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More on Waschke Road

Last week, I wrote about Waschke Road and speculated that the full two mile stretch of the right-of-way petitioned for in 1886 was used as a trail, but when my grandfather, Gus, opened up a lane from his house and barn to the Smith Road, the right-of-way was an unimproved trail.

A new source

This week, I spent some time studying the historic maps in James W. Scott and Daniel E. Turberville III’s Whatcom County in Maps 1832-1937. (Bellingham: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, 1983.)

The 1902 map

The first map that shows Section 26 of Ferndale Township, where the Waschke Homestead is located, is a county map dated 1902. This map shows the Northwest Diagonal as a plank road and indicates it was the main road from the town of Whatcom (now Bellingham) to Ferndale and Blaine, following the route of Axton road past Barrett Lake (then called Gamble Lake) to Ferndale. The plank road continues to Blaine as a plank road roughly following the route of what is now called Vista Drive.

Axton Road from the Northwest east is shown as “opened” but not planked or graveled. Now, Axton goes straight east to the Guide Meridian and beyond, but on the 1902 map, it jogs northeast at about where it would intersect Waschke Road, if Waschke Road were there.

The Smith Road appears as “opened” like Axton Road, and runs its full present length from Tennant Lake to where it intersects the Northeast Diagonal, which became the Mount Baker Highway. There is no sign of either the Waschke Road or the Aldrich Road on the 1902 map.

North Bellingham School

There is a school marked at the corner of the Smith and the Northwest Diagonal. This was the location of North Bellingham Elementary School, which was my first school. My grandfather’s younger brother, Bill, would have been three years old at the time the map was drawn and must have attended the school marked on the map when he was old enough. Some of his older sisters probably went there also. When my father, Ted, started school at North Bellingham in about 1920, the school was a two-story wood building. My memory is a bit hazy, but I believe Dad said the school had two rooms on each floor. That may have been the building marked on the 1902 map or a later replacement. Dad said the principal was responsible for cutting firewood to keep the school heated.

Topographic map from 1907

The next important map is the 1907 Blaine Quadrangle topographic map, drawn two years before my grandparents were married. This map shows the Aldrich Road running from the Smith Road north to Tenmile Creek and the Axton Road going straight east from the Northwest to the Aldrich Road. The section of Waschke Road from the Northwest to the Larson Road shows as unimproved. Larson Road does not go through to the Northwest as it does now. However, the Lange Road, unlike today, goes through to the Northwest and on to the Brennan station on the railroad south of Tennant Lake. My dad remembered taking produce to the Brennan Station to load onto railroad cars. In his memory, it was just an unattended open shed.

Buildings in 1907

Standard Geological Survey topographic maps show buildings. The shingle mill mentioned in the newspaper clipping I referred to in the previous post is probably the mark on this map where Silver Creek crosses Waschke Road.

The houses of my great-grandparents Matzke and Waschke are also marked on this map, located across the Aldrich Road from each other. Both my great-grandparents built his houses near the top of the ridge that marks the boundary between the Silver and Deer Creek watershed. Both houses are still occupied. Later Gottlieb Waschke sold the north half of his property and built another house close to the Smith Road, which was eventually occupied by my grandfather’s brother Bill and later his son Buford.

1924

The last map of interest is from 1924. It looks as if the cartographer started from the 1902 map and added to it. This map shows the townships of Whatcom County. According to Scott and Turberville, Whatcom County and Spokane County were the only counties in Washington State to set up townships when they were authorized by the state legislature in 1896. The townships were responsible for the county roads within their jurisdiction. This map shows the right-of-way all the way from the Northwest Diagonal to Axton Road, and shows the Axton terminating at Aldrich Road. Unfortunately, the reproduction of the map in the Scott and Turberville book is smudged and I can’t determine the status of these routes. The map shows Lange Road still extending all the way to Brennan Station.

Skid road

None of the maps have any indication of the skid road along the southern boundary of the Waschke Homestead. The 1902 map mentions 92 shingle mills and 24 saw mills in the county with 5000 employees and capacity for 110 car loads of product per day. These mills must have kept the oxen busy pulling logs on the skid roads.

I will try to research this more at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at Western Washington University. I now suspect the original petition for Waschke Road is archived there and I also might be able to find something there about the skid road.

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Waschke Road

I’ve written before about how my grandfather, Gus Waschke, picked the property straddling the Deer and Silver Creek watersheds. He chose the land with his plans to farm in mind, but the property was inaccessible without going through Agnes’ father’s property on the Aldrich Road. That was okay to start out, but it didn’t square with Gus’ plans for the future. He wanted a county road.

The right-of-way

Fortunately, or maybe part of his plan, there was already a county right-of-way for a road on the west side of the property. From a newspaper clipping, I discovered that a petition was filed in with the Whatcom County Board of Commissioners (which eventually became the County Council) on December 18, 1886 for a right-of-way that eventually became Waschke Road. 1886 was probably before any Waschke had arrived in Whatcom County.

According to the clipping, the right-of-way was for a two-mile stretch, but it didn’t say which two-mile stretch. However, the length is right for a road on the section line from Axton Road to the point where the section line intersects Northwest Drive. This is only guess, but it also corresponds to what I remember hearing about the right-of-way. If my guess is correct, the right-of-way was a public trail, but not all the planned road was built.

The road

I’ve marked on the map the locations of the present Waschke Road, the piece that Gus built according to my father Ted, and where I think the original petition for the right of way was located. There may have been some sort of trail opened before 1900. In the 1950s, there was an wooden bridge over Deer Creek where the right-of-way would have been that was used for cattle and farm equipment. It had washed away by the early 1960s and was not repaired. The old bridge is the only indication that the northern end of the right-of-way was ever used.

The south section

The newspaper clipping suggests that the southern section of the road was built first. That may be true. The clipping mentions a shingle mill where a branch of Silver Creek crosses Waschke Road. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, cedar shingle mills were sprinkled all over the county and the first part of the road may have been built to service the shingle mill.

You can see a gap in the road from Larsen north to the Whatcom County Public Works garage. My guess is that the right-of-way from Larsen Road to the Smith Road was used, but never developed. The entrance to the the Whatcom County Public Works garage is now an extension south of Smith Road to Waschke Road, but that is a later addition. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was no road.

The Northwest Diagonal

Northwest Drive, first called The Northwest Diagonal, was one of the first roads north from Bellingham Bay to the Canadian Border. I suspect it dates from around the Fraser River Goldrush of 1853, which was also about the time Whatcom County was established. The Northwest was the main route to Ferndale before the highway (now I-5) was built. The route turned west at the Axton Road and threaded along Deer Creek and Barrett Lake and across the Nooksack at Ferndale. As I understand it, until Portal Way was built, the main road from Ferndale to Custer and Blaine was what is now Vista Drive.

Gus’s lane

Around 1916 when the Waschke Homestead farmhouse was built, Gus cleared a lane from the house to Waschke Road along the right-of-way. Gus did the work, but the county supplied a few wagon loads of gravel. Over time, the county took more responsibility, adding more gravel and grading several times a year. In the 1950s, the neighbors on the road paid the county to oil the road, cutting down the dust and potholes.

The skidroad

Gus’s lane crossed a skid road marked the southern boundary of the homestead. My father Ted remembered strings of logs pulled by oxen to the Nooksack on the greased skids. I don’t know the route taken to the river, but my grandmother Agnes told me that she covered my dad’s ears so he could not hear the ox skinners cursing at the oxen.

The newspaper clipping, written in the early 1970s says the original petition is stored at the Whatcom County Courthouse. I am planning a visit to the courthouse to find it, if it still exists. I may have something to add to this post when I have seen the original.

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Thrashing In a Bad Year

The marine climate of Whatcom County is mild compared to the Midwest, but it does not guarantee that every crop succeeds. This time of year, late September, my father, Ted, and my grandpa, Gus, worried about rain. A heavy thundershower or a few consecutive days of steady rain could destroy the grain crop, meaning less milk to ship to the dairy, fewer eggs from the chicken house to sell to the grocery stores, and the pigs would not fatten up the way Grandpa liked. A farmer who is not prepared to face a bad crop doesn’t last long on the farm.

Dad and Grandpa never complained about a bad year in my hearing, but I could see it on their faces. One year, probably mid 1950s, the oats were ready to harvest. It had been a good year: the oat heads were heavy and drooping. In those days, Dad and Grandpa grew a traditional mixture of oats and vetch.

Dad went out into the fields after breakfast to check on the oats. I went with him. The days had begun to shorten, the air was cool, and the morning dew was heavy, but the sun burned into the back of my neck. A stiff breeze rattled the dry stalks. Dad thrashed out a head or two of oats in his hand and bit down on a kernel to test its hardness, then spat out the hull. I copied him. He said the oats were ready to cut and we had better get back to the barn and grease the binder.

I know it was the fifties because it was one of the last years Dad used the binder and a thrashing machine. By 1960, he was using a combine and the binder was relegated to the back of the machinery shed until he finally hauled it off for scrap.

I helped Dad by handing him wrenches and the grease gun when he asked for them. By noon, the binder was lubricated, a sickle that Grandpa had sharpened while we greased was mounted, a fresh ball of twine was threaded into the knotter, and the canvas apron that carried the cut grain stalks into the binding mechanism was tight and ready to go. Mom had called a few neighbors on the telephone. They arrived, and we all went in to noon dinner. The bundles from the binder would sit in the field a day or two before the thrashing machine arrived. I seem to remember it was Sorenson’s outfit from Everson.

While the men were eating and drinking coffee, the clouds began to come in from the West, rain clouds coming through the Strait of Juan De Fuca and over Georgia Strait (now called the Salish Sea) from the Pacific where they had loaded up with moisture. Dad cut the back swathe, the first cut around the field in the reverse direction and right up to the fence.

I helped the men pick up the bundles as they came off the binder and set them upright and to the side in shocks, so Dad wouldn’t drive over them when he began cutting in the right direction. All the while, the clouds were darkening and piling up against the hills to the east.

As I remember, Dad cut the back swathe and two rounds before the thunder cracked and rain came down like the clouds were emptying buckets from the sky. The rain flattened the standing oats already bowing under the weight of heads fat with heavy grain. Within a minute, the binder was jammed up with the wet straw that wouldn’t feed, and Dad had to stop. All the crew could do was go home. A few went in to Ferndale to the Cedars Tavern for hands of cutthroat three-hand pinochle in the back room, something Dad or Grandpa never did.

The thunder storm crashed and poured all night. In the morning, the oat field was flattened. The sun didn’t come out for a week and by then grass was growing through the straw and the oat crop was a total loss.

Dad and Grandpa were lucky. They also had a field of wheat that was shorter and a week behind the oats. Dad had wondered if he would have to cut the wheat before it was ready because we would have the thrashing machine for a few days before it moved on to the next job. The shorter stalks stood up to the rain and were not flattened. By the time the sun returned, the wheat was in prime shape and delivered a good crop that didn’t make up for the lost oats, but averted disaster.

It wasn’t the best year, but we made it through.