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SKAGIT RIVER RESORT

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SLICE OF HISTORY
By Elaine Johnson, Sunset Magazine - August 2001

MARBLEMOUNT'S GOT THE GRUB
By Jan Rodak, Skagit Valley Herald - January 27, 1999

A FOREST, A DREAM AND A DILEMMA
By Mike Nemeth, Skagit Valley Herald - May 6, 1998

KEEPING THE PIONEER SPIRIT ALIVE
By Tina Potter, Skagit Valley Herald - August 4, 1998

CHEESE TUBS WERE GOOD FOR A BATH
By Dick Fallis, Skagit Valley Argus - April 22, 1998

On Saturday last week, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I managed to break away and head up the river to Clark's Skagit River Cabins, just this side of Marblemount.

I thought that this might be a good time to ask questions and get some historical information before the weather warms up any more and the tourist season gets under way. What I had not realized was that Tootsie Clark and her gang are very much a part of the greater Marblemount community and are very active in all the local doings there.

Further, that the bunnies as well as the deer are symbols of Clark's Skagit River Cabins, there being lots and lots of both species there, and that bunnies are also a big attraction around the time of Easter.

An Easter egg hunt on the grounds was being readied for Easter Sunday, and of course, a number of people in the Marblemount area had elected to have their Easter dinner at the restaurant the Eatery Restaurant, operated by Tootsie Clark and her family.

But I did get a chance to talk with Tootsie in the midst of preparations, and also got to meet with her son, Don Clark, who is in the process of planning for expansion of their approximately 120-acre site, and the further development of what use to be called Old Bullerville, the mill, logging camp, farm and ranch of the original Buller Brothers, Carl, Wade and Richard.

Tootsie is the daughter of Richard and Ethel Buller, and it was with her husband, Rudy Clark, that they developed the plan for Clark's Cabins, even before the North Cascades-Highway came through with its encouragement of facilities for tourists.

There was always an allure to the North Cascades, to the "American Alps" country, accessible through Marblemount, and Tootsie and Rudy found a ready demand for cabins built originally for mill hands, augmented by newer cabins, wash and laundry facilities, restaurant services, and camping and RV places.

Tootsie was mentioning a time when her mother, Ethel Buller, had hit upon the idea of establishing a cheese factory at the site of Old Bullerville.

It was the time of the depression, logging was down with no market for lumber, and the only thing around besides deer and bunny rabbits, were the cows that had been brought in to graze among the stumps where the trees had been cut.

Ethel Buller took herself to the State College at Pullman, where she learned all she could about making cheese and what equipment and facilities were needed to make it. With this information she headed back to Bullerville and set up the Glacier View Farm and Cheese Factory.

I didn't find out how long the operation lasted or how successful it was, though Tootsie mentioned that it was a very good product, well-regarded in its time.

What did capture my attention was that the factory utilized flumes of pure mountain spring water, and that vats and tubs had been set up that could be heated to any desirable temperatures. These were emptied and scrubbed regularly, and when not being used in the process of cheese making, could be used as early-day hot tubs, for luxurious bathing and soaking, great boons to anyone who has been laboring long in the woods or on hot, dusty trails.

To troops of CCC Boys, building access trails for parks and scenic places, and to the loggers, mill workers and shingle weavers, a hot bath was a mighty fine idea, preparing for a Saturday night dance.

There is still more story to come!

BATHING WAS A SATURDAY RITUAL FOR MEN AND WOMEN IN OLD BULLERVILLE
by Dick Fallis, Skagit Valley Argus - April 29, 1998

Last week I was sharing with you some of the memories of the accommodations at "Old Bullerville," now Clark's Cabins, just this side of Marblemount, as remembered by Tootsie (Buller) Clark.

Tootsie's mother Ethel (Mrs. Richard) Buller had operated a cheese factory at the site of the Buller Brothers lumber mill, which utilized vats and tanks of pure mountain water that could be heated by boilers for regular scrubbings and thorough clean-up required.

On Saturday afternoons, when the tanks were routinely scrubbed out, it was found that the huge tanks and tubs could be used for soaking and bathing, somewhat like modern hot tubs, or like ancient Chinese or Roman Baths.

(Bullerville, though as far back in the woods as you could possibly get, was more cosmopolitan in some ways than you might think.)

Here the women bathed first, which was a rare luxury in those early days. The usual procedure in pioneer times, when the wash tub was lugged into the cabin, filled with water heated on the kitchen range, was for the mother to bathe last, in the tepid to cool, gray water left after all the family had taken their turn.

Here, in the ample, hot tubs of Mrs. Buller's cheese factory, the women had space and clean, hot water enough for the most luxurious pleasure of all, of letting down the thoroughly washing and masses of long hair that were commonly worn in those days.

Tootsie has bright memories from childhood of watching women who she had thought of as old, pinched and crabby, coming out of those washing sessions with their hair as soft and clean and flowing as an angel's aura, and more radiant and happy than she had ever seen them before.

In the evening the men would come in by the truck load. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) had camps of men working in places like Bacon Creek, Komo Kulshan, and as far away as Baker Lake; boys, really, from places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania; always eager to come in from the woods for social recreation.

Local, and perhaps less colorful men came in from the logging camps, and they all cleaned up well in the scrubbing tubs, the men more rowdy and boisterous, where the women had been more silent and serene.

Music for dances in Bullerville at that time was always provided by "The Three Blind Mice," a talented trio consisting of Mrs. Patton, wife of an early settler, on the piano, and two sisters known collectively, as "Wheeler & Glover" on the violin and drums.

"Wheeler & Glover," besides furnishing lively, foot-stomping music for local dances, owned and operated and maintained the early iron-wire telephone line from Concrete to Marblemount, and were frequently out in storm times in that most rugged country, making repairs and keeping the phone lines open.

Will Jernkens, in his book "Last Frontier in the North Cascades," gives this description: "Either of the sisters could climb a pole with linesmen's spurs and safety belt, draped with tools of the trade, and often did, as their task required. Whenever anyone spoke of them, it was as 'Wheeler & Glover,' for that's the way they were known on the upper Skagit, like a team rather than indiv)iduals."

And in Old Bullerville, their music was as legendary as the women themselves.

"And now you know the rest of the story" (Paul Harvey). That's the way it was in Bullerville, many, many years ago.

THE FIRST DAYS OF MARBLEMOUNT
by Richard Buller, Concrete Herald, June 21, 1951 (50th Anniv Edition)

Marblemount is a small town a half-mile from the mouth of the Cascade River. A couple of hotels, two stores and three beer parlors scattered over a mile of state highway comprises Marblemount today, but in 1890 fifteen hundred miners made it, in the words of several astute boosters, "the coming Leadville of the Pacific." For in the Cascade valley near Gilbert's cabin hundreds of prospectors hacked at outcroppings of Galena ore and silver and lead.

The Boston mine was sold for a half-million dollars in cash, others for hundreds of thousands as everybody was going to strike it rich and retire. But, alas, silver was devalued overnight and the boom broke. Overnight, also, the town of Marblemount was a deserted village.

People with homesteads who could not leave until they proved up on them and sold them to the timber companies, stayed on hoping soon to return to God's country--as they called the down-river land.

My brother, Carl Buller, had left Sedro-Woolley in the Spring of 1890 and in a two-day hike over Indian trails, reached the claim of George Engles, on which the town of Marblemount now stands. He asked George where he could live to get a government claim.

George said: "There is a Norwegian squatter near my claim, but he can't hold it, so go up the river a mile and locate there." So Carl did and his was the last claim located at the time. Everything else had been taken as far up as Goodell Creek.

Coming back to Sedro-Woolley, carl, Mother and I took the "Indiana," a stern-wheeler, up-river but it only went to Birdsview leaving us on the river bank. Next week, another boat, the "Henry Brady," picked us up and again we were put ashore just two miles from what later on was Marblemount.

Following an old Indian trail with what belongings we could carry we came out on the river bank where a large pile of groceries were covered with a tarpaulin. A man with a pair of scales set up under a canvas fly was already doing a land office business supplying the miners. About fifty feet away down river a shake building with walls and a roof but no floor had a plank laid across two whiskey barrels and was in operationa as a saloon.

My mother asked Frank Stewart, the "store keeper," what was going on. He told her that someday this would be a large city. "What we need most now is a hotel," he said. Mother replied, "I am a hotel operator."

Stewart called over George Engles, introduced mother, whose first question was, "Where can I build?" A small clear spot fifty feet from the saloon on the river bank looked like a good spot. Engles told her, "There is 16 acres here, take your choice--but I would suggest that little opening in the timber."

Morgan Davis and Alec Adams came across the river in a canoe shortly afterward with a lot of marble samples and said that they had found a mountain of it. Mother suggested that if this was so, we should call the new town "Marblemount." All agreed the name was perfect.

The next step was to send to the postal department for the necessary stamps and so forth, plus the appointment as postmaster. These came thru in time but no mail carrier was appointed to bring the mail up from Sedro-Woolley. As there was only the trail and the river boats part way, you would see a man with a big sombrero or a tall stovepipe hat walk into the hotel, take off the hat and remove a packet of letters. This was the latest mail from outside.

Later, mail began to arrive by canoe and that fall a man on horseback got the mail contract for regular service.

The Author
Richard Buller was born in Pennsylvania, son of Henry & Matilda (Clark) Buller, also native born in that state. They came west to Seattle after Henry had served in the Civil War. Mrs. Buller was a remarkable woman who had taught school for five years before her marriage and had earned a certificate entitling her to be called a "professor" rather than teacher. In her early days she held a private school at which she educated her sons and a number of the Indian children in the Marblemount area. Richard later attended Seattle Seminary for four years, then spent the balance of his life in the upper valley in the logging and lumber business.

AUTHOR & DATE UNKNOWN

Buller Brothers is the name and style under which a large bolt cutting and lumber industry is being carried on at Marblemount. The trio compose the firm, Carl P.. Wade H. and Richard H.L., are all natives of Pennsylvania, children of Henry and Matilda F. (Clark) Buller, both of whom were born in the Keystone state. The elder Buller enlisted with the Pennsylvania volunteers in the Civil War, serving as a private for three years. He died in Seattle in 1903. The mother of the Buller boys is a remarkable woman and one of strong personality, much of her life being spent in the active management of business. She is a direct descendant of Thomas Clark, who came to the Massachusetts shore in the Mayflower. Until marriage she lived with her parents in Philadelphia and taught school for five years, having obtained a first grade certificate entitling her to be called a "professor" rather than teacher. She came up the Skagit river with her sons in 1889, established the first hotel at Marblemount and continued to manage it for 3 years. She moved to the place where her sons now live in 1893, after passing two years in Seattle. Three years were spent on the home place, then she went to Burlington and conducted a hotel for part of a year, ultimately taking up her residence in Seattle, where she still lives. In 1899, accompanied by her sons, Carl and Richard, she went to Alaska, and she passed two years at Nome staking a claim for gold. Though a resident of Seattle, she frequently visits her sons at Marblemount and mentally contrasts transportation facilities of the present day with those when she made her first trip up the Skagit, coming by boat to Sauk and was paddled by Indians in a canoe the remainder of the distance to Marblemount. Mrs. Clark-Buller is the author of "Road House Tales," a compilation of stories she heard in the days when she was a hotel keeper also is a lecturer on Socialism, Mental Science and Theosophy. In her early days up the Skagit she held a private school, at which her younger sons were educated and which was also attended by a number of Indians living in the vicinity of Marblemount.

The lives of the three brothers have been so intimately associated with that of their mother that a review of her life is almost a review of the lives of her sons. Wade and Richard Buller were the two first white boys on the upper Skagit, and all three brothers later became experts in the open life of the early days in and around Marblemount. For three years they followed canoeing as an occupation. They have prospected in the Ruby Creek district and all through the upper Cascade mountains, also have done a great deal of trapping, the woods being full of all kinds of game and the waters abounding in fish in the early days. The boys are second cousins of Sir Redford Buller of South African fame. They own 800 acres of land, forty of which are cleared and the rest in valuable timber which they are converting in their mill to commercial uses. Wade and Richard Buller attended the Seattle Seminary for four years, Wade, the former graduating from the institution. The influence of the mentality of the mother is seen in the intellectual life of the sons. Politically they are all three Socialists, and in church matters are not bound by creed or the formalities of denominational organization, leaning rather toward "free thinking." They are ambitious in business and hard workers, successful in their management and prominent in the town. They make their homes together, as none has married.

Matilda later was known for naming Marblemount. The story goes a miner came into the hotel saying "Matilda, Matilda, I just found a mountain of marble." And she replied "Maybe we should call our town Marblemountain". It was later shortened to Marblemount.

Contact: Local telephone: 360-873-2250 Toll-free: 800-273-2606 Fax: 360-873-4077
Postal address: 58468 Clark Cabin Road, Rockport, WA 98283 USA
Highway address: Milepost 103.5, North Cascades Highway, Marblemount, Skagit County, Washington, USA