Memories of Growing
Up in Roslyn

"When a lot of the boys quit school at 16 and went to work in the mines."

By the 1920s, state law required students to stay in school through 8th grade unless they had written permission from their parents, but boys as young as 12-years-old worked at the mines as rock pickers as shown in the above photo.

"The 'Cracker Box' High School Gym, with a low ceiling and no out-of-bounds and the time when Roslyn didn't lose a home basketball game for three years."

In its first year of operation, Roslyn High School's 1910-1911 basketball team went undefeated against teams across the state, including Washington State College.

"When we dug out underneath the High School to make a locker room and shower."

The Roslyn High School sat on the corner of 2nd and Idaho Street and was completed in 1910. At the time, Roslyn School District had approximately 1,000 students with two grammar schools, one central school, and the new high school with the latest in modern equipment.

"When we loaded the Roslyn hose carts on the train and went down to Cle Elum to help them when the town almost burned down."

Although Roslyn did not have a fire engine until the 1930s, its volunteer fire department won fire service competitions around the state. They were known for their speedy responses to fires pulling their hose carts up and down the hills of Roslyn. Bellis was 13-years-old in 1918 when a fire raged through Cle Elum and Roslyn Fire Department offered mutual aid.

"When there were 21 saloons in one block on Main Street."

The Northwest Improvement Company tried to restrict the number of taverns in town with a city ordinance, but enterprising entrepeneurs instead set up saloons outside city limits. Defeated in their efforts to control alcohol consumption, the ordinance was revoked and soon several businesses selling alcohol catered to the over 25 different ethnicities that came to Roslyn. Pictured - an inside shot of the Joe Fera Saloon.

"When the Roslyn Town Baseball Team's number one fan was Artie Woods, and she would sit in the grandstand and yell - 'Yip, Yip, Yip - Let's hit a home run - Yip, Yip, Yip, Yip.' And that's how the team became known as the 'The Roslyn Yippers.'"

Bill Lucas takes the mound in the Roslyn Ball Park with fans filling the stadium behind him. Bellis' best hometown record was a 'no-hit, no-run ball game, [where he] struck out 17 batters, and walked only one man.'

"That every Friday night we'd go down to the Rose Theatre and watch 'The Iron Claw,' 'The Perils of Pauline,' and 'The Trey of Hearts.'"

A 1921 stage production at the Rose Theatre featured local talent in a production called 'The Shriek.' Inland Telephone Company eventually located their buildings on approximately the same site at 2nd and Dakota after the Rose Theatre burned down in the 1940s.

"The Fourth of July races the kids ran in a heavy snowstorm."

Foot races and horse racing were popular events in early Roslyn Fourth of July Celebrations - a time of year with unsettled weather that occassionally included snow.

"The many summers we spent at Lake Cle Elum before the lake was raised."

Cabins lined the original eastern shoreline of Lake Cle Elum before the reclamation dam was finished in the mid 1930s which raised the lake levels and covered many favorite recreational spots.

When we used to have three passenger trains each day through Roslyn and one 'Coal Drag' from the mines every afternoon."

After the train coming from Ronald wound around the Roslyn Park and grandstand, it headed east up Washington Street to the depot and then on to Cle Elum. Passenger service ended in the late 1920s and the tracks tracks were eventually removed after the mines closed in the 1960s.

"When Roslyn had a population of about 6,000 and the mines were working seven days a week."

A view of No. 8 mine, one of 10 mines in the Roslyn Coal Field owned by the Northwest Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Mine production peaked in the 1920s and then began a slow decline that ended in the closure of all the mines by the mid 1960s.

"That we never had less than 3 or 4 feet of snow every Winter - and usually a lot more."

Plowed roads made roads passable, but getting to them was another challenge. Children often had to climb up over the mountain of snow in front of their homes and back down the other side during their commute to school. Pictured: the east end of Pennsylvania Ave. known as 'Company Row.'

"How the stores delivered groceries by sleigh during the winter months."

Delivery sleighs on 2nd Street in Roslyn around the turn-of-the-century.

"When the Ball Park flooded in the Winter, and we could ice skate or go up to Chris Anderson's Pond at Number 3, where it always froze."

A 1986 illustration of ice skating on Frog Pond by Ken Miller, who graduated a few years after Harold Bellis from Roslyn High School. In the background - the Primary School to the left, Central School in the center and to the far right - Roslyn High School.

"The one year when Lake Cle Elum froze over, and they cut enough ice to last all the following summer."

The undated photo may have been taken in the 1920s, before the reclamation dam raised lake levels.

"The year of the 'Big Snow' when they measured 17 feet of snow at one time on the level behind the depot."

Transportation came to a standstill after the 1916 snowstorm clogged streets and railroad lines with several feet of new snow. Some Roslyn residents ran out of coal for their furnaces before the roads were cleared enough for delivery.

"The cold winter nights when Hub Cusworth's big bobsled would come racing down the Catholic Church Hill, turn left at the Presbyterian Church, and run down through town almost to the South School."

The unnamed youths in this studio picture immortalized Roslyn's epic sled run that spanned more than a mile if conditions were just right. Walking back up first street and scaling Catholic Hill for a second run,however, must have been brutal.