There are countless little towns along the coast of Washington. If you have a destination in mind, these are only places to pass through on the way to somewhere else. I was half way through town when the art caught my attention. It wasn't that I missed it all to begin with. I had noticed it, but then became aware that it was all over and I really looked at it and on the way back I wanted photos. I wanted to know more about this little town. What was its history? Who was the artist? But what I discovered when I arrived home was pretty much what I have come to expect after a few on line explorations. Some places seem only to have an advertisement page with no real meat to the story. So I started digging to learn about this little coastal town.
Raymond, Washington is the Gateway to the Willipa River and Willipa Bay. Willipa Harbor was once the heart of a huge stand of cedar, fir, hemlock and spruce. Some 30 billion board feet according to one source. It was a matter of time before the harvesters would become aware of that fortune. And a matter of time before little was left - of the original treasure and the town it spawned.
One of the first settlers in the area was Captain John Vail. After his ship, the Willimanticc, wrecked off Gray's Harbor in 1853, he settled on a Donation Land Claim on the Willipa River. Captain George Johnson, came to Oregon from Norway in 1861 and got the contract to deliver mail between Astoria and Olympia.. He moved to Oysterville and got the contract to deliver mail from there across the bay and up the Willipa to Giesy's Crossing. On one trip up river in 1870, Johnson noticed land for sale and purchased 178 acres. The following year he bought an adjacent 116 acres from the Northern Pacific Railroad. The largest part of his land was muddy tidelands, but the high land where Johnson built a home was known as Johnson Island. Captain George Johnson married Lucy Paulding and moved to the new home where Stella was born in 1875. The family didn't stay long however, they moved back to Oysterville. Stella returned to the island home with her husband, Leslie Raymond, in 1889.
In 1892, The Northern Pacific Railroad laid tracks over the mudflats below the island. Eight years later, Alexander C. Little rowed a boat to the tide flats and decided the Willipa Forks was an ideal location for a town. He talked to Leslie about selling a portion of his father-in-law's old homestead. Leslie formed the Raymond Land and Development Company to survey a townsite, sell property, build sawmills and encourage other business and industry to the area. The first buildings were erected on stilts five to six feet above the tidelands. Elevated sidewalks and streets connected most of the buildings. Raymond was founded in one of the most fertile tree growing regions in the world and the lumber industry became one of the leading economic means for support.
The big boom is over, the lumber barons gone, the forrests recovering. Raymond could be my home town - off the beaten path, small, relaxed and homey. At least that is the feeling I got in my brief drive through. I noticed those rusted deer and eagles and they were nice, but what really caught my attention were the wagon teams by the museum. Who had done this? Such detail! But when I got home and when on line to learn about Raymond and the artist, the article appeared to indicate that there was not one, but several artists and no names, no credit that I could find.
I couldn't do justice to list only a few of the sculptures nor to show only a few photos. The pioneer ladies, the eagles on a stump that I nearly missed in the tall grasses, the bicyle rider and the busy artist at the intersection, The team of oxen with a load of logs, the family gathered around a campfire and many, many more.
Deer crazing on grassy wooded slopes, a cougar approaching the road and the two lumberman cutting a log were the only photos I got. I have got to say that this was much more pleasant to look at than the overs sized ancient typewriter eraser that towers next to the road in down town Seattle!!!! These life size figures caught in rusty steel exude much more peace and tranquility and hint at a way of life that was rugged and a past that holds interest if one but sees what is before them. The next generation will look at that ugly Seattle atrocity and wonder what is was used for and maybe in some way distant future archeologists will find it and consider the idea that it was the representation of a God that these ancient people worshiped!
In 1892, The Northern Pacific Railroad laid tracks over the mudflats below the island. Eight years later, Alexander C. Little rowed a boat to the tide flats and decided the Willipa Forks was an ideal location for a town. He talked to Leslie about selling a portion of his father-in-law's old homestead. Leslie formed the Raymond Land and Development Company to survey a townsite, sell property, build sawmills and encourage other business and industry to the area. The first buildings were erected on stilts five to six feet above the tidelands. Elevated sidewalks and streets connected most of the buildings. Raymond was founded in one of the most fertile tree growing regions in the world and the lumber industry became one of the leading economic means for support.
The big boom is over, the lumber barons gone, the forrests recovering. Raymond could be my home town - off the beaten path, small, relaxed and homey. At least that is the feeling I got in my brief drive through. I noticed those rusted deer and eagles and they were nice, but what really caught my attention were the wagon teams by the museum. Who had done this? Such detail! But when I got home and when on line to learn about Raymond and the artist, the article appeared to indicate that there was not one, but several artists and no names, no credit that I could find.
I couldn't do justice to list only a few of the sculptures nor to show only a few photos. The pioneer ladies, the eagles on a stump that I nearly missed in the tall grasses, the bicyle rider and the busy artist at the intersection, The team of oxen with a load of logs, the family gathered around a campfire and many, many more.
Deer crazing on grassy wooded slopes, a cougar approaching the road and the two lumberman cutting a log were the only photos I got. I have got to say that this was much more pleasant to look at than the overs sized ancient typewriter eraser that towers next to the road in down town Seattle!!!! These life size figures caught in rusty steel exude much more peace and tranquility and hint at a way of life that was rugged and a past that holds interest if one but sees what is before them. The next generation will look at that ugly Seattle atrocity and wonder what is was used for and maybe in some way distant future archeologists will find it and consider the idea that it was the representation of a God that these ancient people worshiped!
