Last week’s column provided an overview of the beginnings of the Enumclaw Plateau’s first school, located in Osceola. The area was originally called Porter’s Prairie, after the first White settler, Allen Porter, established a homestead in 1853. Over the next 27 years, more families filed their own homestead claims, so that by the June 1880 precinct census, 16 families consisting of 67 residents were living in the area. In 1877, a post office was established using the name Osceola, and Porter’s Prairie faded from use. Allen Porter’s original homestead was located east of 196th Ave. S.E., two miles south of where the Auburn-Enumclaw Highway (SR-164) makes a distinctive bend north.
Nearby communities, such as Boise Creek, Firgrove, Krain, Coal Creek, Birch, and Veazie, also built schools for pioneer children. However, Stevensonville, as Enumclaw was colloquially known to honor its founders, Frank and Mary Stevenson, had no school. So, those few children hiked several miles north along the railroad bed to Coal Creek or trudged the muddy trail to Osceola. After the Northern Pacific Railway was finally completed and Enumclaw was attached to the rail station, the town’s residents began agitating to establish their own school district.
Yet, there was one big problem – the Osceola School District No. 19 claimed all the land between the White and Green Rivers, from Auburn to the crest of the Cascade Mountains, and resisted Enumclaw’s efforts for its own school district. Though nearly all of Enumclaw’s residents signed a petition to create a new district, the King County Superintendent of Schools rejected their efforts outright.
However, an election was soon to take place, and a Missouri native named S.P. Rich was running for Superintendent on the Citizens’ Party ticket. Enumclaw interests enlisted a town resident, and fellow Missourian, Oscar Welch to lobby the candidate. Welch met with S.P. Rich and promised to deliver all of Enumclaw’s votes to Rich’s candidacy. Rich received 80 of the 81 Enumclaw votes, won the election, and promptly fulfilled his promise. Enumclaw’s citizens got their school district in 1887. That same year, Enumclaw saw the arrival of regular passenger train service.
While most residents wanted a small district to serve only townsfolk, Arthur Griffin, for whom Griffin Avenue was named, had a grander vision. He drew up a boundary map and submitted it to the newly elected School Superintendent. S.P. Rich kept his campaign promise and Enumclaw was promptly awarded the same vast area stretching between the two rivers from Auburn to the Cascade crest that formerly belonged to Osceola. Through consolidations, annexations, and expansions, Enumclaw possesses one of the largest districts by area in the state.
Enumclaw’s first school was a simple shack built from hand-split cedar boards. It was likely located on Porter Street near the current Presbyterian Church. Porter Street was fittingly named for the pioneer, Allen Porter, whose original prairie’s name was replaced by Osceola.
In Osceola, the second school, built in 1890, was too small to support the area’s growing population of farmers. Osceola had grown to 282 by 1913. But Enumclaw’s rapid growth resulted in its population surging to 1,129 inhabitants, four times that of Osceola. For perspective, the booming coal mining town of Black Diamond, with 2,051 residents, was King County’s third largest town, bested only by Renton and Seattle.
The new school, Osceola’s third, was built in 1914, though the King County Assessor records list 1920. The schoolhouse measured 38 feet by 70 feet or 2,660 square feet with two porches of 90 and 65 square feet each. It featured cedar siding, a shingled roof, and was situated on a shy acre lot. However, it lacked plumbing and electricity until lines were extended in the 1920s.
The Osceola School District consolidated with Enumclaw in 1937. Afterwards, the former schoolhouse was used by the Sunrise Grange until 1976. Sometime around 1995, the structure underwent substantial renovations and was fully converted into a single-family residence. Alvin and Lisa Mierke purchased this third Osceola school, located at 21921 S.E. 456th Way, for $412,000 in 2010. Seven years later, the Mierkes acquired the second Osceola schoolhouse, the former Plateau Community Players’ performance space, located next door.
Today, the placename Osceola is rarely used to refer to the broad plain west of Enumclaw. Many Plateau residents would be hard-pressed to locate it on a map. The term Osceola is now best known for the Mount Rainier lahar of 5,600 years ago, whose fast-flowing mudflow (reaching 40 miles per hour) buried 291 square miles (186,000 acres) between the White and Green Rivers with five billion cubic yards of soil. That is the equivalent of piling 3,000 feet of mud on top of 750 football fields.
From 1968 until the late 1970s, Green River Community College professor Gerald Hedlund conducted an archaeology dig near the intersection of S.E. 448th Street and 228th Ave. S.E. and discovered a Native American village overrun by the Osceola Mudflow. Students found fire hearths, earth ovens, and building posts. They recovered over 13,000 stone tool artifacts, many of them projectile points, scrapers, and knives. The age and number of finds made it one of the most important collections of native artifacts in the Puget Sound region.
This and last week’s history of the Osceola schools was based on information derived from Nancy Irene Hall’s “In the Shadow of the Mountain” (1983); “There Is Only One Enumclaw” (1995) by Louise Poppleton; “The Pioneer History of Enumclaw” (1941), compiled by the Women’s Progressive Club; and John Anderson’s “A History of Enumclaw’s Schools” (2013). This King County Assessor photo of tax lot 282006-9041 comes courtesy of the Puget Sound Regional Archives. Photo enhancements were undertaken by Boomer Burnham, a Tahoma High School photography instructor, doing business as http://www.boomersphotography.com/
