Enumclaw Class of 1971

This is your monthly reminder, for we are all getting to be of that age, for the Enumclaw Class of 1971's 55th Reunion:

Saturday, September 12, 2026, early afternoon
Yella Beak Saloon, 23325 Enumclaw-Auburn Highway
It's Free!
Please share with classmates not on Facebook, as this is our main means of communication.

When Kris Galvin delivered his June 2, 1971, graduation speech, Bud Olson, editor of the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, was so impressed that he published it in the following week's newspaper.

From left to right: Steve McCarty, Jennifer McDougall, Marsha Millarich, and Kris Galvin, class speakers at the Class of 1971 graduation ceremony, when 243 students received diplomas, at the time the largest class ever to graduate from Enumclaw High School.

by Robert Olson, Editor of the Enumclaw Courier Herald, June 10, 1971

Rarely does a speech by a graduating high school senior rise above the prosaic. We thought young Kris Galvin’s did. Kris was one of four class speakers at last week’s commencement exercises at Enumclaw High School, and we’d like to share his thoughts – which we strongly believe are representative of his generation – with our readers. Accordingly, and with gratitude to Kris, it follows:

June 2, 1971 – Enumclaw High School Gymnasium – By Kris Galvin
“I hope that this speech can cover many of the hopes of some of my fellow seniors and some of the thoughts of all. Perhaps by daily contact with these people, I have been influenced enough so that this speech will be truly representative.

“We speak of the thoughts, expectations, and doubts that we of the senior class share, but what in actuality do we have in common. What is the cement joining these individual thoughts into one common mind?

“We believe that man is basically good. We believe in those words as set forth in the Constitution that ‘all men are created equal.’ A man does not start life as a murderer or racketeer at birth. It is circumstance and society that push him down the road of life in the wrong direction. Society can be held responsible for turning these men away and casting them aside as unrestorable.

“Each man can be considered a canvas to be painted, naked and pure at birth. Society, the powers that be, friends, and fate are the hands that paint the canvas and decide what image it shall bear. Shall society paint a canvas and then discard it as worthless, if upon first glance it is not pleasing? We of this class say no.

“We believe that friends are the most important possession and that our fellow men deserve the same respect and rights that we ourselves expect. It is a pity man has not held valuable the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ as he has held the yellow metal after which it was named.

“We believe that social injustice can be removed, poverty, and ignorance eliminated, and war obliterated. Our one fear is that bias, tradition, greed, ignorance, hatred and all the other evils from Pandora’s box will prevent this noble goal from being reached.

“The problems that exist to be met by this graduating class are the greatest in the history of man. At no time in the history of America has government been so irresponsive to the wishes of the people and irresponsible to what is right. Hatred and treachery spark around the world in so many places named Vietnam. A growing chasm exists between minority and majority, young and old, rich and poor, government and the governed, America and the world. In the push-button world of today one mistake can lead explosively to disaster.

“We are probably the most extensively prepared generation in the history of man. We are the best educated generation, can expect a longer life span than any before us and are quite possibly more idealistic than any of our predecessors. But in proportion to the massive load we are to carry, we are probably the least prepared generation that has ever existed.

“We cannot carry this burden alone. The younger generation, for all its idealism and vigor cannot do so. It requires those in power, you, the adult society to kindle those fires of idealism that burned when you graduated from old alma mater. You must restart the blaze that spelled doom to Hitler’s fascism and apply it to the world of today.

“You have provided for this class: housed them, fed them, loved them, cursed them and educated them. Now you must look with this class to find the meaning of it all. We must closely examine where we came from, and where we are going and decide if we like what we find.

“Let us pledge to remain faithful to those principles we know to be true. Let us swear to make this country and world the kind of places we know they should be, but know they are not.

“Let me end on this note: we have finished twelve years of public education, but we must not let learning end there as only by continuing our education in daily life can we truly progress and only by doing this can the fires of idealism remain burning.”

***

After graduating from Enumclaw, Kris Galvin attended the University of Washington where he earned a degree in Accounting awarded in 1976. Today, he and his wife, Sally (Brooks) Galvin are retired and live in Black Diamond. The Galvins raised three children who have spawned seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, many of whom live in Enumclaw.

This page will be taking another break for about a week.

Part 3 of our three-part series about Black Diamond. Today, Sat. June 6, 2026, the Black Diamond Historical Society is celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1976 founding.

Black Diamond’s Story

This Saturday, June 6th, from 10 am to 3 pm, Black Diamond celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Historical Museum’s founding, featuring a ribbon-cutting and unveiling of a new underground coal mine exhibit. This community event is free to all, with festivities enveloping the 1886 railroad depot that now serves as the Museum. It’s located at 32627 Railroad Avenue, near the famous Black Diamond Bakery.

The origin of coal mining dates back to 1880, when the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company (BDCMC) of Nortonville, California, began searching for new coal reserves to serve San Francisco’s growing demand. With discoveries of quality coal in the Washington Territory, the company sent Victor Tull to explore south King County. Along the Green River, Tull found exposed coal seams and followed the strata two miles west. On a creek near a lake in Section 14, Tull found the same seams and sent 880 pounds of coal back to San Francisco for testing. It proved excellent.

In 1882, P. B. Cornwall and Morgan Morgans, President and Superintendent of BDCMC, traveled north to investigate. What they found were quality coal beds, ample timber supplies, and plenty of nearby lakes and streams. What they needed was a railroad. For without a railroad, there could be no coal mine; but without a coal mine, there would be no railroad.

With two coal mining companies to serve in Black Diamond and Franklin, a deal was struck with the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad to extend its rail line south from Renton. The first train reached Black Diamond in December 1884 and Franklin in April 1885. Coal was soon shipped to Seattle’s ports, and the Green River district became a hotbed for coal mining. By the turn of the century, there were nearly 3,500 people living in Black Diamond and more than 1,000 in Franklin.

In 1896, Pacific Coast Company acquired the Franklin mines after the Oregon Improvement Company was placed in receivership. Pacific Coast was a conglomerate comprised of Pacific Coast Coal (PCC), Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad, and Pacific Coast Steamship Company, offering mine-to-market capabilities under a single entity.

Two years later, PCC bought Eugene Lawson’s coal mines, located just east of Black Diamond. In 1904, Lawson helped broker the deal by which PCC acquired BDCMC’s mines and company town. With operations in Newcastle, Franklin, Lawson, and now Black Diamond, Pacific Coast Coal became the second-largest coal producer in Washington, trailing only the Northwestern Improvement Company, owned by Northern Pacific Railway.

In the early days, the coal miners had no union. Still, mining could be lucrative, and many miners prospered. In 1907, the United Mine Workers of America organized a local union. When World War I produced coal shortages, prices rose, and so did wages. Production boomed throughout the war, and 1918 proved to be the peak coal year in Washington state, with 4.1 million tons mined.

When the Great War ended that same year, prices slumped, and coal companies tried to cut miners’ wages. In Black Diamond, a strike and company lockout embittered town folks on both sides of the labor dispute. Striking miners were booted from their company-owned homes. Tim Morgan, a thorn in the side of PCC, offered land to the striking miners to build new homes, and the town of Morganville was born.

Black Diamond’s mines slowly closed, and in 1927, the last big operation, Mine 11, was shuttered. PCC next opened a new operation halfway between Maple Valley and Renton. They called it the New Black Diamond, but it was a poor substitute for the real thing. Plus, a thousand miles south, the oil fields of Los Angeles were pumping record amounts of petroleum. Railroads converted locomotives to diesel, and fuel oil replaced coal for heating buildings and powering industrial machinery. San Francisco’s demand for coal was concluded by 1919. And as hydroelectric dams were constructed on Washington’s rivers, electricity prices plummeted, further reducing coal’s importance as an energy source.

Pacific Coast Company disbanded Black Diamond as a company town in 1939. Homes and lots were sold to the families living there. Then in 1953, PCC agreed to sell all its King County land and mineral holdings to Palmer Coking Coal, which moved its headquarters to Black Diamond in 1958. As coal mining continued to wither, the town’s population fell to less than 1,000. But the town’s spirit could not be weakened, and in 1959, Black Diamond was incorporated as a city.

By 1975, Black Diamond was forced to merge into the Enumclaw School District. In the 1980s and 1990s, Black Diamond began incorporating surrounding areas, including Lake Sawyer in 2000. The signing of the Black Diamond Urban Growth Area Agreement in 1999 paved the way for rapid growth beginning in 2017, with the vast majority in Ten Trails. Today, the city’s population is over 7,000 people, with a new elementary school on the horizon.

This 1887 illustration of Black Diamond was created by Edward Lange for the company’s marketing purposes. The collage features eight distinct views of the town. Company officials named in the collage include Morgan Morgans, Supt.; W.S. Moore, Clerk; John M. Phillips, David D. Davis, & David Webber, Foremen; Alex Turnbull, Machinist; Atkinson & Calhoun, Store Proprietors; James A. McBean, Bookkeeper; W.C. Finn, Charles George, and Tallie Evans, Clerks; Tallie Jones, Teamster; Axel G. Hanson, Station Agent, and N.H. Martin, Agent for Black Diamond Coal Company in Seattle, Wash. Copies of this picture could be sent by mail, Price $1.00. Address: Edward Lange, Artist, Olympia, Wash.

This image comes courtesy of Ron Edge, a collector of historical photography, and Paul Dorpat, co-founder of HistoryLink.org, whose “Now & Then” column ran weekly in the Seattle Times from 1982 to 2019, totaling over 1,800 articles. Each week, Dorpat paired a historical and a present-day photo of the Seattle area from the same point of view.

This “When Coal Was King” column by Bill Kombol was originally published in the June 2, 2026, Voice of the Valley.

Part 2 of our 3-part series on the history of the three main communities that formed Black Diamond, Lawson Hill, today - Morganville, and tomorrow, when the main town will be featured:

The Morganville Story

Before Morganville was established in 1921, it was just another section of Northern Pacific Railway land, located west of coal company property in Section 14. For building a transcontinental railroad, N.P. was granted every odd-numbered section of land (640 acres) within 40 miles on both sides of the rail route.

Timothy Morgan was born in Wales and by 1883, made his way to Black Diamond. While a miner working for the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company, Morgan filed a homestead claim on a property the company coveted. Tim traded his homestead for a half-interest in a saloon. Some claim that company officials got Morgan drunk, which generated a lifelong enmity between Morgan and the coal company. Later, he tried to adversely possess land from the railroad, but lost that lawsuit, yet still ended up owning 160 acres in Section 15.

In 1907, Black Diamond’s miners wanted to join a labor union, but were not allowed to meet on Pacific Coast Coal Company (PCC) property, which bought out the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company holdings in 1904. So, 200 to 300 miners walked one-half mile west on Morgan Street, just past the cemetery, onto Tim Morgan’s property. Speeches were given atop a large fir stump that served as a speaker’s platform. This photo was taken at Union Stump on May 5, 1907. The old-growth tree trunk is now encased in concrete and situated in Union Stump Historical Park on Cemetery Road, a short street that connects Roberts Drive to Morgan Drive.

Shortly thereafter, the United Mine Workers of America was organized. Without a strike, the UMWA obtained an 8-hour day and wage increases for Black Diamond’s miners. And each summer thereafter, Tim Morgan hosted a picnic for coal miners.

For the next 12 years, labor peace generally held as coal prices increased and wages rose. Production boomed during World War I, and miners’ pay continued to rise. But at the war’s end in 1918, coal prices fell, and output slumped. In the face of lower coal prices, companies throughout the nation sought reduced wages.

A Washington State commission was assembled and recommended a solution, which miners reluctantly accepted. However, coal operators’ losses amid falling prices were unbearable. Pacific Coast Coal and other mining companies issued an ultimatum: reinstate the October 1919 wage scale or workers would be locked out. The miners struck on March 15, 1921. On August 31, a bitter labor dispute turned ugly as union miners were forced out of company houses in the PCC-controlled town site.

Once again, Tim Morgan rode to the miners’ rescue. He offered to sell a parcel of land to the Union, where striking miners could build new homes. The coal company learned of Morgan’s plans and offered him $30,000 to purchase his property. Morgan turned them down and sold the 16 acres to the Union for $2,500.

Tim Morgan nailed the plank in the first of 200 planned homes. The homes were built assembly-style by striking coal miners, most of whom could handle a hammer and saw. A large two-story Union Hall measuring 36 feet by 70 feet deep was erected on Buena Vista Drive. The new townsite was laid out along two main streets that extended north and south of Roberts Drive: Morgan Drive and Union Drive, plus two connecting loops, Dail Drive and Buena Vista Drive.

The area was affectionately named Morganville, in honor of Timothy Morgan (1839-1927), husband of Esther Jane (Swansbrough), and father to 14 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood. Morganville became part of Black Diamond when the city was incorporated in 1959.

On Saturday, June 6th, the Black Diamond History Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary with a ribbon-cutting for the new underground mine exhibit, complete with talking mannequins. It’s also Welsh Heritage Day in tribute to Black Diamond’s 1885 founders, whose members were primarily from Wales. This community event, with lots of fun activities, takes place at 32627 Railroad Avenue from 10 am to 3 pm.

This photo comes courtesy of the Black Diamond Historical Society, with photo enhancements undertaken by Doug ‘Boomer’ Burham, dba BoomersPhotography.com

This “When Coal Was King” column by Bill Kombol was originally published in the May 26, 2026, Voice of the Valley.

Several weeks ago, we shared a column about the surrounding communities that formed around Enumclaw. Over the next three days, we'll be doing the same with Black Diamond, starting with Lawson Hill.

The Lawson Hill Story

Lawson was originally a coal mine located east of Jones Lake along the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad line. It was served by an unpaved street now called Old Lawson Road. The town was established in 1896 by Eugene Lawson, who named his colliery the Light Ash Mine. Lawson’s mine was on the McKay coal seam in Section 13, about 1/2 mile southeast of the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company’s Mine 14 in Section 14.

Lawson’s mine was soon rebranded the White Ash Mine and, in May 1899, was acquired by Pacific Coast Coal Company (PCC). Their combined operations in Newcastle, Coal Creek, and nearby Franklin made PCC Washington’s second-largest coal producer. An October 1901 mine explosion claimed 11 lives and closed the original mine, which henceforth became known as Old Lawson.

Pacific Coast Coal immediately went to work and opened a new mine about 1/2-mile north to the north of Old Lawson. It was situated near the end of Botts Drive. The road, which begins at Highway 169 and travels east towards Franklin, became known as Lawson Street in town, and the Green River Gorge Road beyond. Since the elevation rises about 150 feet above Black Diamond, the surrounding area became known as Lawson Hill. The top of Franklin Hill rises to an elevation of 1,260 feet, two miles east, and 200 feet higher than Lawson Hill.

In 1904, PCC acquired the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company’s workings and its company town, and furthered its position in Washington’s coal industry.

While Black Diamond’s mines were dominated by Welsh and British miners in the early years, and later Italians, the Lawson Mine’s workforce was predominantly German, Austrian, and Finnish. The Lawson Mines were much smaller than Black Diamond’s Mines 11 and 14. They were also far more dangerous, experiencing 34 fatalities in 15 years of operation that produced just over 1.1 million tons of coal. On a per-ton basis, Lawson recorded 33 deaths per million tons mined compared to Mine 14’s four deaths and Mine 11’s eleven deaths per million.

On Sunday morning, November 6, 1910, 11 miners were being lowered down the mine slope, while five men waited at the bottom, nearing the end of their graveyard shifts. An explosion ripped through the underground workings so powerfully that it completely destroyed the mine and wrecked surface facilities. All 16 men perished, with five bodies never found.

The cause of the explosion was never conclusively determined, though several theories were advanced. Eight of the 11 recovered miners were interred in one common grave, while three were buried elsewhere in the Black Diamond Cemetery. The five unrecovered bodies are entombed under 2,000 feet of cover, 800 feet below sea level mine. A tribute to those men can be seen at the Black Diamond Cemetery.

After the mine ceased operating, the large store on Lawson Hill was moved downtown to Railroad Avenue. Most of the New Lawson homes were relocated closer to Black Diamond’s mines. Many of them landed on 3rd Avenue (i.e., Highway 169) and Lawson Street. Today, Lawson Street remains a collection of historic miners’ homes, while the sparsely populated Lawson Hill is slated to become Oakpointe’s Master Planned Development featuring 1,200 homes and residences.

On Saturday, June 6th, the Black Diamond History Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary with a ribbon-cutting to unveil the new underground mine exhibit, complete with talking mannequins. It’s also Welsh Heritage Day in tribute to Black Diamond’s 1885 founding, whose early population was primarily from Wales. The community event, with loads of fun activities, takes place at 32627 Railroad Avenue and is, as always, FREE.

This photo of the New Lawson homes was taken in the early 1930s. The dirt road the boys are standing on may have been Lawson Street. The rail tracks in the foreground were the Lawson branch of the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad. The road along the fence line in front of the homes likely became Botts Drive. This photo comes courtesy of the Black Diamond Historical Society, with photo enhancements undertaken by Doug ‘Boomer’ Burham, dba BoomersPhotography.com

This “When Coal Was King” column by Bill Kombol was originally published in the May 19, 2026, Voice of the Valley.

Enumclaw students, Jennifer McDougall, Dennis Box, and Jill Dwelley, turn to poetry from the Feb. 5, 1971, Hornet student newspaper.

We’re sorry to report that Rick Tost passed away yesterday, according to his daughter, Kimberley Claflin.

This page will be taking a break for a couple of weeks.