have spent two years collecting money and designing a map reflecting the Arlington of 1910. A Twisp sculptor will carve the map onto a 5-foot-by-10-foot cross-section of red cedar. It is expected to feature the homesteads of pioneer families and places of importance to the Stillaguamish Tribe, as well as the schools and businesses that dotted the Stillaguamish Valley in 1910. The wood was bought in 2006 and has been curing ever since.
Museum volunteer Steve Heiderer, a retired Boeing drafter, designed a gazebolike shelter in which to display the map outside of the Arlington museum. The museum is hiring Lummi artist Jewel James to carve six of the structure’s poles. Two will feature women “welcome figures” inviting guests into the structure, and James plans to carve the four types of salmon on the remaining poles.
The museum has applied for grants and received donations from various groups, including the Stillaguamish Tribe, to help with the estimated $60,000 project cost.
“We’re glad to see the tribe be a partner with us because it kind of fuses the two together,” said historian Loren Kraetz, 71, whose grandparents homesteaded in the Stillaguamish Valley.
The map is modeled after a similar relief of the Methow Valley at the Shafer Museum in Winthrop. Shirley and Dick Prouty saw the map during a trip several years ago and decided they wanted to make their own.
“It was so impressive, and we thought we need something like that of the Stillaguamish Valley,” said Shirley Prouty, 76. “It would tie all our history in one place.”
She set about mobilizing volunteers and planning the map. Every Monday, the museum’s cadre of mostly retired volunteers work on various projects, including the map.
Genealogist Michele Heiderer digs through a musty copy of the Snohomish County 1910 plat book searching for information on the people who lived in the valley. She’s starting folders for every family that homesteaded there in 1910. She eventually wants her findings — including draft cards, birth certificates and wedding records — to be part of the map display.
The group hopes to have the map and welcome center open this summer.
“Our dream is that descendants of the pioneers will be there for the dedication,” Shirley Prouty said.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
Help make history
Volunteers at the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum in Arlington are researching early settlers for a project to map the valley as it appeared in 1910.
The volunteers ask that anyone with information on early families, mills, boats or logging and fishing operations share their knowledge with the museum.
People can talk with volunteers on Monday mornings from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the museum, 20722 67th Ave. NE.
For more information, or to provide information, call the museum at 360-435-7289, or Shirley Prouty at 360-435-5613.
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