A History of the Martha Lake Area
Welcome to our website, The History of the Martha Lake Area. Our purpose is to paint a picture of the history of this beautiful area that we call home with information obtained from official and published sources as well as from the knowledge, recollections and pictures from people who currently live, or have previously lived, in the Martha Lake area. We encourage anyone with such information to contact us at dr.liz@frontier.com. The history section is a work in progress and portions of it will be incomplete, and will be modified as we gather more data. Also, please let us know if you notice any errors.
We greatly appreciate your assistance in this most interesting journey back through time.
Also we wish to thank Betty Gaeng of the Lynnwood-Alderwood Manor Heritage Center for her assistance and numerous corrections to our endeavor.
Thanks, Don and Liz Healy
A History of the Martha Lake Area
The history of Martha Lake begins sometime during the past 120,000 years, during the last glacial advance of the Ice Age that we are currently living in. The Ice Age has been going on for the past three million years. During this period this area has experienced a fairly regular oscillation of climatic conditions during which glaciers up to one-half mile thick cover this area for 100,000 to 120,000 years, interspersed with interglacial periods, like the current one, that last 15,000 to 20,000 years. Very likely, we are entering the later phase of the current interglacial. Scientists have identified the causation of this oscillation as the Milankokitch Cycle which involve variations in the Earth’s eccentricity (a 100,000 year cycle), axial tilt (a 41,000 year cycle), and precession (a 23,000 year cycle), the combination of which causes fluctuations in the incidence of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and thus warmer or cooler conditions. During the last glacial phase, sea level was 400 to 410 feet lower than today and the glaciers, up to 3000 feet high carved out Puget Sound, like giant bulldozers, and also created a series of pot-hole lakes in the surrounding higher areas that filled with water as the weather warmed and we entered the current interglacial period. Locally, we have now named these pot-hole lakes, Lake Serene, Silver Lake, Martha Lake, Halls Lake and Lake Ballinger to name just a few of the many lakes.
Aerial View of Martha Lake.
A local example of the effect of past glaciation can be found in the northeast corner of the new Martha Lake Airport County Park. The large boulder there is an erratic that was carved out of the land somewhere to the north, carried southward by the glacier and then dropped in its current location when the climate warmed and the ice melted.
At the beginning of the interglacial period, the area would have been covered with boulders and debris, the results of the massive soil disturbance and erosion of the preceding 100,000 years. It would take several thousand years for soil to form and the vegetation to work its way through the various levels of succession to support the vibrant forests that we see today, and early in this process the land would not have been habitable to man, nor to large animal species. In time however, conditions dramatically improved and native peoples moved in to inhabit the region. However, there was no evidence of a native influence around Martha Lake. The Snohomish Indians did not live in the area, being river dwellers as a rule, and having their summer camps primarily on Whidbey Island and Camano Island. They did very little hunting, instead bartering their salmon, clams and other seafood with other tribes like the Snoqualmie who did hunt. (per email from Betty Gaeng, 8/2/15)
In 1775, one of the first European groups to visit the Pacific Northwest was the Spanish Heceta/Quadra expedition. Along with social contact, the expedition brought smallpox and numerous other diseases to which the native population had no immunity. In the late spring of 1792, George Vancouver’s expedition members were the first Europeans to sight what was to later become Snohomish County. Over time, the diseases introduced by these explorers caused the native populations to drop by up to 80%.
In the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 and ratified in 1859, the Snohomish and other tribes of the area ceded their rights to the land to the United States in exchange for a reservation and for the right to fish and hunt at their accustomed places. The Snohomish officially moved to the Tulalip reservation, but many members found employment as hands and laborers in mills and logging camps, on farms, and in cities.”
A review of a Washington State timeline will provide some perspective of our history.
1853 Washington Territory created.
1855 Treaty of Elliot Bay with local Indian Tribes.
1859 Military Road from Tacoma to Bellingham was built, although it was barely passable much of the time.
1889 Washington Statehood.
1890 Edmonds and Everett were established.
1897 Klondike Gold Rush
1900 Logging commenced between Seattle and Everett.
1902 Fred E. Sanders started construction of the Everett and Interurban Railway Company.
1908 Stone & Webster from Boston took over the project, naming it the Seattle – Everett Traction Company.
1910 The Interurban began daily runs between Seattle and Everett, carrying passengers during the day and freight at night.
1917 Puget Mill Company created a 30-acre demonstration farm in the Alderwood Manor area to promote the sale of its “ranchettes”.
1927 Highway 99 was constructed.
1939 The Interurban ceased operations.
In 1860, what is now Snohomish County was still the eastern portion of Island County, with Coupeville as the county seat. Snohomish was officially designed as a separate county in 1861, and when the first census was taken in 1862, the population totaled 45 residents. The city of Edmonds was formed in 1890. The same year the town of Everett was founded. The primary industry was logging and lumber production, but this enterprise was limited to areas along the perimeter of Puget Sound and its larger rivers such as the Snohomish, because of the difficulty of moving the large logs very far without floating them. Because there was no useable road system, residents and freight travelled between Edmonds, Everett and Seattle by boat. A military road had been established to allow construction and maintenance of a telegraph line, but the road was virtually impassable much of the time.
To current residents of Western Washington it would appear that because of its more developed and concentrated population and industrial base, that the east side of Puget Sound, including Snohomish County, was settled and developed first. However, this was not the case. The Denny Party established a settlement at Alki Point on November 13, 1851, about the same that that Pope and Talbot commenced their operations at Port Gamble. While the timber industry in Snohomish County was a relative late bloomer, the Port Gamble area had been an active center of timber harvesting and milling 50 years prior, and was the precursor to similar activity in Snohomish County. In 1849, Andrew J. Pope and Fredrick Talbot arrived in San Francisco to test the lumber market. With the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, economic activity was booming there. Pope and Talbot, along with Capt. Josiah P. Keller and Lucius Sanborn entered the ship lighterage business to supply the lumber needs of the miners and burgeoning population of California. Initially, Pope and Talbot started their west coast operations by importing shiploads of lumber from their operations in East Machias, Maine, around Cape Horn to San Francisco, but soon realized that a closer and more dependable supply of raw material would be desirable. After reconnoitering the Pacific Northwest, they rejected the Portland area because of the treacherous Columbia Bar and opted for the Port Gamble site on Puget Sound. In 1852, Pope married Frederic and William C. Talbot’s sister Emily and with Josiah P. Keller and Charles Foster established the Puget Mill Company. In 1853, the Puget Mill Company built a sawmill and company town at Port Gamble. The Pope and Talbot Company acted as the headquarters and administered the new mill and its own lumber sales. In 1854 they shipped 4 million board feet of lumber, and with the opening of the second mill at Port Ludlow in 1857, started serving markets in California, Hawaii, South America, China and Australia.
In 1861, agents of the Puget Mill Company began acquiring timberland, including lands in Snohomish County and continued to acquire lands until 1892. With the signing of the Treaty of Elliott Bay in 1855, the land became available for purchase at a cost of $1.25 per acre. However, the land could not be sold until it had been surveyed, and the funds needed to pay for the surveying were not forthcoming initially. The Preemption Act of 1841 was amended in July of 1854 to allow a person to file on 160 acres of unsurveyed land as a homestead, provided they eventually proved up on it by building a home and engaged in cultivation. Homesteaders could file on the land prior to the completion of the surveys. The land cost was also $1.25 per acre. This encouraged a practice in which employees of the mill companies were paid to file on homesteads with the sole intent of turning the land over to the mill company. Also, without close oversight of the logging operation, considerable timber was simply stolen. During this period, the Puget Mill Company purchased or otherwise acquired between 7000 and 8000 acres in Snohomish County, with one parcel including the west side of Martha Lake. However, very little, if any logging took place inland in Snohomish County until the Great Northern Railroad established regular service from Seattle east in the midsummer of 1893. Shortly after 1900, numerous saw and shake mills were established in the region. In 1900, a shingle mill started operations in Edmonds, followed by the Yost Lumber Company a year later. In 1905, the Sorensen Shingle mill was built at Echo Lake and additional mills followed at Hall’s Lake and Lake Ballinger, which supported two operations. The Lake Ballinger Lumber Company and the Great Western Lumber Company both commenced in 1907.
Mill at Hall’s Lake.
In 1862, when Snohomish County was split off from Island County, the entire non-native population was 45; a dramatic change from the situation just 152 years later. In 1917, the total non-native population in the Lynnwood – Martha Lake area was 22. During the period from 1900 until 1917, many logging camps dotted the area, boosting the population into the hundreds, but these settlements were temporary and followed the logging operations.
There were a few very early and hardy folks that homesteaded in the area in 1872. This included William and Martha Loughridge and Augustus Hine. It is considered very probable that Martha Lake was named after Martha Loughridge.
Front row: William Jesse Loughridge and his wife Martha Ferry Loughridge.
Augustus Hine filed on the SE Quarter of the SW Quarter of Section 1, Township 27N, Range 4E, which includes the southeast corner of Martha Lake, now occupied by the drive-thru coffee stand and the boat launch. The Loughridges homesteaded 318.51 acres that occupied the east side of Martha Lake. (See Map below). In 1888 Sam McGhee came out from Tennessee to homestead 160 acres near what is now the Ash Way Park & Ride on 164th.
Property in yellow owned by William and Martha Loughridge.
Homestead of Augustus Hines.
Duncan Hunter and William Morrice’s experiences make for an interesting story. Duncan and William both worked as stone masons in Aberdeen, Scotland. After an initial trip to scout out the new world, William convinced his friend Duncan to come to the United States to look for work in 1881. Arriving first in New York they soon moved on to the quarries of Montello, Wisconsin. There they met sisters Elizabeth and Jennie Stephenson. In 1886, Jennie married Duncan Hunter and Elizabeth married William Morrice. For several years, the two couples travelled separate paths westward. In 1889, Duncan Hunter filed a claim to 80 acres of land that is just west of what is now the Regal Cinemas Alderwood Stadium 7 Movie Theater near 36th Avenue West and 184th Street SW, Lynnwood.
To eke out a living, Duncan had to work at a variety of jobs. Part of the time he worked in the local logging camps and on occasion he would revert to his previous occupation of mason and at times had to travel to Canada for such work. Doing so meant leaving his wife and family at their wilderness abode. Eventually, he turned to farming which involved clearing much of his acreage and planting orchards of apples and cherries. By 1895, the Hunter household included four children; William, Gordon, Reuben and Basil. A daughter, named Jennie after her mother, died in infancy. 1987, and was buried on the Hunter property. In 1914, the original Hunter cabin was replace with a two-story frame house with the assistance of James Hunter, a nephew of Duncan’s. Lynnwood’s 2-1/2 acre “Pioneer Park” now occupies a part of what once was the Hunter homestead. “Something else very interesting about the Hunter brothers is that even though it was not easy for them to attend school, all four went on to graduate from college. Very unusual in the early 1900s. ” (Per Betty Gaeng in email of 9/25/2018)
Duncan Hunter Cabin.
In 1893, the Drake Homestead, a 100-acre parcel just east of the Hunter’s property came up for sale. Duncan Hunter informed William Morrice who purchased the property in his wife, Elizabeth’s name. This land formed part of what we now call part of Alderwood Mall. Elizabeth, their three children, Ruby, Jessie and William, Jr., and Elizabeth’s mother Agnes Stephenson, came west to their new home, while William remained at their original homestead in North Dakota. William was not able to rejoin the family until 1896. When he arrived, he replaced the “humble lean-to” affair the family had been living in with a much more substantial cabin, cleared the land and planted an orchard. At age ten, Ruby died and a while later another daughter Ruth was born. The interesting twists of fate continue between the Hunter and Morrice families, when in 1917, Jessie Elizabeth Morrice married James Hunter, the nephew/carpenter who had helped Duncan build his new home.
Marriage Certificate of Jessie Elizabeth Morrice to James Hunter Morrice Home.
In 1889, following the great fire in Seatle, Charles and Lillie Breed moved from Seattle to their new home site on a 160 parcel just north of what is now 164th Street on the land now occupied by the Ash Way Park and Ride and I-5. Charles Breed was born in Illinois and trained as a carpenter. He married Lillie Nairn in Pawneee Rock, Kansas. The move from Seattle to Martha Lake took two days and involved a Lake Washington steamer to Bothell followed by a wagon team for the rest of the journey. They had purchased a quarter-section, 160 acres, for $1.25 per acre which they named “Ruby Ranch” because of the ruby-like garnets found in the area. They built a two-room log cabin with a sleeping loft for the children. The Breeds had six children: Laura (“Fern”), Hohn Amos, Ethel (“Mary”). Flora (“Dot”), whose twin brother Paul died in infancy, and Bessie Alice.
Charles was quite involved in the community. He cleared and cultivated much of his property and was respected as an agriculturist. He also constructed a sawmill on his property and was a partner in another mill on Lake Ballinger and in local logging operations. He also served on the school board.
Another early arrival was Sam McGhee who arrived from Tennessee in 1888 to homestead a 160 parcel near the Breeds. The northeast corner of Sam’s property abutted the southeast corner of the Breed’s property and now is largely occupied by I-5 and the Walmart complex. Sam was postmaster at the Mosher and McDonald logging camp near Norma Beach. We have no information on his wife, but Sam had two sons, Joseph and Chester, and was known for telling tall tales.
Schooling:
With the modest influx of these early settlers, coupled with the natural tendency towards large families as compared to current trends, the subject of education and the needs for schools soon came to the fore. The Hunters, Breeds and several other neighbors went to work to fill this need by asking the newly formed Edmonds School District for assistance. The school board first asked a logging company to donate some land, but this request was denied. The school board, at their meeting in September of 1895 opted to “leave the matter with parties living in the area to secure a site.” Duncan Hunter agreed to provide a location on his homestead, and in a special meeting in December of 1895 the board authorized Duncan “$1.60 per day to fix up the building, and they directed the district clerk to buy two yards of blackboard cloth.” A one-room school house built of logs was built and hosted students for three months in 1895 and included the children from the Hunter, Breed Morrice, McGhee and Hiram Burleson families. For the Morrice and McGhee children it was a three mile walk each way to get to school. The families lived near what is now the Ash Way Park and Ride and the school was just west of the Alderwood Costco location.
Hunter School, 1895
Ethel Smith was the first teacher hired and was paid $40.00 per month to teach a three-month school year, and lived with the Hunters. During the early years, the school went through teachers in rapid succession and included Anna Williams, Letty Young and A. Kennedy who all taught one term each. T. A. Stiger was hired in 1900 to teach an eight-month school year at an increased salary of $45.00 per month. “Out in that little school, made of logs, the bark of which still clings at places, and which is one of the best ventilated school buildings in this country, the very best discipline was maintained in quietness and peace. Even the wild animals of the forest roved in our vicinity and were friends…the red squirrel and the chipmunks…came and cocked their little shiny eyes and looked in through the cracks at us inside.” (Comments of T. A. Stiger from Lynnwood, The Land, the People, The City)
In 1904, the Edmonds School Board decided to combine the Hunter School with the Jacklin School at Holmes Corner at a new location corresponding approximately to the north side of 196th Street Southwest and 52nd Avenue West. This school became known as the “Maple Leaf” School after a teacher pinned a yellow maple leaf to the door to honor those who died of yellow fever during the Spanish-American War. Wilcox Park is very close to the original location of the Maple Leaf School.
(Lynnwood, The Land, the People, The City)
The Klondike gold rush of 1897 had brought an influx of people westward and doubled Seattle’s population to 80,000. Initially, logging operations were conducted along the shore of Puget Sound and the larger rivers as horse and oxen were the means used to yard the logs. The Puget Mill Company had purchased all of the land on the west side of Martha Lake, while the land on the eastside of the lake was owned by the Merrill-Ring Logging Company. The area in light yellow in the map below denotes the 318-acre homestead belonging to William and Martha Loughridge. It is very possible that Martha Loughridge was the person for whom Martha lake was named. The Loughridges, who had acquired their homestead in 1872, sold this parcel to the Merrill-Ring Logging Company in about 1900. The Loughridges then moved to Benton County, Oregon. Martha died in 1930 and William in 1940 and both are buried in the Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis, Oregon.
About 1900, Snohomish County imposed a relatively high tax on standing timber which encouraged the rapid clear cutting on the company-owned lands. This was done deliberately to encourage the development of the region. The timber tax was used to support the development of a Territorial university, which we now know as the University of Washington. The Puget Mill Company contracted with Brown’s Bay Logging Company, and later acquired controlling stock in the firm. By 1920, Brown’s Bay and a successor company, Admiralty Logging, had cleared most of the virgin forests in south Snohomish County. At this point in our history, the dense forests were viewed as an obstacle; not as a valuable resource. Within a couple of decades, most of the virgin forests between Seattle and Everett and eastward were turned into gigantic stump farms. Because only the clearest, straight-grained, knot-free wood was valued for lumber, up to 40 percent of the logs and all of the remaining limbs and tops were left in the woods. “As far as the eye could see, what two decades before had been virgin forests of towering trees was now barren, desolate acreage of ten to 30-foot high stumps.” Douglas-fir and western red cedar were the valued species, with the western red fir used for both structural timber and shingles..
Alderwood Road, later SW 196th Street, Lynnwood, ca. 1910.
Logging in the Alderwood Manor area in the early 1900’s.
1927 Map Showing the Timber Holdings of the Puget Mill Company.
Close up of the Map above. Martha Lake is listed as Manor Lake.
After the timber had been harvested, Snohomish County needed to maintain a stream of revenue, so they then imposed a fairly high tax rate on timberland, even if it had been clear-cut, so the Puget Mill Company decided it was prudent to unload the land. In 1902, about the same time that the logging was starting to take place, the Pacific Northwest Traction Company, which became more popularly known as the Interurban was started and by 1910 was making daily runs between Seattle and Everett, with local stops at Richmond Highlands, Echo Lake, Esperance, Seattle Heights, Hall’s Lake, Cedar Valley, Alderwood, Intermanor, Manordale, Martha Lake, Summit, Emander, Silver Lake, Pinehurst, Laurel, Lowell, Everett Junction, and Everett.
Interurban approaching the Martha Lake Station.
The Martha Lake Station.
Restored Interurban Car on display at the Lynnwood Heritage Center.
There was no financial connection between the Puget Mill Company and the Pacific Northwest Traction Company, but the efforts of each proved to be a very beneficial, symbiotic relationship for both parties. With rail service readily available, the Puget Mill Company decided to become a real estate promoter with some direction provided by W. A. Irwin who had successfully promoted real estate in California. In 1917, the Puget Mill Company built a 30-acre “demonstration farm” next to the Interurban line at Alderwood Manor. They also built a community center and a two story hotel. It then advertised the merits of its 5 and 10-acre parcels of land as far east as Chicago, to demonstrate just how easily anyone, with or without experience, could become an “agriculturist”. The land was sold for $200 to $350(?) dollars an acre, and if you could not pay cash, the Puget Mill Company would gladly carry a contract with a 10% down payment.
Promotional brochure to market ranchettes. 1917
Irwin also developed the name “ranchette” as part of his promotional campaign. So well received were their promotional efforts that over $2,000,000 in contracts were obtained from the Chicago area alone. In the five years between 1917 and 1922 the population of the area grew from 22 to 1463 people. The primary endeavor was raising chickens and producing eggs and by 1920, this area was second only to Petaluma, California, which is still regarded as the egg capital of the world. Today, Alderwood Manor has no such claim to fame. Of course, the Puget Mill Company was also set up to sell you any supplies that you might need for your endeavor. Since, the land for sale was still a debris littered stump farm, the Puget Mill Company agreed to clear one of the five acres that you purchased, but it was up to the buyer to clear the remainder.
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One of the early families to respond to the solicitations of the Puget Mill Company’s promotion program was the Hinrich Otto family. In January – February of 2020, Carlin Otto (great-granddaughter of Hinrich and Wilhelmina Otto) provided the following information on the family’s experience in the Martha Lake area.
In February of 1918, Hans Hinrich Otto, who was truck farming and chicken ranching on 30 acres in the Vera area of the Spokane Valley, Washington, saw the Puget Mill Company presentations for land sales in Alderwood Manor, and purchased Lot/Tract 1 in Block 6 of Alderwood Manor Plat #3. This lot today is located on the south-east corner of Ash Way and 164th Street SW (just west of Hwy 5 at address 16415 Ash Way). The 4.931 acre lot has since been split into two parcels, and (in addition) some of the land was taken for the construction of Interstate Highway 5. The Otto family’s impetus for leaving Vera was a maelstrom of legal and financial lawsuits over water rights, ruinous mortgage terms, and shady financial schemes that involved land.
Hans Hinrich and Wilhelmina Otto
This family consisted of Hans Hinrich Otto [1866-1947], his wife Wilhelmina Seemann Otto [1861-1945], their two adult children, Hans Paul Otto [1894-1986] and Irmgaard Kate Emmy Otto van Hees [1892-1980], their son-in-law, Johannus Josephus van Hees [1892-1982], and the “aunt” Emma Seemann [1865-?], Wilhelmina’s sister. All of the Ottos and Emma Seemann had been born in northern Germany (the area around Kiel) and had immigrated to the USA together in 1910, when the parents were in their late 40s and the two children were 16 and 18 respectively. Hinrich had been a professor at an all-girl public school (“gymnasium”) in Kiel. His degree was in botany. The son-in-law was from Holland and had immigrated to the USA in 1914.
These 5 adults moved onto their property at Alderwood Manor in May/June of 1918, driving their vehicles (one being a chain-driven Ford truck pictured below) and bringing with them much of their valuable poultry equipment. It took them 3 full days to make this 300 mile journey. In October 1918, the young van Hees couple returned to Vera in Spokane Valley because a large auction of farm land made it possible for them to purchase their own farm at $215 per acre. In the image below, we see Wilhelmina and Emma with the chain-driven Ford truck on their way to their new home.
In Alderwood Manor (also known as Martha Lake) their first task was to clear the land of the slash (trash) left by the Puget Mill Company’s logging operations (as shown in the image below). Hans Paul’s handwritten comment on the print reads: “Clearing – Martha Lake 1918”.
Next the family built homes, for themselves and for 4000 chickens, as shown below.
They also laid out a large vegetable garden. The images below show them at their daily tasks: harvesting cabbage, collecting eggs, tilling the rows of vegetables to remove weeds, driving.
Chicken was not a common item of consumption for Americans before the mid 1920s. Americans ate eggs, but not chicken. The concept of the tender, tasty “broiler” was not even invented until 1923. The most common chicken raised during these years was the tough, rugged Leghorn, and that is what the Ottos raised, in the thousands. The Otto’s main product was eggs. In the spring (only) they sold cockerels, which are young males that are culled from the flock, but this was very much a side business. The Otto’s chickens were raised outdoors, except in two circumstances: when extremely young, the chicks were kept in a brooding building that was heated, and when the hens were ready to lay an egg they were enticed into a special box (a trapnest located inside a building) that allowed the owner to keep track of exactly which hens were laying, and which weren’t. Hinrich was well-known for keeping very accurate records of the egg production of his hens, and for raising excellent layers. For example, he won ribbons in state-wide contests for hens that laid 51 eggs each between 1 Nov and 31 Dec.*1 He was also creative; for example, he invented an inexpensive, easy method of feeding warm composting silage to his hens during the winter months which kept them warm, healthy, and content.*2
In 1920, the USA experienced a significant post-war recession (deflation). The consumer price index, after having risen for over 10 years, fell precipitously; it dropped 20% between June 1920 and September 1922 which was larger than any similar period of time during the Great Depression.*3 Wholesale prices fell even more steeply*3, including the price of eggs, and the Ottos fell into hard times. The older generation (now in their late 50s), became discouraged and in April 1923 (after 13 years in the USA) returned to Germany. Wilhelmina and Emma never returned to the USA. Hinrich did return in 1927, and lived out the remainder of his life in the USA. After their departure, the son, Hans Paul (and his wife, Gudrun Marie Kilian Otto [1899-1977]) tried to run the business. Hans Paul and Gudrun had two children at this time: Carl Warren Otto [b.1922] and Herbert Paul Otto [1923-2016]. The family could not make enough money from this poultry business, so in 1924 Gudrun took a job with the Seattle newspaper Post Intelligencer. Her son, Carl remembers her taking the Interurban Rail to and from work every day. Hans Paul worked the chicken farm and tended to the two boys. But the couple did not succeed. A contributing factor in their failure was that a chicken feed shyster took $2500 from Hans Paul and never delivered the feed. That amount of money is those days could buy a couple of acres in the Martha Lake area. It is probable that the Ottos returned the land to the Puget Mill Company sometime in 1925. In any case, they both were employed at non-farm jobs and were not living on the Alderwood Manor property by mid-1926. No Otto ever again lived on the Alderwood Manor properties. The Otto’s farm house was still being used as a residence in 2013, but was torn down sometime in 2014. The aerial view below (from 2012) shows the farm house in the middle of the green area, to the left of the red-colored vehicles on the right side of the photograph.
Marketing Ad place in the Seattle Star in 1919 by the Puget Mill Company featuring the Otto Family.
(See: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1919-06-20/ed-1/seq-9/ for more legible copy.)
Footnotes:
*1 “On the contest honor roll”, Spokesman Review, 20 Jan 1918, page 18.
*2 “H. Otto provides green food and heat at same time”, Spokesman Review, 30 May 1915, page 14.
*3 “One hundred years of price change: the Consumer Price Index and the American inflation experience”, Monthly Labor Review, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2014.
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It was during this “promotional” stage that the name Martha Lake was changed to Manor Lake, thinking the new name added more class to the area and tied in with the newly named Alderwood Manor. However, the name did not stick and reverted to Martha Lake. In addition to raising chickens, many new arrivals went into mink farming.
Smith’s mink farm on Larch Way near Poplar.
When developing their holdings for sale to the public, the Puget Mill Company needed to name the numerous roads that crossed the lands. The decided to name the roads are various tree species which explains why we have roads named Locust, Spruce, Butternut, Poplar, Larch, Ash and many others. In the case of Larch Way, there isn’t a single larch along its length.
During this period, Martha Lake and similar communities were more closely tied to Seattle than to Edmonds. 196th was a rutted, crude roadbed at that time. However, in 1927, State Route 99, now Highway 99, was constructed, which combined with the increasing dominance of the automobile marked the beginning of the end of the Interurban.
With the completion of the Interurban, several resorts were established at the pot-hole lakes that were common along the route. Hall’s Lake had a resort as did Martha Lake. One of the regular gatherings involved an Old-Timers group.
Notice of an “Old Settlers” Picnic in 1912.
Advertisement and picture for the Martha Lake Resort.
Photo from the Edmonds Historical Museum: Frances Anderson and her friends keeping cool on Martha Lake in 1912. Frankie is on the far left; her friends are unidentified.
The Martha Lake Resort swimming area in full use, just lake today, but now it is a Snohomish County Park.
The Martha Lake resort operated for many years and was a popular gathering spot for community affairs that included the “Old Settlers’ picnics, the Martha Lake Birthday Club. Row boats were available for rent and there were two floating platforms for swimmers, equipped with both a low and a high diving board. When the resort activities dropped off in the 1970(?), the operation continued as the Martha Lake Tavern, but gradually declined in condition and ambiance, and by the early 1990’s had become a smoky and greasy spoon sort of place.
Yvonne Bowen stated that in the late 1980’s there was no public access to Martha Lake . During the summer people (not on the lake) wanted a place for their children to swim and would stop and ask about accessing the lake. The Martha Lake Resort property had public access, but you had to pay.
A lady who owned the old Martha Lake Resort property at the south end of the lake wanted to sell the property. There was talk that a business office wanted the property. It was known that the state made available funds for parks and since many of the local residents around the lake didn’t want the land used for business a group was formed to take action. Diane, Lina and Yvonne Bowen went to Olympia to ask that the state help fund the purchase in cooperation with Snohomish County. The acquisition was completed for the benefit of the local population.
After approval was granted and the property purchased by the county, there were many more meetings at the Community Center to plan the park facilities, parking and to take steps to clean up the lake by insuring that sewers and septic drain field did not dump into the lake. There were grants available for this purpose and Snohomish County Health was contacted to assist. As part of “Snohomish County’s Lake Management Program”, County staff and volunteers monitors have been tracking the health of area lakes since 1992. The water is sampled and tested at various levels and locations and the findings for Martha Lake are compiled in the annual in-depth lake health report and summarized in the lake report card. You may also view the raw water quality data .
The Martha Lake Airport:
In 1953, Ed and Dorothy Hauter moved to their farm just north of Martha Lake. Over the next five years, they gradually acquired additional parcels of land until they owned a block of land that occupied the area from just north of Lakeview Road up to 146th Street SW; enough upon which built an airport. In 1958, Ed constructed a runway and purchased a Cessna 172, which he used to commute from home to his job near Boeing Field, where he repaired pinball machines.
Over time, hangers were built and a barn that Ed had built earlier was converted in offices and classrooms. The Hauters provided classroom flight instruction, flight training and sold aviation fuel. The hangers could house 30 planes and there were tie-downs for 50 more on the field. The Harter children, Ed Jr., Herbert and Jill were kept busy mowing grass, and washing and fueling aircraft.
Over time, development crowded in on the airport with the usual complaints about noise by the new comers. Also, as the land became more valuable, the Hauters had a running battle with the Snohomish County assessors over property evaluations.
Ed Hauter in 1970 with Cessna 172.
Ironically, after all of his flying experience, Ed Hauter Sr. was killed in an automobile accident in the early 1970s. After Ed’s death, Dorothy continued to run the airport while raising three children. Dorothy was trained as an accountant and had kept the books and handled many of the ground operations prior to Ed’s passing. However, being prone to air sickness, flying was never her passion. Her son commented that “she worked really hard to maintain my Dad’s dreams.” “She was a tough lady.”
Dorothy continued running the airport for another 28 years until she passed away in 1998 at the age of 77. The children continued airport operations for a while after Dorothy’s death, but having other careers, decided to sell the property. In a noble gesture, the Hauter heirs sold the property to Snohomish County for $3.6 million, about $500,000 less than a local land developer was offering, so the county could built a new park on the site for the rapidly growing population in the area. The park is now a tribute to the ED and Dorothy Hauter and the Hauter family, being named the Martha Lake Airport Park and features a skate board park, a baseball field, play equipment, numerous soccer fields and modern sculptures honoring the role the airport had in the area’s aviation history.
Over the years, there were several accidents that provided significant color to local history.
Dick Kasperson witnessed an episode where a pilot that had installed pontoons on his plane attempted to get the newly modified plane airborne by putting the plane on a trailer. The though was that they could get the plane up to speed when towed behind a truck and then fly the plane to a suitable landing site on water. Things didn’t go as planned.
Aerial Views of the Martha Lake Airport
Martha Lake Airport (S13), Alderwood Manor, WA
47.86 North / 122.24 West (North of Seattle, WA)
Martha Lake Airport, as depicted in the 1963 WA Airport Directory (courtesy of Ron Dupas).
The Aerodromes table on the 1967 Seattle Sectional Chart (courtesy of John Voss)
described Martha Lake Airport as having a single 1,700′ asphalt & concrete runway.
Puget Park Drive-In Theater
The Puget Park Drive-In Theater, located at 13020 Meridian Avenue South, Everett, Washington, was opened in 1971, and had the largest screen in the Seattle area; 50’ by 175’. It offered double features, with the first night’s showing “Up The Down Staircase” and “Fantastic Voyage”. The theater had a capacity of 703 cars and operated from May to September each year. In later years swap meets were held on weekends. The theater closed at the end of September, 2009, and the property was purchased for the site of the new Swedish Medical Center.