OddWA #21 - Batsquatch!

Happy Halloween!

I had to do this one simply because everyone should hear the greatest word ever invented: Batsquatch. Yes, as if a gigantic woodland hominid wasn't enough, there are also tales of a version that flies.

In 1994 the Tacoma News Tribune published an account of a young motorist who described a disturbing encounter with a gigantic, blue, bat-winged figure with red glowing eyes on a remote country road near Mount Rainier.

Since then, several other stories of equal... um, credibility have added to the legend that is Batsquatch. Batsquatch sightings often include grisly animal mutilation, so this could be a vacationing Chupacabra, or his not-so-original northern cousin. But let's not judge. If there isn't a Batsquatch I think everybody can agree that there certainly should be one. The name is just too good.

Again, with feeling: BATSQUATCH!

CK

OddWA #20 - Starvation Heights Sanitarium

In 1908 Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard published a book called Fasting For The Cure Of Disease. Her theory on undergoing systematic starvation to overcome illness was considered revolutionary by some, and total quackery by others. Hazzard had enough of a following that she opened a sanitarium in Olalla, Washington, giving it the idyllic name Wilderness Heights. Clients flocked from around the world to try her starvation cure.

But something wasn't quite right about Dr.Hazzard's little institution. Some 40 patients died in her care. True, these were often people who were already desperately ill, but was she really supposed to perform autopsies in her bathtub? It also came to the attention of authorities that jewelry and clothing from Hazzard's recently departed patients often ended up in her own wardrobe.

The first chapter of Wilderness Heights came to an end when a British heiress died at the sanitarium, but not before Hazzard forged her signature in an attempt to gain her estate. A surviving sister testified at the ensuing trial and Hazzard was sent to prison for manslaughter in 1912.

She was paroled just two years later and eventually reopened her sanitarium in 1920 (minus her doctoral credentials). This burned to the ground in 1935, never to rise again.

It's a fitting twist that Linda Burfield Hazzard died in 1938 while undergoing her own starvation therapy.

CK

OddWA #19 - Ghost Ship of The Columbia

The waters near the mouth of the Columbia are sometimes called the Graveyard of The Pacific, and with good reason. There are around 2000 recorded shipwrecks in the vicinity.

Part of this total was a large fleet of fishing boats, most of which capsized in a sudden squall that appeared suddenly on May 4th, 1880. Contemporary newspaper accounts listed anywhere from 60 to 350 crewmen lost in the storm.

Another story emerged from this already epic tale. Several survivors told of a mysterious ship that sailed smoothly through the wreckage, completely untouched by the storm. After the unknown vessel glided calmly through the chaos, it was never seen again.

Was this story the result of delirious survivors? An unparalleled feat of navigation? Naw... A ghost ship is way more fun.

CK

OddWA #18 - It's A Bird(man)!

Kenneth Arnold really started something when he reported those saucers in 1947. Soon, the rest of America had UFO fever. Newspapers were crammed with the latest sightings of saucers and "men from Mars." And it didn't stop with boring old disc-shaped stuff. Several newspapers in Southwest Washington carried stories of "flying men" in 1948, the most famous being in Chehalis and Longview.

In Longview, laundry workers described a trio of flying figures in drab uniform-like flying suits cruising casually over the city on April 10th. Some have theorized that what the workers saw was actually an early attempt at paragliding, though that would be about 14 years before the earliest known prototypes.

So, was it men from the (not-too-distant) future? Aliens? A secret government program? Others might argue that dry-cleaning chemicals should be handled with care.

CK

OddWA #17 - That Sinking Feeling

It's amazing what can transpire on a single, odd, triangular piece of ground. Northwest locals may recognize the Sinking Ship parking garage from Seattle's Pioneer Square. If you're in the market for a cursed piece of land, this fixer upper has loads of potential.

Some local historians think this is the site of the original Suquamish fishing camp of Chief Seattle (Sealth). The remaining history includes the town hanging trees and an owner who mysteriously dropped dead. Maybe it's the shape of the lot? Seattle's assortment of founding fathers each started building their own street grids at different angles. When the streets finally met up, odd locations like this one were pretty common.

The Occidental Hotel, just right of center. Copyright the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

For a time, this was the location of the Occidental Hotel. This grand structure with it's mansard rooftop and column-festooned façade presided over the intersection starting in 1884. But it burned to the ground in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, along with most of downtown Seattle.

The Seattle Hotel, or the Hotel Seattle as it was originally known.

The last real building before the garage was the once-elegant Seattle Hotel, which fell into disrepute and fiscal problems not long after it opened its doors. One lucky owner, Henry Kubota, bought the hotel weeks before Pearl Harbor, after which he and his family were hauled off to Washington's internment camps. A dapper gent named Edward Camano Cheasty ran Seattle's best clothing store from a corner of the hotel building, only to watch the city's commerce move further north. Cheasty jumped from a competitor's rooftop in 1914.

The Sinking Ship itself was built by a leasing company who bilked the land owners (still the Kubotas) in 1961. They were promised a lovely office high rise and got the now-infamous off kilter eyesore instead.

Some good did come from all this woe and tragedy. The new parking structure was a shock to most Seattleites. The city rallied around the issue in the early 1960's and created the Pioneer Square Historic District, protecting other old edifices from a similar fate.

That's nice, but I'm still not parking my car there.

CK

P.S. If you want to read more about all the cursed goings on at this location, take a look at Sid Andrews' book, "Boren's Block One: A Sinking Ship." I also recommend Robin Shannon's book "Seattle's Historic Hotels."

OddWA #16 - Lost Lakes of Gold

When Captain Ben Ingalls was separated from his army unit in 1855, he must have thought it was his lucky day. His misplaced survey expedition was replaced with a gold strike of epic proportions. Ingalls claimed he found a series of lakes, each surrounded by heaps of high yield gold quartz. The lore around this tale usually includes a huge earthquake driving Ingalls from his camp in the middle of the night.

Ingall's hastily hid a map, but neither it or the lakes were ever seen again. Ingalls himself was killed by a firearm mishap during his first attempt to locate the strike in 1861. Subsequent trips by friends and their descendants have never revealed the location of this fabulous lost treasure.

The story of that earthquake has since merged with ones from a huge earthquake that rocked Washington in 1872. That temblor reshaped a number of peaks in Washington's interior, and temporarily dammed the Columbia River (allowing local tribes to stroll across the river bottom). Many familiar with Ingall's tale think the three lakes, if they were ever real, are now buried beneath vast piles of rock, not to mention heaps of myth, hearsay and rumor.

CK

OddWA #15 - The Streamlined Ghost

There was a lot of excitement about the return of the former Washington State ferry Kalakala to our waters in 1998. After decades of service between Seattle and my home town of Bremerton, the magnificent streamline ferry was rescued, seemingly from oblivion on the shores of Kodiak island in Alaska and towed back to Puget Sound.

It's a funny thing. I usually champion any effort to preserve our local history, but I'm conflicted about Kalakala. It sometimes feels like we said goodbye to a cherished family pet, only to have it dug up and left on the porch.

Our memories of Kalakala from 1935 to 1967 can easily outweigh the awkward, accident prone vessel and concentrate on a the striking art deco creation it was. We can forget the fact that a coffee cup in the cafe would only be filled halfway, since vibrations that wracked the ferry made a full cup a dicey proposition. We can forget the times it plowed into docks and other ferries due to the poor design of its pilot house. We can just think back to the days it carried 5,000 shipyard workers per trip during World War II. We have years of great memories to look back on.

Kalakala is reported to be haunted by the requisite number of ghosts that hang out in spooky old boats, so I've included one in the second picture (it's tiny). This is meant to be Adelaide Bebb, a sad young lady who took her own life while aboard Kalakala in 1940.

But Kalakala is its own ghost. One look at its present state and that should be apparent to anyone. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better off out of sight, returning to the soil on a distant Alaskan beach.

CK