Flagler's guns come ashore at Marrowstone Point

My favorite place to visit here on the Olympic Peninsula is Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island. The former coast artillery fort is now a state park offering the best views of Puget Sound you can hope to find, including powerful currents and marine wildlife to watch, historical military structures to explore, and let’s toss in a lighthouse (well, sort of) for good measure. All these features make it an endlessly entertaining place to visit for a day, a weekend, or longer.

The historical photo for today’s blog post really blew my mind when I first saw it. It's a shot of Marrowstone Point from 1898, when Fort Flagler was under construction. I hope you enjoy my now photo, but you really should go to Jefferson County Historical Society’s site and look at the original historical photo. There are so many fascinating details to spot. Those are enormous cannon barrels being brought ashore from a barge on the beach. And in the distance on the left is the Marrowstone Light Station keeper's residence.

Marrowstone Point at Fort Flagler in 1898 and 2020
(Historical photo courtesy of Jefferson County Historical Society) 

Construction of Fort Flagler began in 1897 but the U.S. government was active here a decade earlier in the interest of maritime safety. A light to guide mariners has shone at Marrowstone Point in one form or another since 1888, but not from the traditional lighthouse tower that most of us would think of. Starting with a lens lantern mounted on a pole, the light eventually was erected atop a 20 ft. concrete building where it has been located since 1918. 

The light keeper's residence in both our now and then photos has acted as sentinel, standing at the shoreline since 1896. Just offshore, Puget Sound's unwieldy winds and dense fog can make navigating the strong currents rushing through narrow Admiralty Inlet a harrowing experience for vessels of any size. One calamitous event happened here in 1892 when the freighter S.S. Willamette rammed the S.S. Premier at full speed, killing five and injuring 18. Although neither ship sank, the damage to the Premier was significant to say the least. Take a look for yourself.  😮

The light still shines, now automated, but since the mid-1970s the site and structures have primarily served federal scientific research as the U.S. Geological Survey’s Marrowstone Marine Field Station. Their current work is focused on fish and overall marine ecosystem health. The light keeper's residence provides lodging for visiting scientists.

Marrowstone Point 1895 map
(National Archives)

I have not been able to track down information on the barn or other buildings we see in the historical photo. But on a map of the fort from 1913, the buildings are labeled as “old stables” and “old laundry.” Structures also appear on a map from 1895, but have no information. If anyone knows more, please share.

Fort Flagler 1913 map
(National Archives)

In addition to these maps, the National Archives website has several interesting photos including the document below showing the earlier structure on which the light was placed, and the front of the keeper's quarters with its fog bell. Both structures still stand and can be seen today (minus the bell).

1915 images of Marrowstone Point Light Station
(National Archives)

Sources: 

• https://www.historylink.org/File/5702
  https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=109
• "Fort Flagler, Over 100 years of History," A Friends of Fort Flagler publication, 3rd Edition, January 2013

Ennis Creek, A look down from above

1887 photo of the mouth of Ennis Creek on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Photo from the Bert Kellogg collection, hosted by the North Olympic Library System.

The perspective above, of the mouth of Ennis Creek on the central Strait near present day Port Angeles, really intrigues me.  Not only does this photo date to 1887, which is an old image for this part of Washington, but it is also looking down on the creek mouth and hamlet from above...a somewhat rare perspective for old photos like this.  The area around the Ennis Creek mouth has been heavily used, and modified, over time: Originally a Klallam village site, then the settlement site for the Puget Sound Cooperative Colony (shown in the 1887 photo above), then utterly transformed by the construction of the Rayonier Mill in 1927.  The site is now home to the Olympic Discovery Trail, and also is the site of an active toxic clean-up program.  As a consequence, the landscape now looks very different:

September 18, 2020 photo of the mouth of Ennis Creek, looking down from bluffs to the west of the site.

 

Where once there was a beach....

Filling the former beaches and estuaries of Washington's coast to create the urban shorelines that we now see has to be one of the single biggest changes made to our coastal landscape in the historical period.  Fill is ubiquitous along urban shorelines in the Salish Sea...and I often assume that the process of filling these shorelines, which basically involved moving massive quantities of mixed sediment into the intertidal zone, must have been traumatic to the coastal ecosystems.  This set of photos from near the mouth of Valley Creek in Port Angeles also clearly illustrates just the simple loss of habitat that filling brought with it.  This is an interesting view looking landward from the very mouth of the creek, taken I'm guessing in the late 1800's:

Looking landward from near the mouth of Valley Creek, Port Angeles.  Photo from the Bert Kellogg collection, hosted by the North Olympic Library System.

The photo itself focused on the first electric light generating station in Port Angeles, in the white building on the hill.  But it also provides a view of the former shoreline near Valley Creek.  The perspective from the location is now quite different:

4 March 2014 photo by Ian Miller

The modern view really hammers home the massive changes that filling has wrought on Washington's urban shorelines.

Another view of Ozette

I posted about the Makah village of Ozette a few weeks back, and went back out to the site last week to do some survey work with staff from the Makah Tribe.  While there I had the chance to replicate a historical picture of the village that was given to me by Paul Gleeson, former Cultural Resources Director for Olympic National Park, and former site manager at the Ozette archeological dig (Paul is mentioned in this article about the dig).  So Paul passed on this photo, that he suggested was likely taken in the late 1800's or early 1900's:

To be clear, I DON'T know where this photo came from, or who to credit for its appearance here (if a reader does know more about this photo, please reach out).  But it is such an interesting perspective on the village site, as it is shot from Tskawahyah Island, so provides some sense for both the southern stretch of the village site, and also what the village would have looked like approaching from the sea (which presumably was the way that most people arrived and left from the village back at this time).  Here is the contemporary view from the same spot:

View of the Ozette Village site taken on 24 August 2020

This modern photo was obviously taken at a lower tide, but some of the sea-stacks, and even individual boulders and small rocks in the inter-tidal are shared in both photos.  There are obvious differences in the vegetation on the slopes behind the village - probably not a surprise given how many people lived here.  What I really like about the historic photo, though, is it provides a sense for how far south on this point people lived...well into the area that is now part of Olympic National Park and heavily used by backpackers for camping.  

Ballard Shoreline Aerial Comparisons - 1940 and 2020

 Here's a fun comparison of the 1940's Ballard / Seattle shoreline and the current view from Google Earth.  

The now view is of the Seaview Avenue shoreline at the entry to Salmon Bay and Shilshole Bay at the location of the now Ray's Boathouse, former Anthony's, Ballard Elks Club, Sunset West Condos and the south corner of Shilshole Bay Marina.  

The bit of land across the channel is the NE corner of the Magnolia neighborhood.  

The 1940 view shows a different less developed shoreline with the reindeer ship, the SS Bering beached in front of the now Elks Club.  In the 1940's, the Tregoning Boat Company was located there.  

I believe the Ballard ferry landing was just south of (or above here) of Ray's Boathouse (to Port Ludlow and Suquamish).

The older photo also shows more beach homes across from Seaview Ave. Only a few are left now along with a few condos and misc buildings.  

From a surfing perspective, Point Shilshole is the point of land jutting out in the older photo. There's a nice wind swell rolling in and whitewater just offshore and along the shore.  

Looks like a good surf spot. We surf freighter and wind waves on Shilshole Bay so without the extra development and marina, we'd have one more downwinding and shore break spot!

Below is a Now and Then view from the Ballard Elks Lodge with the SS Bering looking out into Shilshole Bay. The ship was burned to make way for development in the early 1960'.  Now view from the Ballard Elks Sunset Cam.

Ballard Boat Works 1905 and Present

Sivert Engelsen Sagstad, a young Norwegian boat builder emigrated to Seattle and opened Ballard Boat Works, pictured here on lower Salmon Bay, pre-Locks in 1905.

I paddle past this shoreline weekly and have been trying to look for any early evidence of his boatyard and as well as any Shilshole tribal evidence which was prevalent along the shoreline prior to the boatyard.

When the Ballard Locks were being developed some of the shoreline below the boatyard was removed. In the 1905 mage, note that the shoreline had a gentle slope to the water.  In the Now images, the shoreline is shorter and abruptly drops to the water. 

Read more about Sagstad and the 70' Viking ship replica in this article from HistoryLink..  Read the HistoryLink story 

Ballard Boat Works in 1905 and 'Now' view from Seaview Picnic Park

'Now' view from Seaview Picnic Park (location of yellow arrow)

2020 view of approx Ballard Boat Works location.  Photo: Salmon Bay Paddle

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Dungeness Spit: The Lighthouse, Part 1

Yesterday I wrapped up the last of three days of annual shoreline survey work on Dungeness Spit, which took me out to the lighthouse area.  The scene here is completely different than what you find on Ediz Hook, in the sense that visiting the lighthouse on Dungeness Spit is a lesson in constancy...at least over the historical period.  Here is what I mean.  This is a photo from the turn of the century (exact date unknown) of the lighthouse complex on the end of Dungeness Spit:

Turn of the century photograph of the New Dungeness Lighthouse, originally built in 1857.  Photo from the Bert Kellogg collection, hosted by the North Olympic Library System.  

Here is roughly the same view (I didn't get the perspective quite right), approximately 120 years later:

7 June 2020 photograph of the New Dungeness Lighthouse.

Its amazing to me how much is similar between these two photos.  I'm sure there is a long story behind how this amazing set of structures has been preserved, but my suspicion is that a lot of the credit probably goes to the New Dungeness Light Station Association, an organization dedicated to the maintenance of this place.  

There are, of course, some interesting differences that I didn't note until I had the chance to examine these photos carefully.  First off, the light tower itself is shorter...apparently due to a tower shortening project conducted in 1927 (see the history assembled here).  A few buildings are missing - a fog signal building and privy, for example, that are shown in the historic image above aren't in the modern view.  In the historic view you can also make out a tram on rails that ran to a dock, and was used for transporting supplies from off-loading ships to the lighthouse.  There is no trace of that tram in the modern photo above though you can find bits and pieces of it still scattered in the adjacent dunes:

4 August 2020 photo looking east from a point west of the New Dungeness Lighthouse, showing what I take to be pieces of an old tram used to move supplies between a dock and the lighthouse.