Last week’s column explored Four Corners’ growth and how it became Maple Valley’s largest commercial center, as exemplified by the latest development, Switcher’s Landing. This week, we travel back to the early 1950s when Fred Vernon Habenicht and Guy Wesley Belleman posed for this self-portrait with the Belleman family’s 1949 Plymouth. The photo was taken along the Summit-Landsburg Road, not far from the Belleman family’s gas station and lunch counter. The Summit-Landsburg Road historically entered Four Corners diagonally, creating what was actually a five-cornered intersection, making for a dangerous crossroads and the scene of numerous accidents.
When Habenicht and Belleman set up this photo, Four Corners was barely developed. The area was originally called Summit by the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad, the highest point on the rail line between Renton and Black Diamond. An 1896 branch line was laid east to Danville, to serve a small coal mine near Landsburg, where the City of Seattle first drew water from the Cedar River. The later Summit-Landsburg Road closely followed the Danville railroad route.
With construction of Kent-Kangley Road and State Highway 5, later Highway 169, the intersection became known as Four Corners. The area’s first business was Palmer Coking Coal Company’s mine office and yard, established in 1939. It occupied what is now the Fred Meyer quadrant. In 1945, Guy W. Belleman’s mother and father, Myrtle Anna (Neal) and Guy Nando Belleman, opened a Union 76 gas station and adjacent lunch counter on what is now the Safeway corner. Their purchase came about after Bill Neal, who built the original Wilderness Village tavern, heard that Weyerhaeuser was selling the land and recommended it to his sister, Myrtle. The Bellemans paid $600 for the 31-acre property.
Across the highway from Belleman’s, the future Key Bank / Goodwill block was forested land owned by Weyerhaeuser. Kitty corner, the current Dairy Queen / Johnson Home & Garden corner was occupied by Jim and Vivian Junivicz, who maintained a menagerie of pursuits, including a rundown sawmill, a second-hand store, and a gas station. Later called the Four Corners Trading Post, the Junivicz building was destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1978.
Fred Habenicht and Guy Belleman Jr. were Tahoma classmates whose post-high school lives paralleled each other. Both graduated with the Tahoma Class of 1948, which totaled 35 students. Both took up professional photography, married high school sweethearts, and attended the University of Washington. Fred wedded Dorothy Bartholomew in September 1951, and six months later, Guy married Nettie Comer in March 1952. All four were Tahoma Class of ’48 grads and took part in each other’s weddings.
Fred Habenicht
The two boys met when the Belleman family moved to Maple Valley in 1943, where Guy started 8th grade. Fred was raised in Ravensdale, but the Habenicht family’s roots in the area date back to the mid-1880s, when Black Diamond was first established, and the Habenicht Hotel opened shortly thereafter. Fred’s maternal lineage is the Logar family, one of the early pioneers in Landsburg, where the Logars maintained a small farm.
During high school, Fred played football and baseball for the Tahoma Bears. One summer, he worked as a fire lookout. After graduation, Fred learned to cook and headed north to the King Salmon fishing camp in Alaska. Habenicht worked his way through college, and upon graduation was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Air Force. Fred was the Habenicht family’s first college graduate.
After discharge, Fred returned to Seattle and began his long career in the appliance business. He opened his first store in Redmond and a second in Maple Valley, while his wife Dorothy did the bookkeeping. Habenicht was an avid fisherman and advocate for protection of the Cedar River. He led efforts to create a park beside the Cedar River at the intersection of S.R. 169 and Witte Road in old Maple Valley. Today, that 8.6-acre picnic and recreational area bears the name, Fred V. Habenicht Rotary Park. Fred is survived by his wife, Dorothy, son, Brad Habenicht, and daughter, Valerie (Habenicht) Busse.
Guy Belleman
During his high school years, Guy Belleman began tutoring under Harold Holm, a sharp-shooting expert with the Enumclaw Rifle Club. Guy became a precision rifleman. However, a self-inflicted gunshot wound set him back after his weapon caught a branch while crossing a creek behind his Four Corners home. Guy secured a ROTC Marine Corps scholarship to the University of Washington, where he won numerous marksmanship awards. To earn money and support his growing family, Belleman began working at Boeing as an aerospace engineer in 1954. Guy earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1956.
Guy served on the Tahoma School Board from 1959 to 1964, and during his term promoted the 1963 relocation of the Gracie Hansen Building from the Seattle World’s Fair to Ravensdale Park. In 1964, Belleman was transferred to New Orleans by Boeing, then to Cocoa Beach, Florida.
The family lived in the South for four years before returning to Maple Valley. Guy retired from Boeing in the early 1990s. His wife, Nettie, was a librarian at the Tahoma School District for 17 years before retiring. Guy passed away in 1997, and Nettie in 2002. Both are buried at the Maple Valley-Hobart Cemetery. They are survived by three children, Guy M. Belleman, Teresa (Belleman) Reese, and Clay Belleman
This photo comes courtesy of Guy’s daughter, Teresa, who volunteers at the Maple Valley Historical Society and provided details about her parents’ lives. Gary Habenicht, a lifelong Ravensdale resident, supplied biographical info about his brother, Fred. Doug ‘Boomer’ Burnham, a Tahoma school teacher who does business as Boomer’s Photography, colorized the original.
