Address: 7210 138th Avenue SE, Newcastle. Coal mining first began in this region in the 1860s in Newcastle, a company town named for the famous English coal city. Once part of a bustling town located around the slope mine headworks and processing facilities at Newcastle, House No. 75 is the sole remaining building associated with early mining and is among the oldest buildings in the county. This small house and its outbuildings were owned by the company until the late 1920s, when mining ceased and most of the town was demolished. Later salvage mining in the area was done by small private operators, including the Italian Baima family who owned the house for nearly 50 years. The simple single-wall construction of the house was quick and inexpensive, using vertical boards alone without stud framing. Similar houses, most now gone, were built in Black Diamond and share similarities with those built earlier in mining areas in the Eastern United States.
