Then
In Paul Dorpat’s essay “Seattle Then & Now: Fort Lawton’s Barracks,” he states that Arthur Denny, himself, who is widely regarded one of the founders of Seattle, scouted out Magnolia as a place to graze his livestock.
Dr. Henry Smith is the best-known settler; he staked his claim down in the tide flat area now known as Smith Cove, by the Magnolia Marina.
A few people tried their luck at farming up on the bluff.
In the first decades of the 20th century, new farms started popping up all the way from Salmon Bay in the north to Wolfe Creek in the south. For the most part, farmers in Magnolia were just getting by from the food they could produce, with a little surplus going to the markets in Ballard, shipped by boat.
According to Monica Wooton’s essay “A Dairyland of Sorts Back Then”: “Most early Magnolians literally scratched out a simple living with small crops and chickens.”
Perhaps one of the more memorable agricultural enterprises were the dairy farms that sprang up in Pleasant Valley, the central part of Magnolia between the east and west hills. In her work, “Magnolia: Yesterday and Today” (written in 1975 and published by the Magnolia Community Club, commemorating its 50th Anniversary), Aleua Frare dedicates a whole section to the dairy farms of central Magnolia in her chapter on agriculture.
Eric Ferrell moved his family to Magnolia in 1902 and lived near 30th Avenue and Government Way. He had the idea to make the rounds at the different dairy farms in Pleasant Valley. He would collect the milk and take it back home to separate it. He then loaded up 10-gallon cans and would go downtown to sell the milk out in measures, as needed.
The Volpni family also settled in east Magnolia on Grand Boulevard (now Dravus Street) and 22nd Avenue. The father of the family would load up a yoke, put it over his shoulders and sell milk door-to-door in his neighborhood.
Indeed, many families had cows and a few started specialized dairies, totaling 13 at one point.
Pleasant Valley Dairy was established by brothers Esbern and Jim Hanson in 1909. Esbern had been the overseer of a different dairy for close to 10 years prior. The location was partially chosen because of its close access to Wolfe Creek.
A different set of Hansons — brothers John, Wolfried and Svend — started up the Merrymount Dairy what would have been a few blocks down. One of the Hanson brothers from this dairy was known for his Queen Anne milk route. It is said that during the Depression, he would still deliver the milk, even though people could not afford it.
Cows from many different farmers would roam where they wished and, as Frare recounts, they would all make it back to the right barn when it was time to be milked. This laxity would lead to some unfortunate circumstances, such as how, in 1924, when the Wheeler Street Bridge burned down, a few doomed cows belonging to east Magnolia farmers were caught under the flaming beams.
The present Garfield Street Bridge, known colloquially as simply the Magnolia Bridge, replaced this bridge.
Hanson’s cows from the Pleasant Valley Dairy roamed Magnolia well into the 1930s, but eventually, the small family farms were supplanted by private homes.
Merrymount was sold in 1936 and existed as a dairy for three more years, until 1939.
By mid-century and the post-World War II housing boom, all of the farms in Magnolia were but a memory.
Now
The area that was primarily used as dairy land is now the area between modern-day 32nd and 34th avenues, from the Village all the way north to the locks. Houses, churches and playfields now occupy this land.
Pleasant Valley Dairy was at 2622 31st Ave. W., which Frare points out to be close to the current location of Albertson’s (which has not moved since her book’s publication in 1975). Merrymount was at 2815 31st Ave. W.
One interesting tidbit gleaned from “Magnolia: Yesterday and Today” is that a butcher shop, Evans’ Meat Market, was in the location of Magnolia TV. Since this book was printed, Magnolia TV is long gone, going out of business at some point in the 1990s. Ironically, the most recent tenant of that building was Bill the Butcher — what goes around comes around.
JEFFREY CUNNINGHAM is president of the Magnolia Historical Society (www.magnoliahistoricalsociety.org).
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