The 12^th man is alive and excited at Washington State Library.  The 4^th floor windows on the Library’s south side urge the Seahawks to victory in Super Bowl 48!

Need something to read before the big game?  Here are a few books about the Seahawks:

Tales from the Seattle Seahawks sideline:  a collection of the greatest Seahawk stories ever told by Steve Raible.

Super Seahawks:  the story of the Seahawks magical run to the Super Bowl.

Notes from a 12 man:  a truly biased history of the Seattle Seahawks by Mark Tye Turner.

For these titles and other books about the Seahawks, check out your local public library.  Enjoy the game and Go Hawks!

[From the desk of Shirley Lewis. Photos by Sean Lanksbury and Steve Willis]

Willie Keil marker with Grave on top of hill

Territorial Era Love Story, Bucoda 1889

This one is a nice spin on an old story, but the backstory is even more unusual. This was found at random in the Centralia Daily News, August 6, 1889:

THE BOY WON 

In Spite of the Difficulties Placed in His Pathway 

He Saw, He Loved, He Conquered, and is Rewarded, by Securing the Prize He Most Coveted. 

“For a few years past there existed a feeling of warm attachment between Eli Bannse and Nettie Coats, daughter of G.W. Coats, of Bucoda. For some reason best known to himself, the paternal heart did not seem to yearn to any great extent for a son-in-law, in the person of the applicant, and the loving pair found ‘Jordan a hard road to travel.’ But there is that in love which will take possession of a person’s very being, shape their resolves, and cause them to cling to the object of their affections, though death itself should threaten. Parents are very apt not to rightly estimate the strength of attachment thus formed.”

“A few weeks since, Mr. Bannse informed the parents that he had come to marry their daughter, but she was persuaded against taking the step. Bannse was not to be thwarted in that manner, and he arranged with some friends to help him out by a scheme. Last Saturday night there was a dance at Bucoda. Bannse was to play, but excused himself on the ground of sickness in the family, and providing a horse and carriage, waited outside for developments. How his heart must have beat with expectancy. Those few moments he was obliged to remain in suspense, must have seemed hours, for he knew not but what the parents who were present at the dance, would put a quietus on his scheme.”

“He was not doomed to disappointment. Success crowned his efforts. He carried off the prize, and while search was being made to them at every conceivable point, they drove quietly to Mrs. and Mr. Bannse, Sr.’s, farm house, and put up for the Sabbath. Monday morning Lon Ogle went to Chehalis and procured a license, and armed with the license, and accompanied by Justice John A. Taylor of this city, he returned to the waiting couple. By this time it was an afternoon long to be remembered by the participants and witnesses.”

“Justice Taylor says that this was the most romantic marriage that has come under his judicial career.”

“When the judge drove to the house of Mr. Herman Bannse, he found that it was out of his jurisdiction, but found the bride and groom hale and hearty and ‘Barkis is willin’.”

“So they all came back into Lewis county, and selected a nice grove by the way side, on top of a high hill, overlooking the River (Skookumchuck) and the beautiful valley through which it runs, and under a canopy of heaven and in the presence of witnesses, he joined this happy couple in wedlock. Judge says that he has seen marriages performed under marriage bells, arches of flowers, horse shoes, and many other places and implements of torture, especially prepared for the occasion, where, by the expression of the bride and groom not much happiness seem to exist, but on this occasion under the tall fir trees, cedars and maples, while nature in all its glory seemed to smile upon all present, while the birds of the forest did not forget to give their songs of praise, and indeed happiness (Eureka) was plainly stamped upon the faces of this young couple, as they took the midnight train for Portland. Happiness and success is the expression of all their friends and acquaintances.”

“The couple have a host of friends at Bucoda, who are glad to see the consummation of the marriage.”

“It must not be understood that we wish to cast any reflections upon Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Coats, who as far as we can learn, are worthy and respectable people, but the general opinion seems to be that they were mistaken in this matter.”

Eli Bannse and Nettie Coates were indeed married by Justice Taylor in Lewis County, August 5, 1889. Herman Bannse and A.E. Ogle were the official witnesses. The marriage certificate is available for viewing courtesy of the Washington State Digital Archives. At the time they were married, Elias Bannse was 27, Nettie was 18. They moved to Everett, then to Huntington Beach, Calif. by 1910, and landed in Centralia by 1914. Eli, who as we could see in the above article was a musician, was active in the town band. Nettie died in 1924, and Eli moved to Yakima to be close to their daughter, Madeline. Eli died in Yakima in 1935.

Herman Bannse, Eli’s father, turns up in C.B. Mann’s project, Thurston County Pioneers Before 1870. Herman had been part of the Keil party. The sect, called Bethelites and led by a charismatic German named Dr. William Keil left Bethel, Missouri for the Pacific Northwest in 1855. Just a few days before departure, Willie Keil, the Doctor’s 19 year old son, died as a result of malaria. Honoring Willie’s wishes to accompany the family out West, he was transported the entire distance in a lead-lined coffin filled with 100 proof Golden Rule whisky.

Tombstone Willey’s

The Keil party settled in Pacific County for a brief time. And it was here, near present day Menlo, Washington, that Willie Keil was laid to rest. A marker on the road near the grave is there today to tell the story. Across the road, last time I went through there, was a tavern called TombStone Willey’s.

Not finding the Willapa area to their liking, the group moved south to the Aurora Colony in Oregon, leaving Willie behind. Herman Bannse and Willie Keil, who were the same age, were first cousins. Herman’s mother was Dr. Keil’s sister. While in Oregon, Herman married fellow Keil Party member Margaret Bergman in 1860. Four years later they moved to Bucoda.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Deep in the basement of the Evergreen State College on Cooper Point outside of Olympia is a room that appears to have once hummed with the sound of giant computers. But now all that is left is one lonely server, along with a few dust bunnies.

You wouldn’t know to look at it, but this machine hosts the consortium catalog for the Washington State Library, The Evergreen State College, and Saint Martins University. By the end of this December all three libraries will be moving to newer frontiers. Evergreen and St. Martins  will be joining a larger alliance with other Pacific Northwest academic libraries, and WSL family of libraries will go solo.

We will continue using the Innovative Millennium system, but our server will change and as a result our public catalog will look different. This change gives us an opportunity to reshape our services a bit more for our particular customer base.

It seems inevitable this kind of migration will have bumps here and there. Hopefully we’ll have them ironed out quickly. Library users attempting to use the system to place holds or make changes on their account on Dec. 2-3 are advised to wait until Dec. 4.

Once our new catalog is up and running, please take a look and send us your feedback and/or questions. I can be contacted at:

[email protected]

(360) 704-5276

Ever hear of the town of Stanley, Washington? No? Well, don’t feel bad. It had a lifespan of only six years but in that brief time was the springboard for ambitious plans. The following article was found at random in The Chehalis Nugget, June 4, 1897:

STANLEY TOWNSITE SOLD

City of Boom Days to be Converted Into a Chicken Ranch

“Captain John Riddell has sold to C.C. Rosenburg the townsite of Stanley, Pacific county, in which a number of Chehalis men once owned lots, and it will be converted into a cattle and chicken ranch. The purchase price is $2500. Capt. Riddell acquired the land under a mortgage given him by Chas. Holm, the original owner, who sold it to the Stanley Land and Improvement Company. O.B. Gentry and T.D. Yerrington, the latter a prominent railroad man of Nevada, were the prime movers in the scheme, and Senator Stewart of Nevada was a stockholder. A wharf was built, four or five buildings erected, including a hotel, and considerable clearing done.”

“It was proposed to make Stanley the terminus of a railroad which should run up the Cowlitz river valley to its headwaters, where anthracite coal beds are known to exist, but not a spadeful of dirt was ever turned in the construction of said road. Lots were sold for as high as $500, and the townsite at one time was considered worth at least $500,000. Over $7,000 was taken in by the company on sales of lots under contract, but by the time the final payments were made the company was unable to give a clear title to the lots, as the original mortgage had never been taken up. Suits were instituted by the purchasers of lots for their money, but the company escaped judgment, as it never had been legally incorporated.”

“J.J. Caffee, a neighboring rancher who had invested his all in Stanley lots, went insane over the failure of his castles in the air to materialize, and bitter disappointment affected the mind of Holm, who today, with his family, keeps lonely vigil over what was once his homestead, and refuses to believe that he has lost his title to it.”

“As a ranch Stanley townsite has few superiors in the county. Its 54 acres of tide land were diked in by the original owner, and the boomers cleared and grubbed a considerable portion of the upland.”

Stanley was located on the Stanley Peninsula, on the mainland just east of Long Island, home of the current Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. The townsite was about five miles northwest of Naselle and very close to where present day US 101 crosses the Naselle River [pictured].

Charles H. Holm left his native Finland in 1863 and worked as a sailor for eight years before settling in the Naselle area. He died in 1921. More information on the town of Stanley can be found in Nasel 1878–Naselle 1978 : the Naselle Centennial Book:

“Charles M. Holm [elsewhere he’s Charles H. Holm] visualized a great seaport city at the mouth of the Nasel on Shoalwater Bay. He had sounded the depth of the Bay when he explored there in 1871, and he had determined the feasibility of deep sea ships crossing the bar to the Pacific Ocean. Holm then filed a claim on the adjacent 160 acres of government land as a site for his seaport city, Stanley.”

“The 1893 writers noted that Holm’s estimates were: ‘fully verified (by government surveys) … The harbor is an almost perfect one … The town of Stanley possesses all the natural requirements of a great seaport city and gives promise of a brilliant future. Its location is one of the finest on the coast.'”

“Stanley was to be the terminus of the Stanley, Cascade and Eastern Railroad, incorporated Nov. 1890. The company consisted of Holm, three U.S. Senators, a railroad president, a railroad supervisor-engineer, and a Lewis County banker. Holm gave two-thirds of his land tract for a townside. A hotel, wharf and several homes were erected and streets laid out.”

“The town was highly promoted as ‘The Seattle of Shoalwater bay,’ and in other equally glowing terms. But Stanley’s life span was brief. Shrewd promoters bilked stockholders, and Holm lost the suit and his investment. But he moved up river, established a farm and a home with a growing family.”

“Stanley, also known as Chetlo Harbor, was eventually put on the auction block. Some lots were sold for delinquent taxes, others were held by their Eastern owners for several years. The marketable timber was auctioned off in 1952 by Pacific County.”

The same site was later eyed for another scheme, a town named Napoleon. According to Larry J. Weathers in Place Names of Pacific County:

“NAPOLEON: Early real estate promotion on Stanley Point at the mouth of the Naselle River. Napoleon “The City of Destiny” was platted in 1910 by the Willapa Trust Company, F.A. Lucas, president. Portland promoters, with Spokane money, planned a city of 100,000 inhabitants to populate the barren townsite in 10 years. The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported that the promoters intended to outdo Denver’s ‘built in a night’ fame.  Plans called for the construction of a paper mill, two sawmills, a box factory, and furniture factories to provide jobs. The name was chosen by the Willapa Trust Company. Some sources say the name was bestowed in honor of architect Napoleon de Grace Dion who had platted the downtown district of Raymond in 1904. It is also possible the name was suggested by Spokane investors who made a great deal of money at the Napoleon Mine on Kettle River (Colville Indian Reservation) in the 1890s. Stanley Point was the site of several real estate sales schemes. The earliest land sales were for lots in the Town of Stanley in 1890.”

The neighbor who “went insane” seems like an interesting character. Joseph J. Caffee, would have been around 60 in 1897, was a Union Army Civil War veteran who also used the name John Gaines. I found a curious reference to him in the Christmas 1891 issue of The Dalles Weekly Chronicle:

“J.J. Caffee, of Stanley, Pacific county, publishes a singular letter in the Pacific Journal, in which he informs his friends that should he be found dead, or disappear in some mysterious manner, they will find a letter in his safe that will tell them the cause. He states that his life has been threatened, and if anything happens to him he hopes his friends will bring the guilty party to justice.”

Now that is a story worth digging into! WSL does hold some issues of the Pacific Journal, Oysterville’s newspaper, but none in 1891.