This large Victorian-influenced building sits on the block now occupied by Enumclaw City Hall. The school was the pride of the town, standing three stories tall complete with a bell tower. It was the second school to occupy this site replacing a smaller structure built in 1891 on land donated by Enumclaw founders, Frank and Mary Stevenson. This photo taken from the corner of Griffin & Wells dates to between 1905 and 1911. The structure to right was the old Presbyterian Church at the same location as its successor, Calvary Presbyterian. West across Porter Street is the Danish Hall, built in 1905 and still servicing the community more than a century later.
Further in the distance is the 1904 home of Dr. John James Smith on Marion and Myrtle. J.J. Smith came west to Franklin as company doctor for coal miners of the Oregon Improvement Co and later Pacific Coast Coal Co. Smith moved to Enumclaw and married Selma Hanson, the daughter of Carl Hanson, who with his sons and sons-in-law created the town’s biggest employer, the White River Lumber Company. Smith also served as state representative, senator, and came a hair’s breadth of winning the 1904 Republican nomination for governor. His “peaches and cream” campaign to connect Yakima and Enumclaw eventually led to building the Chinook Highway.
In 1910, a new school was built three blocks west on the corner of Griffin & Fell. It was a three-story brick building with 19 classrooms and an auditorium. That same year witnessed the tragic death of the widely-esteemed Dr. Smith, so the recently opened school was named in his honor. When that old structure was torn down and replaced in 1957 by a new one-story structure, it retained the name – J.J. Smith School. The site of those schools was gifted to the City when the Fair Organization, which originally owned the long rectangular block at Griffin and Fell went out of business. The City traded that 7-acre site to the school district for the square, 1-acre block where this grand old school once sat, initially creating a park near downtown. In 1922, the park became home to the classically designed City Hall.
This photo by Karl Jensen comes courtesy of the Carl M. and Anna (Gustafson) Hanson family, whose White River Lumber Company’s mill and timberlands later merged into Weyerhaeuser. The Hanson family’s hard work and dedication to their employees and community laid strong foundations to create the Enumclaw we know today.
