A Little Blackberry Jam With Your Land Clearing?
May 15, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
About a week ago, I was taking my son back to the emergency room and as I was leaving the City of DuPont, I noticed at the intersection of Barksdale and Wilmington there were crews there clearing the land. This corner marked so many memories for me as a child and had already been changed so much – several years ago there wasn’t this large, busy intersection that there is today. The traffic used to be much less, and it used to look a lot different. In fact, one of the greatest joys we had as children was to ride out bikes up to the front of town and pick blackberries on this corner, with the Iafrati’s sometimes there to oversee us. We could walk from their property if we wanted to pick blackberries, right to that infamous corner at the front of town.
Sequalitchew Creek…A Watershed Runneth Dry or Disappearing?
March 23, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
DURING ONE OF MY MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARS, Steilacoom School District arranged to bus the students to the city of DuPont to learn about the vast history and upcoming development the city would soon entertain. We had the opportunity to visit the Sequalitchew Creek Bed near Edmonds Village; we were granted entry past the guard gates at Weyerhaeuser and attend sessions about the upcoming businesses coming to DuPont in the near future. I remember most prominently the Sequalitchew Creek Bed tour and how full the creek bed was then with water. At the time there hadn’t been any development down Center Drive. Center was just a new road and so much of Northwest Landing was still in its beginning stages. The aerial map hanging on the wall did outline the businesses projected to plant their fresh foundations into the freshly excavated soil. The Girl Scout Building was on there- I remember that much from the map. The rest is a blur, except I do remember sitting in some antique school desks.
I am not sure if I tuned it out because I lived here and proclaimed I knew it all already…or why I didn’t pay better attention that day because now I wish I had. I do know the water was a lot higher in the Creek 20 years ago. I know things can change, but instead it feels as though all the trees and nature have diminished, all the water has dried from the creek bed and now rather than a history having aged; it feels as if it has disappeared. Photos can tell a story, and combined with a great storyteller you can take readers on a journey. But looking back now, the value to stand in front of the Sequalitchew Creek and have the history explained to you then – what an experience. We should continue to do that now with our children and visitors to the city – the city’s history is worth saving.
Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. ~Clarence Day, The Crow’s Nest
Paving the Path of History with Bricks
March 7, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
The front of town used to look a lot different than it does today. The intersection wasn’t there (it used to be a stop sign) which curved around to the DuPont Steilacoom Road, the 76 station wasn’t a gas station (it was just a store), and where the Better Business Bureau is now located once sat the City Hall and Laughbon High School. There once was a gas station at the front of town but it closed when I was 3 or 4. It was kitty corner from where the 76 station is today. [Read more...]
My History and a few lemon drops..
March 6, 2009 by Erin · Leave a Comment
My grandma Anna Kelley on Louviers in 1961.
Whenever I think about the Old Town Village of DuPont today, I am reminded of so many things, but especially of my childhood that I shared with the population when it was only 601. I can visualize Barksdale Street in spring lined with the fully blossomed cherry trees and the white antique lamp posts adorned with their hanging baskets of flowing ivy. I think of so many things – time spent frequenting the [Read more...]
