The Collapsed I-5 Skagit River Bridge Was Built in the 1960s not 1955

Friday morning, about 5 minutes after I learned of the collapse of the I-5 Bridge over the Skagit River in my old hometown zone of Mount Vernon and Burlington, I have been perplexed  by an erroneous bit of information that seems to be being universally accepted, that being that this bridge was built in 1955.

I have seen this error in the Skagit Valley Herald, KOMO News online, the Seattle P-I, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News (which one expects to be wrong) and virtually everywhere I've read anything about the bridge collapse.

Including Wikipedia. Within the last 24 hours Wikipedia has updated their Interstate 5 in Washington article with the bride collapse info.

Plus, Wikipedia has added an I-5 Skagit River Bridge Collapse article, which, as you can see via the screen cap on the left, also says the bridge opened in 1955.

My nephew Jason has contacted the Skagit Valley Herald pointing out that 1955 is not the correct date. Part of a reply that Jason received this morning from the Skagit Valley Herald...

The Federal Highway Administration and the National Bridge Inventory Database show the bridge having been built in 1955. I suppose that doesn’t mean it started being used then, and I’m told it was not part of the Interstate yet at that point; that part came later as the rest of I-5 was constructed.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower championed America building an Interstate System. The construction of the Interstate Freeway System was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.

1956.

So, are we to believe that for some unfathomable reason a bridge to nowhere was built across the Skagit River in 1955, in anticipation of a new federal program being passed a year later, then awaiting the arrival of the Interstate Highway about a decade later?

I remember the I-5 Skagit River Bridge getting built. I was not old enough to remember anything getting built in 1955.

I remember the Ship Canal I-5 Bridge being built in Seattle, seeing the construction from the Aurora Bridge. This was a year or two after the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. And before the Interstate started being constructed in the Skagit Valley.

This repeating misinformation that the Skagit River I-5 Bridge was built in 1955 is as absurdly obviously wrong as if the Space Needle somehow came crashing down, with news articles saying it was built in 1951, when it was actually built in the early 60s, completed by the opening of the World's Fair.

I've talked to many people who remember this bridge getting built, and that construction taking place in the 1960s, not the 1950s, let alone a year before the federal act that brought about the Interstate System was passed into law.

Concrete Washington's War of the Worlds

This morning I was reading Wikipedia's The War of the World's article about Orson Welle's Mercury Theater October 30, 1938 (Halloween) production of H.G. Well's War of the Worlds.

Orson Welle's radio version of The War of the Worlds is infamous due to the fact that it caused listeners across America, to panic, who thought they were listening to real time news about a Martian invasion.

The following blurb, in the article's section titled "Public Reaction" surprised me, due to the reference to a town in the Skagit Valley named Concrete. Growing up in the Skagit Valley I do not remember ever hearing of this interesting tidbit of Concrete history...

In Concrete, Washington, phone lines and electricity went out due to a short-circuit at the Superior Portland Cement Company's substation. Residents were unable to call neighbors, family or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the news-wire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide.

The Wikipedia Concrete, Washington article has way more detail about the War of the World's incident.....

Orson Welles' War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast

On October 30, 1938, Seattle's CBS affiliate radio stations KIRO and KVI broadcast Orson Welles' now famous War of the Worlds radio drama. While this broadcast was heard around the country, some of the most terrified listeners were in Concrete.

At the point of the drama where the Martian invaders were invading towns and the countryside with flashes of light and poison gases, a power failure suddenly plunged almost the entire town of 1,000 into darkness. Some listeners fainted while others grabbed their families to head up into the mountains. Other more enterprising locals headed for the surrounding hills to guard their moonshine stills. One man was said to have jumped up out of his chair and, in bare feet, run the two miles (3 km) from his home to the center of town. Some of the men grabbed their guns, and one businessman – a devout Catholic – got his wife into the family car, drove to the nearest service station and demanded gasoline. Without paying the attendant, he rushed off to Bellingham (some forty-miles away) in order to see his priest for a last-minute absolution of sins. The distraught man reportedly told the gas-station attendant that paying for the gas "[wouldn't] make any difference, everyone is going to die!".

Because the phone lines (as well the electricity) were out, the town's residents were unable to call neighbors, family, or friends to verify that their fears were legitimate. Of course, the real story was not as fantastic as the fictional radio drama – all that had occurred was that the Superior Portland cement company's electrical sub-station suffered a short-circuit with a flash of brilliant light, and all the town's lights went dark. The more conservative radio-listeners in Concrete (who had been listening to Charlie McCarthy on another station), attempted to calm neighbors, reporting that they hadn't heard a thing about any "disaster". Reporters heard soon after of the coincidental blackout of Concrete, and sent the story out over the international newswire and soon the town of Concrete was known (if only for a moment) worldwide.

So, there you have it, The War of the Worlds in Concrete, Washington.

The Fidalgo Drive-In Has The Best Hamburger In Anacortes

Last night I heard from Spencer Jack, via email, that his dad's Fidalgo Drive-In in Anacortes has been determined by the voting local population to have the BEST HAMBURGER in town.

I do not remember the last time one of my relatives made any town's BEST BURGER.

I feel like I should drop in on the Fidalgo Drive-In for lunch today and have myself a burger.

Looking at the Burger Menu I think I will opt for the Tillamook Bacon Cheddar Burger, with two all-beef patties, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle, melted Tillamook Cheddar Cheese and bacon.

But, I am also a great fan of Bleu Cheese, with makes the Bleu Cheese Red Onion Deluxe, with two all beef patties, blue cheese dressing, lettuce, tomato, red onion and melted blue cheese crumbles, very tempting.

In my current residential location, deep in the heart of Texas, in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, I have not found any restaurant of the Fidalgo Drive-In sort, with Pacific Northwest type seafood on the menu.

I'm thinking, in addition to having the BEST BURGER in Anacortes, I should also have something from the Seafood part of the Fidalgo Drive-In menu.

SEAFOOD BASKETS come with Steak Fries, Garlic Bread, Fresh Coleslaw and a choice of  Dungeness Crab Bisque or Clam Chowder.

I think I will try and convince Spencer Jack's dad to let me have both the Dungeness Crab Bisque and Clam Chowder, along with the Seafood Combo of Cod, Prawns, Oysters & Clam Strips. I can not remember the last time I've had Cod, Prawns, Oysters or Clam Strips.

I also don't remember the last time I had a Root Beer Float.

Or a Blackberry Milkshake.

Blackberry is my favorite milkshake flavor.

I wonder if Spencer Jack will be at the Fidalgo Drive-In today, helping make the Root Beer Floats?

I've not seen Spencer Jack since last March.

It'd be a really fine thing to have lunch today in Anacortes, with Spencer Jack and his dad at the Fidalgo Drive-In....

I Am Looking For A Lost & Found Thriftique In Tacoma

This 1st day of February of 2013 is the day Tacoma's newest store is having its Grand Opening. That being the Lost & Found Thriftique, located in Tacoma's Stadium District at 118 Tacoma Avenue North.

Open from 10 am til 6 pm.

You can call 253.590.8384 or go to Facebook for more details.

Two of my favorite Tacowomans, Connie DB, aka the Original Tacoma Lulu, and Andrea Haug are the proprietresses of this latest store to join downtown Tacoma's growing number of Vintage Thrift Flea Market type stores, which are starting to give Tacoma a bit of a reputation as a destination for this type of shopping.

I was scheduled to be in Tacoma today for the Grand Opening of Lost & Found Thriftique, but last minute complications thwarted my plans.

However, I suspect I will be making a visit, sooner, rather than later.

Shocked & Appalled to Learn About Seattle's Coon Chicken Inn

I first saw the image you see on the left about a month ago in a movie called Ghost World.

Ghost World is an amusing movie.

The Ghost World world premiere occurred on June 16, 2001 at the Seattle International Film Festival, where one of the actresses in the movie, Thora Birch, won the Golden Space Needle Best Actress Award.

The Coon Chicken Inn ad poster played a key plot point in the Ghost World movie. I thought the Coon Chicken Inn ad poster was a bit, well, offensive, as did some people in the movie, which is why it was a key plot point.

I assumed something as offensive as the Coon Chicken Inn ad poster was just a movie fabrication.

And then, last night, I watched another movie, that being C.S.A: The Confederate States of America. The idea behind this movie is that the South won the War of Northern Aggression, with the Confederates taking over the entire country and then most of the Western Hemisphere, except for Canada.

C.S.A is done like a mocu-mentary, complete with breaking for fake "ads". One of the ads was for the Coon Chicken Inn. I sat there watching this feeling totally bum puzzled, thinking is this a real thing?

And then, at the end of the movie a title comes on the screen saying something like, "The following actually happened in the United States of America following the Civil War into the 1950's." Or words to that effect.

Starting with the Civil War, the movie then shows the viewer things that one thought must have been fiction, but were actually real, like the Coon Chicken Inn.

And then, when the movie was a bit more specific about the Coon Chicken Inn, I became totally appalled. I figured this restaurant chain must have been located in the South. Like at a place like Fort Worth, Texas.

I was wrong.

The first Coon Chicken Inn opened in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1925, followed 4 years later by another Coon Chicken Inn.

In Seattle!

That's right, a Coon Chicken Inn opened in Seattle, on Lake City Way, to instant success, even with the Great Depression soon being depressing.

And then the next year, 1930, a Coon Chicken Inn opened on Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon.

All three Coon Chicken Inns were a booming success, with Seattle soon adding a cabaret and orchestra and Salt Lake City expanding its dining room.

The restaurant's specialty was southern fried "Coon Chicken," plus sandwiches, chicken pot pies, burgers, chili and seafood.

Black people were employed as waiters, waitresses, cooks and cleanup crews, but were seldom seated as customers.

The racist genius behind the Coon Chicken Inn concept was a man named Maxon Lester Graham.

Maxon figured out he needed a gimmick to get kids to want to come to his new restaurants. So, he came up with the brilliant idea that kids would like to walk through an entrance with a huge, winking, grinning face of a black man in a porter's cap. Coon Chicken Inn was spelled out in his teeth, with the doorway being through the head's mouth.

This giant head became the logo for the Coon Chicken Inn, with variations of it showing up on all sorts of items, like dishes, silverware, napkins and menus. These have become collector's items worth so much money that there is a black market of faked Coon Chicken Inn memorabilia.

As one might expect, in the eventually very progressive, liberal states of Washington and Oregon, something called the Coon Chicken Inn would eventually become controversial.

Above civil rights protesters are protesting in front of the Seattle Lake City Way Coon Chicken Inn. I believe this was some time in the 1950's.

By the late 1950's Maxon and his wife decided to get out of the restaurant business.

The Seattle Coon Chicken Inn became Ying's Drive-In. The Salt Lake City location became something called the Chuck-A-Rama and the Portland restaurant became the Prime Rib.

Today I learned in Seattle there is something called the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project.

The Project has a website.

On that Project's website there is a webpage devoted to the Coon Chicken Inn, titled "The Coon Chicken Inn: North Seattle's Beacon of Bigotry."

I can remember having pancakes at various Sambo's restaurants, back before it was realized that Sambo's was a bit inappropriate, with protests, over that inappropriateness, eventually leading to the demise of Sambo's.

I don't ever remember having fried chicken at the Seattle Coon Chicken Inn before it closed. Probably because it was before my time.

Spencer Jack is Picking Strawberries Somewhere in the Skagit Valley

From photo evidence I found minutes ago on Facebook, it appears my Great Nephew Spencer Jack has taken a liking to picking strawberries.

And eating them whilst picking.

I do not know whose strawberry field Spencer Jack is picking in. I do know it is somewhere in the Skagit Valley of Washington.

I suspect, maybe, Spencer Jack is doing his picking and eating at Ole and Sven's.

Ole and Sven are known for having the sweetest strawberries in the Skagit Valley.

Maybe Spencer Jack is at the Sakuma Market Stand. The Sakumas also grow some very sweet strawberries. Tess Sakuma was the sweetest Sakuma I knew when I was in high school.

Maybe Spencer Jack is picking strawberries at his Great Grandpa/Great Grandma's field. Spencer's Great Grandpa and Great Grandma's raspberries used to be the sweetest in the Skagit Valley. I suspect Spencer's Great Grandpa and Great Grandma have likely retired from the berry growing business.

When I was a kid, in summer, kids just a little older than Spencer Jack were loaded onto buses and brought to the fields of the Skagit Valley to help harvest the strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and cucumber crops. And likely some crops I'm not remembering.

Child labor laws have since made it a no-no for young kids to work the fields.

I remember it as fun, for the most part, particularly picking cucumbers while laying on a padded board on an automatic cucumber picking machine.

Strawberry fights were also fun, though those could get you in trouble.

Ocean Shores Washington

The above postcard arrived a couple days ago, sent by my favorite aunt, who had just had fun weathering a severe winter storm, or two, at my cousin's place in Ocean Shores.

I don't remember, for sure, the last time I've been to Ocean Shores on the Washington Coast. My best guess is August of 2004, when I drove from Tacoma to the coast, hoping to go to a lunch buffet at the Quinault Beach Resort, at the north end of Ocean Shores.

When I was a kid my three favorite places to go on a family camping trip were Sun Lakes State Park, in Eastern Washington, Honeyman State Park, on the Oregon Coast, to play on the Oregon Dunes and to the Ocean Shores zone of the Washington Pacific Coast.

The modern era of Ocean Shores, as a town and a real estate development, began back in the late 1950s. At the time, it was believed, by many, that the Washington State Legislature would soon legalize casino gambling. And so Ocean Shores Development Corporation begun selling lots.

My Brother, Sister-In-Law, Big Ed & Sister
In Front Of The Catala Shipwreck

Soon a bit of a gold rush erupted as rumors spread of a California type development at a place called Ocean Shores. As lots sold, roads were built.

Soon, Hollywood's Ginny Simms opened a restaurant and nightclub. This brought in celebrities. On Ginny Simms' opening night chartered planes flew in Hollywood stars by the dozens, with thousands turning out in Ocean Shores to catch a glimpse.

Simpler times.

By late 1960, 25 miles of canals were planned, along with a golf course, mall, motels, more restaurants and an airport.

The ill-fated S.S. Catala was brought up from California to serve as a "boatel." Two years later a strong winter storm grounded the Catala, turning her into the most famous shipwreck on the Washington Coast.

Big Ed Climbing a Catala Smokestack While
My Brother & Sister Lean

Crooner Pat Boone became a resident in 1967. In 1969 Ocean Shores was dubbed the "Richest Little City in America" due to the assessed property value of its 900 residents.

Eventually the S.S. Catala became a bit of a hazard. In the late 1980s a girl fell through the shipwreck's rusted deck, resulting in a broken back and her family suing the State of Washington. The State then ordered the ship to be removed to sand level. But then, a series of storms gradually unburied what remained of the Catala.  In 2006 a beachcomber saw that oil was leaking from the wreck. The Washington State Department of Ecology then sealed off the area and removed the remains of the S.S. Catala.

Below is a blurb I gleaned from an Ocean Shores website that does a good job of characterizing Ocean Shores in the year 2012...

Ocean Shores is the top coastal destination in Washington State & boasts over a thousand  rooms in a variety of hotel & condominium complexes that line the beaches as well as a  population of over 5,000 full time residents. With more than six miles of flat, easily accessible ocean beaches & 23 miles of interconnected freshwater lakes and canals - coupled with plenty of recreation & leisure opportunities - it's easy to see why millions visit annually & people more than ever are relocating to settle in for a true oceanfront lifestyle. A brand new elementary school, a new multi-million dollar convention center, an 18-hole championship golf course, brand-new, freshly-paved roads, clean air, gorgeous views, an abundance of wildlife, small-town charm, great restaurants, tons of fishing, clamming & a casino on the beach are just a few of  the reasons why Ocean Shores is hotter than ever - even in this economy. If you're looking to just enjoy yourself at the beach, search for some real estate in the likes of a beach cabin, condo, vacant camping lot, getaway pad or even a fulltime house, you've come to the right place. See you on the beach!