Roslyn's Black Pioneers
On August 17, 1888, Roslyn coal miners struck for an eight-hour day, and the Northern Pacific Coal Company brought in trainloads of Black miners as strikebreakers. When the company hired armed guards to protect the strikebreakers and intimidate miners, a constitutional crisis ensued. The territorial government viewed this as a private militia and ordered the guards dispersed or arrested. After the strike ended, many of the Black miners stayed on, and Roslyn became one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the state. (Image courtesy Ellensburg Public Library)
Roslyn incorporated on February 4, 1889, only to lose that status later in the year when Washington achieved statehood and territorial incorporation laws were declared unconstitutional. The town reincorporated in 1890 and grew quickly -- as did the payroll at the mine.
As a mining town, Roslyn had its share of tragedies, including the worst coal-mining disaster in state history, which killed 45 miners in 1892. Another mine disaster in 1909 was less deadly, thanks in part the use of new respirators that were on display at Seattle's Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and were rushed across the state to aid in the rescue.
After 1910 the nation's shift from coal to oil as a fuel source led to a slow decline in Roslyn's population that went on for decades. The last mines closed in 1963, and the local economy became more reliant on logging and tourism. In 1975 William Craven was appointed, and later elected, Roslyn's mayor, the first Black mayor in the state. Craven was on hand this week when a monument was dedicated in Roslyn to celebrate his important role in state history.
A Bridge Floats, Then Disappears
Sixty years ago this week, on August 12, 1961, a five-mile-long line of cars waited to be among the first to cross the Hood Canal Bridge linking the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas. It was Washington's second concrete floating pontoon bridge, and the first in the world to span salt water. Both structures were built by Horace McCurdy's Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company for the Washington State Department of Transportation.
The Hood Canal Bridge was controversial from the start. Floating bridges work best on calm lake waters, but the fjord that is Hood Canal is subject to tides, high winds, and choppy waters. Highway Director William A. Bugge gave assurances that the design was sound, although once the bridge opened it required constant maintenance due to jostling from high waves and storms. In 1977, the bridge was renamed in Bugge's honor.
All was well until February 13, 1979, when a massive storm blasted the structure with winds of 80 to 120 miles per hour. High waves pounded the bridge until the western section broke off and sank (a fate that would befall the Lake Washington Floating Bridge in 1990 in a sinking abetted by human error). An old ferry run was resurrected on Puget Sound to alleviate traffic congestion during the three years needed to repair the bridge.
