All Over The Map: Camp Long history mystery
Nov 15, 2024, 12:57 PM | Updated: 6:30 pm
The arson fire Monday night at the lodge at Camp Long has stirred up concerns about the future of the historic structure, and raised questions, and perhaps even a mystery or two, about its past.
Damaged in the fire was the main structure at Camp Long. It’s referred to by Seattle Parks and Recreation as the “lodge,” but it’s also been called the “administration building” at the 68-acre, summer-camp-in-the-city for more than 80 years. Whatever it’s known as now, the building is a beloved landmark and icon for West Seattleites and for generations of people from all over the city who went to Camp Long as kids for the many summer camps held there.
The mysteries, or perhaps only confusion, about the building’s history include the date it was constructed, origin of the materials used, and one important detail about its dedication event.
Some media reports Tuesday morning about the fire were murky regarding the construction date, and the histories of Camp Long available online don’t exactly make it very clear. Some reports on Tuesday said the structure dated to 1937, which is when the park that was later named Camp Long first opened to the public. KIRO Newsradio’s pedantic historian insisted that 1941 was the construction date. Meanwhile, seasoned journalists simply rolled their eyes, told audiences that the structure was more than 80 years old, and then focused on the more important aspects of the story.
The best source for Seattle Parks history is the late Don Sherwood, a parks staffer whose research, in the form of short hand-written and hand-illustrated histories of nearly every Seattle park, are available online as downloadable PDFs from the Seattle Municipal Archives.
Sherwood’s report about Camp Long is clear on the details of the park’s origin as part of a broader plan to create a recreation area on former timber company land in West Seattle and it is clear that the park first opened to the public in 1937. Sherwood is not as specific on the building’s construction date but offers this tantalizing detail, written in his impeccable handwriting alongside where the structure appears on the hand-drawn map: “Administration Bldg. built with cobblestones from the roadbed of Madison St. cable car.”
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This detail is tantalizing, because who doesn’t love the idea of relics of an archaic form of transportation – actual cable cars, just like the kind they still have in San Francisco, where a moving cable beneath the street must be gripped by a mechanical device in order for the cable car to move up the hill – being repurposed to build a beloved public landmark?
If true, this detail also offers a clue, because it helps narrow down the construction date. The Madison Street cable car shut down for good in April 1940 after 50 years of operation. Thus, when the tracks and cobblestones were ripped up sometime not long after that, the stone would theoretically have been available to use in construction of the lodge at Camp Long after that time. So, that would mean the 1937 construction date was too early for the lodge, because at that point, the Madison Street cable car was still wheezing and creaking along.
Newspaper clippings consulted online via the Seattle Public Library late Monday and early Tuesday also support the 1941 construction date, as both the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provide details about a dedication event held November 8, 1941. At that time, the park was officially named Camp Long, in honor of juvenile court Judge William G. Long, who was key in the city’s effort to purchase the land to create the youth camp.
Still, these bits and pieces of information lack the heft necessary to support the claim Don Sherwood makes about the origin of the building materials. We simply need more evidence.
The newspaper archives only go so far and can often provide only so much detail; and no mention has so far been found of what actually happened to the Madison Street cable car roadbed, when it happened, or what became of the cobblestones. There are related stories, to be sure, such as an item in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from May 10, 1942 with a headline that reads “CONCRETE REPLACES COBBLESTONE” for a story about ripping up stretches of the old Yesler Street cable car (which lived on a bit longer than the line on Madison Street).
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One could extrapolate and say that this headline suggests the cobblestones, too, at Madison were also replaced by concrete – thereby freeing up the cobblestones for other uses, such as construction – but it isn’t exactly proof.
David B. Williams is a Seattle historian and author of many books, including “Too High and Too Steep,” about the regrades, and “Homewaters,” about Puget Sound. He’s a geologist by training, and a good friend of Seattle’s Morning News and the first person consulted whenever there are questions about historic rocks.
Williams is familiar with Camp Long, but acknowledges he hasn’t spent much time there since he was in 4th grade. He told KIRO Newsradio that cobblestones came into fashion as building materials in Seattle in the 1890s. The stone to create paving materials (as well as material for building construction) came from nearby quarries, and is usually sandstone, but sometimes granite.
The term “cobblestones” is not quite accurate, Williams also said. The accurate name is “sett,” but Williams says nobody calls them that with a straight face.
KIRO Newsradio asked David B. Williams the big question on everyone’s mind this week: If we can’t find further written evidence about the Camp Long cobblestones, is there any scientific or geologic means of proving or disproving their origins and history?
“Let’s just toss out a hypothetical,” Williams posited. The stones used to build the lodge at Camp Long “look the same as the cobblestones found in other streets. Does that mean it came from Madison? Who knows?”
“I mean, it could have come directly from the quarry,” Williams continued. “We don’t have any evidence – there’s nothing that’s going to say looking at it, that it had any origin any place else.”
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“So, no,” Williams concluded. “I can’t really think of anything that would give you any geological information that would answer your question.”
One more mystery remains about the paper trail emerging in the aftermath of the fire, and geology likely won’t be able to help much with this one, either.
Historic survey documents available online via the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods include at least one more tantalizing detail about that November 1941 dedication event at Camp Long. The same information is contained in documents available from the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.
“Camp Long was officially dedicated in November 1941,” the document reads, “with Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance with her daughter, Mrs. Anna R. Boettiger, a resident of Seattle.”
In November 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady of the United States, of course, because she was married to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The First Lady often did travel to Seattle in the 1930s and 1940s because the couple’s daughter did live here with her husband and children. FDR visited the Northwest multiple times as president, too.
However, local newspaper accounts from November 1941 make no mention of the First Lady’s attendance. Further, Eleanor Roosevelt’s daily newspaper column, My Day, is datelined on Saturday, November 8, 1941 – the day of the dedication event at Camp Long – from Washington, DC, and she describes social and civic events she attended until late in the evening the day before in the nation’s capital. Her next column, which was published on November 10, describes a day of activities in Washington, DC on Sunday, November 9. So it seems unlikely that Eleanor Roosevelt was at the dedication of Camp Long, and the source of this likely erroneous information is unclear.
A little more than a month later, after the United States had entered World War II, the First Lady did actually visit Seattle. Her column for December 15 is datelined “Seattle,” and she describes war-related activities as well as multi-day visit with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.
As the First Lady wrote in her column on November 8, “I am anxious that we should all get together and know each other, and that we should from time to time, have an opportunity to hear things from other people which will give us all a better understanding of the reasons why we are all at work.”
Though Eleanor Roosevelt was referring to the Office of Civilian Defense on the precipice of war, the same sentiments might be expressed exactly 83 years later as the City of Seattle and those who love Camp Long must reckon with the near-destruction of beloved public place, and the efforts required to bring it back to life for future generations to continue to enjoy.
KIRO Newsradio reached out to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office Friday morning for comment, and his staff provided this statement:
“Mayor Harrell understands just how treasured Camp Long is to the West Seattle community and the entire city. It is a truly unique, historic asset and is greatly cherished – the mayor himself has many fond memories of visiting Camp Long as a child.
SFD and SPD are still completing their investigations, and we would need to defer to them for any updates. Our office is working closely with Seattle Parks & Recreation as we assess the damage and determine the path forward. We are committed to restoring Camp Long and hopeful it can be rebuilt so current and future generations of Seattleites can continue to benefit from this incredible place in our city.”
KIRO Newsradio also learned Friday that all of Camp Long is closed to the public and will likely remain so throughout the weekend.
Seattle City Council member Rob Saka, whose council district includes Camp Long, also shared a statement. Council member Saka wrote, in part, “. . . Executive Departments are still very much in the initial fact-gathering stage. While further development of the investigation, insurance and cost estimates will take time, me and my Office stand ready to support ways to restore this treasured facility.”
You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.
