Category Archives: Historical Places

Our Historical Parks – Hutchison Park, Camano Island

Stanwood and Camano Island have many local parks to enjoy holiday hikes. Almost all of them are historical parks and thanks to many years of interpretation projects, their stories are there to be read.
Our two State Parks plus a few little Island County Parks (Barnum Point, Iverson, English Boom, and Kayak Point on Port Susan are great places to observe wildlife, sunshine and possibly share your memories of the parks and how they were established.

Hutchison Park Camano Island

Hutchison Park, Camano Island

On the South end of Camano Island, the Walter G. Hutchison Park was established in 1979 and is used by neighbors, walkers, and bikers and those who are just on a drive around the island.   It is perhaps our smallest park with a short trail maintained by local volunteers and we know very little about it.  It is located at 3227 South East Camano Drive.

We have been looking into more information to properly document its history and will update this story when we can.  Contact us if you know more information.
Now it has a new feature, it’s own little library in a telephone booth managed by our park volunteers.

Walter G Hutchinson plaque dated 1979.

Walter G Hutchinson plaque dated 1979.

Click to see larger image

 

Little Library in the telephone booth, South End Camano Island

Little Library in the telephone booth, South End Camano Island – Update – Though the Phone booth is still there the library has been discontinued due to vandalism.  The phone booth was installed by a mystery person back in 2018.

 

 

Historic view of Leque Island which is now flooded

Leque Island from bridge to Camano Island over the Ovenell Farm. Snow geese are in the distance. circa 2003

Until the last few weeks if you looked south while driving over the bridge from Stanwood to Leque Island you saw what were once the farms of the Eide, Leque and Smith families.  The island was formed when these farmers came to Stanwood in the late 19th century.  They created the island by diking the wetlands at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River where it forked towards Port Susan to the south and Skagit Bay to the West.  Diking created farmland to grow their hay, oats and wheat.

This view looked over West Pass of the Stillaguamish River toward what was Leque Island.  Dikes that surrounded the “island” were removed this month. Now the island is flooded and there is a raised dike on the North side recently reinforced to protect Stanwood from high tides. The Eide House was still there at the time of the photograph (2003) with snow geese in the background.  Farming became impractical and in the 1990s the families sold their farms to the Washington State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.  For a history of Leque Island read here.

Historical Newspaper offices in Stanwood

Stanwood newspapers were challenged by the renaming of the town(s) it served over the last century. Originally the Stanwood Press, it was also known as the Twin City News and finally the Stanwood Camano News. Until recently it was locally owned but is now part of large of conglomerate of small newspaper companies all over the country.

Its first news office was typical of 19th century storefronts, this one located on Main Street. In front is Attorney Mitchell who published the paper until the early 1910s when it was taken over by “Olsen and [George] Astel”  and later Loren Angevine who owned it until 1930 with G. F. Brown.

In 1931 Brown took over and it was renamed the Twin City News.
In 1939 Brown sold to Horn and Dence who owned it until 1958 when Cliff Danielson took it over in 1958 and who renamed the newspaper the Stanwood
News again.

Stanwood News office building 1920s - 1976

Stanwood News office building 1920s – 1976

 

In 1960 with the consolidation of the towns it was renamed the Stanwood News.  In 1980 it became the Stanwood Camano News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembrance

Recently and just in time for Memorial Day, the Camano Lutheran Cemetery Board  commissioned a new monument at its entry. The old sign had finally deteriorated beyond  saving or fixing, road improvements needed to be made and new landscaping and plantings were added.  Cemetery Board members are a group of four volunteers who manage burials as well as all improvements and documentation such places require.

Camano Lutheran Cemetery, East Camano Dr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The improvements were funded through many donations of time and money by community members and with assistance from the Washington State Historic Cemetery Grant Program.  For a complete list of contributors and more details about the extent of the project, please see this pdf of the report CamanoLutheranCemetery 2019.  The Camano Lutheran Cemetery is located on a hillside and is a quiet place for contemplation and solace.  You may visit any time and tours will be given during the Stanwood Camano Historic Sites tour on Sept 19.

Historic Gas Stations

Glass Tech building about 2003

 

Signal Gas Station

Image donated by a member of the Pearson Family who lived across the street. 2010.40.09

The window company Glass Tech has been at corner of 271st and 102nd NW (west side of Stanwood) since about 1997.  This building and location once served travelers along the Old Pacific Highway (before I-5) .
Before 1924 or so the Old Pacific Highway once wound through the Stillaguamish River Valley towards East Stanwood across the railroad tracks. From the East Stanwood the road went west as it does now toward the waterfront that was the original Stanwood town.  At the corner of 102nd and 271st NW it is said there was a Red Lion Gilmore Gas station that also provided automotive services.  We have little information on this era of the building though the 1918 Sanborn plat map shows the buiiding footprint at this location much as it is today with its storage building in the back.

Manser Wangsness took it over in about 1933 on the rented land from Helen McDougall O’Melia. It was at that time known as the Signal Gas Station.  Manser Wangsness was proprietor until about 1960 and it was locally referred to as Wangsness station or the Stanwood Station.

According to this little ad from the Twin City News in 1948 there was also a auto repair service at this location known as Lee’s Auto Repair operated by Levi Sherk.

1964 or 1965 view of the Flying A gas station era. Image donated by then owner’s daughter. 2015_04

Image of Flying A gas station in 1964 or 65. 2010_40_09

Image of Flying A gas station in 1964 or 65. 2010_40_09

In 1964 it became known as the Signal Gas station and auto repair service and operated by Dick Aldrich.  From the photographs it appears he added the garage on the north side of the building.  In 1972 Howard Moffet opened How D Glass in this building. An article in the Stanwood News Dec 27 1972 says that by then the hand pumps had disappeared. Moffet began in the glass business in Lynnwood before moving to Stanwood in 1971.  (How D Glass moved to another location nearby some time before 1981.)

 

In about 1981 it was a Steve’s VW Service. Another early business in the building was Bingo Auto Polish and in 1997 Glass Tech operated by Susan and Aaron James took it over though the property is leased by an owner who purchased in 2002.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you know more about this building.

Glass Tech – Gas Station turned window company, 2018.

Current Glass Tech building.

Current Glass Tech building.

Brick buildings on the Brick Street

Our Historic brick Main street (270th St) has two of the very few brick buildings in Stanwood.  The two brick buildings side by side on the south side of Main street appear as one building but are two.

The east building in the foreground on the right was built as the Citizens Bank in 1920.  The Citizens bank company merged with the  National Bank of Stanwood in 1921 when the National Bank of Stanwood on Market St moved from its corner location, the banks consolidated to be the First National Bank of Stanwood located in a new building across the street.

The original Citizen’s bank building (10018 270th St NW) was purchased from the bank by Dr. E. G. Wheeler and converted into medical and dental offices.  The lot next door was sold to Ed Peterson who built the new building.  (Stanwood News, Oct 29, 1931).  The tenants that occupied it was first used as the West Coast Telephone Company when it was established soon after 1929 and occupied the building for many years.  West Coast Telephone was one of the many independent community telephone companies that operated in small usually rural communities until 1961 when switchboards were no longer needed.  In this 2018 photograph it is the location of “Wash & Wear Hair”