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.