How often have you heard complaints about the high cost of housing? What’s left unsaid is yesterday’s prices don’t meet today’s quality standards. The 1939 Assessor photo (above) of the Erath family home in the Morganville section of Black Diamond speaks volumes. The house was built in 1921 with help from the union local after Pacific Coast Coal ordered an eviction of striking miners from their company land and rental homes. By 1930, the home was owned by Casper and Johanna Erath and their three sons, Casper, Tom and Frank. This building located at 32616 Highland Drive still stands today, though barely. It’s seen below, 80 years later in a Sept. 2019 photo by Robert Dobson, a Kent photographer and history buff. 
Tragedy struck the Erath family in 1956 when Frank Erath set off one night to perform his part-time job for Water District No. 6, the former name of the utility area serving Black Diamond. He was using a fire hose to sluice away portions of an upper bank that threatened to bury the pumping station providing the town’s water. The moonlight was bright that evening of November 18, when a search and rescue party retrieved their fallen neighbor. There on a ledge high above the Green River Gorge they found the body of the 44 year old Erath. He died of a heart attack. Members of the rescue operation included Black Diamond volunteers Sam Zinter, Tom Zumek, Joe Zumek, Jules Dal Santo, Harry Rossi, and the deceased’s brother, Tom Erath. Tom Hansen, an undertaker and Don Okeson, his ambulance driver also assisted. News of Frank’s death was covered in the Enumclaw Courier-Herald from which these facts were drawn. The Assessor image and research was provided by JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian.
