Last week’s column featured a photo of the Ravensdale post office in 1939 and the story of the town’s postal service. This week we turn our attention to Ravensdale Lake, a 22-acre body of water located adjacent to the railroad that led to the town’s development around 1900. The lake is easily seen when crossing the railroad tracks while traveling on the Black Diamond-Ravensdale Road. The lake is now part of King County Park’s Black Diamond Open Space tract.
Originally known as Beaver Lake, it’s one of the few lakes in southeast King County that never saw residential development, due to the fact it was entirely owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The lake provided the town’s first water supply. Northwest Improvement Company (NWI) was the mining division of the railroad that mined the coal after assuming operations of the town first known as Leary. The town’s name was changed to Ravensdale several years after its founding.
This 1959 King County Assessor photo shows a home owned by the railroad. It had electricity, but no indoor plumbing, and was heated by a potbellied stove with cooking performed on a coal/wood stove. According to Gary Habenicht, whose family has lived in and around Ravensdale for over 100 years, the home was built in the early 1900s as a place for the coal company to entertain bigwigs who came to visit the mine. The Nov. 1915 Ravensdale Mine explosion killed 31 miners, closed the mine, and decimated the town’s population. Later this home was rented, most prominently to the Donnelly family who were still living here on Oct. 1, 1959 when this photo was taken.
According to lore, legend, and many personal memories, there was once a dancehall on piling built into the lake not too far from this home. There was also a huge, old stump that sat in the water and used as the bandstand. The dancehall and surrounding picnic areas were a popular setting for summer recreation back in the early 1900s. After Jack and Hilda Donnelly took up residency, they ran a small business renting boats and maintaining docks where people could fish for a fee. Jack Donnelly was a logger who cleared the hillsides around Ravensdale with a team of two horses. He was also active in community affairs and helped organize relief measures during the Great Depression as part of the Unemployed Citizen’s League of Ravensdale.
After Jack’s death in the 1930s, Hilda Donnelly continued the family business of providing fishing opportunities. Each winter, she caulked her boats with kapok, a natural fiber she stuffed between the boards. She also maintained a path around the lake and periodically dismantled beaver dams on the stream that drains west and caused the lake’s level to rise. Ravensdale Creek flows into Lake Sawyer, but was earlier known as Beaver Creek, and before that Frenchman’s Creek.
Sources of information for this column include Barbara Nilson’s book, “Ravensdale Reflections,” Gary Habenicht, and local historians Michael and Donna Brathovde. The photo from King County Assessor tax parcel file #362206-9001 comes courtesy of the Puget Sound Regional Archives in Eastgate on the campus of Bellevue College.
