Landmarks Preservation Commission - TacomaCulture Docs/612 N 4th... · The half timber style is echoed on the dormers. Wide bargeboards are mounted on all gable ends. On the south

Landmarks Preservation Commission Tacoma Community and Economic Development Department

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TACOMA REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NOMINATION FORM

This form is required to nominate properties to the Tacoma Register of Historic Places per Tacoma Municipal Code 13.07.050. Type all entries and complete all applicable sections. Contact the Historic Preservation Officer with any questions at 253-591-5220.

PART 1: PROPERTY INFORMATION (for ‘HELP’ press the F1 key)

11/2008

Property Name

Historic Ella & John Snyder House Common

Location

Street Address 612 North 4th Street Zip 98403

Parcel No(s). 203313-001-0

Legal Description and Plat or Addition: Section 32, Township 21 North, Range 3 East, Quarter 24, the northerly 55 feet of lots 1 through 4,

inclusive in Block 3313, Map of New Tacoma, together with that

portion of vacated alley adjoining or abutting thereon.

Nominated Elements

Please indicate below significant elements of the property that are included in the nomination by checking the appropriate box(es) below. These elements should be described specifically in the narrative section of this form.

X Principal Structure Site

Historic Additions Historic Landscaping, Fencing, Walkways, etc.

X Ancillary Buildings/Outbuildings (Garage) Interior Spaces/Other (inventory in narrative)

Owner of Property

Name Lisa Robinson & Ken House

Address 612 North 4th Street City Tacoma State WA Zip 98403

Is the owner the sponsor of this nomination? Yes X No

Form Preparer

Name/Title Ken House, co-owner Company/Organization

Address 612 North 4th Street City Tacoma State WA Zip 98403

Phone 253-759-5993 Email [email protected]

Nomination Checklist—Attachments X $100 Filing Fee (payable to City Treasurer) X Continuation Sheets

X Site Map (REQUIRED) Historical Plans

X Photographs (REQUIRED): please label or caption photographs and include a photography index)

Other (please indicate): FOR OFFICE USE

X

Last Deed of Title (REQUIRED): this document can usually be obtained for little or no cost from a titling company

Date Recei ed _____________

Fee Paid _____________

Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nomination to the Tacoma Register of Historic Places Page 2 of 20

Narrative (continued)

PART 2: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Extent of Changes

Please summarize the changes to plan, original cladding, windows, interior and other significant elements by selecting the choices below. If the property has been previously documented, these may be indicated on the Washington State Historic Property Inventory Form. These changes should be described specifically in the narrative section of this form.

Original Materials Intact Original Materials Intact

Plan (i.e.: no additions to footprint , relocation of walls, or roof plan)

Yes X No Interior (woodwork, finishes, flooring, fixtures)

Yes X No

Original cladding Yes X No Other elements Yes X No

Windows (no replacement windows or replacement sashes) Yes X No

Physical Description Narrative

Describe in detail the present and original (if known) physical appearance, condition and architectural characteristics (use continuation sheets if necessary).

The Ella and John Snyder house, designed by Ambrose James Russell, is located at 612 North 4th Street and is a

within the Stadium-Seminary National Historic District.

Exterior The house is a 2 ½ story, wood-frame, square (38’ x 40’), single family, detached residence with a full basement built in 1905. The house demonstrates remarkable integrity being largely unchanged both externally and internally. It stands at its original location on a 55 by 100 foot parcel comprised of four lots. The front façade faces west along North 4

th

Street between Tacoma Avenue North and North G Street. On the north, the house is sited within ten feet of the alley connecting North Third and Fourth Streets. A double, flat roofed garage opens directly unto the alley at the northeast corner of the parcel. The bellcast, gable roof with 8:12 pitch was originally covered in cedar shingles, now replaced by asphalt composition roofing. The primary ridge line parallels the street. The eaves project up to five feet from the walls and are supported by exposed, shaped rafters. Oversized shaped triangular braces support the eaves and rafters at the corners and gable peaks. A large gable is offset to the right on the front façade. A single, red brick chimney is offset to the left on the rear roof slope. There are two gable dormer with overhanging eaves, front and rear. The dormer windows are double, six pane casement style. The house is clad with cedar shingles showing a nine inch exposure on the first story and a five inch exposure on the second. The shingles are continuous at the corners. The lower course of shingles on each story is flared outward. The division of the first and second story is accentuated by a wide horizontal board. The board is capped at each end with artificial beam ends or blocks. The house stands on a fifteen inch thick granite rubble foundation extending approximately four feet above grade. The foundation continues below grade forming the basement walls. Pivot windows in the foundation walls light and ventilate the basement. A fuel delivery chute provides access from the alley to the basement fuel storage room. Piping for gas for lighting entered the basement from the 4

th Street side.

On the primary façade, a one-story porch extends across approximately two-thirds of the house terminating at the side wall of the offset gable. The porch is characterized by a simple shed roof supported by exposed rafters crossing ten inch square wooden beams. The beams, in turn, rest on sandstone slabs which cap three rubble granite porch pillars. The porch walls are a continuation of the stone foundation and are capped with thick sandstone slabs. Russell’s plan for the 1902 Stevens’ house specified Tenino sandstone caps on the porch columns and the same material may have been used here. Two small, rectangular iron grills provide ventilation to the porch crawl space. Wide wooden stairs



PART 3: HISTORICAL OR CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Criteria for Designation Tacoma Municipal Code recognizes six criteria of eligibility for inclusion on the Tacoma Register of Historic Places. Please select any that apply to this property, for which there is documentary evidence included in this nomination form.

A Is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

X B Is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or

X C Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

D Has yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history; or

X E Is part of, adjacent to, or related to an existing or proposed historic district, square, park, or other distinctive area which should be redeveloped or preserved according to a plan based on a historic, cultural, or architectural motif; or

F Owing to its unique location or singular physical characteristics, represents an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood or City.

Historical Data (if known)

Date(s) of Construction 1905 Other Date(s) of Significance

Architect (s) Ambrose J. Russell Builder Unknown Engineer

Statement of Significance

Describe in detail the chronological history of the property and how it meets the criteria for the Register of Historic Places. Please provide a summary in the first paragraph (use continuation sheets if necessary). If using a Multiple Property Nomination that is already on record, or another historical context narrative, please reference it by name and source.

The Ella and John Snyder house is eligible for individual listing on the Tacoma Register of Historic Places under:

Criteria B - For its association with John Snyder, John’s son Frost Snyder, and Kenneth Roegner. o John Snyder founded three lumber mills in Tacoma, including the highly successful Clear Fir

Lumber Company, and was one of three City Councilmen who traveled to Philadelphia in 1892 to negotiate the purchase of the Tacoma Light and Water Company from Charles B. Wright.

o Frost Snyder was a leader in the regional and national forest products industry for decades. o Kenneth Roegner was a long time executive at Commonwealth Title. o The house, itself, exemplifies the economic and social history of Tacoma as it is a visible, intact,

representation of the success that could be achieved in the lumber industry of the time by an intelligent and persistent second generation entrepreneur from the mid-West. In addition, the house demonstrates the economic impact of the harvest of the old growth forest of the region and is constructed with a portion of that harvest.

Criterion C – The house embodies the distinctive characteristics of the transition from the shingle to craftsman style of architecture and is the work of a master - prominent Tacoma architect Ambrose J. Russell.

Criterion E – The house is a contributing structure in the Stadium-Seminary National Historic District. (Continued on page 7)



Physical Description Narrative, Continued

ascend to the porch between granite piers topped with sandstone slabs. The decking on all porches is tongue and groove fir. The porch light is the original gas fixture, now converted to electricity, constructed of iron and clear and stained glass in an arts and crafts style. The light is attached to the house with a shaped iron plate formed to a beam. The front door is approximately centered on the main façade and located on the right side of the porch. It is flanked by matching, recessed sidelights with diamond and rectangular panes. The single panel fir door has a single window glazed with replacement stained glass installed by the previous owner. The front porch area window is to the left of the front door. The window is a large, single hung, single pane window that opens. There are matching diamond pane, fixed sidelights. Leaded glass windows extend across the top of the primary sash and sidelights. A second floor bay window with casement and transom windows rises above the porch roof. The base of bay extends below, and slants downward, under the porch roof. Centered on the second floor, front façade are two square casement windows separated by a flat, square panel. The windows provide light to closets. On the first floor gable end is a large, square single hung, single pane window surmounted by a narrow horizontal sash. Directly above, a single hung window on the second floor is flanked by two casement windows. Each window is matched with narrower transom windows above in the same sashes. The third floor triangular gable end is the only significant area of the house not clad in shingles. Instead, Russell selected a Tudor style false half-timber frame facing above a triangular horizontal base board. A similar triangular board design can be seen on the Albert Rhodes house, also by Russell, on I Street and in Stanford White’s 1878 plan for the James Cheney house. The gable end wall projects slightly from the plane of the lower floors and rests on a row of a shaped dentil blocks. The shape of the blocks is echoed in other features inside and outside the house. The half timber style is echoed on the dormers. Wide bargeboards are mounted on all gable ends. On the south façade a small, open porch with a simple shed roof supported on square solid wooden posts opens off the side hall. Above the porch is a set of fixed, single hung and transom windows lighting the upper and lower halls. Diamond pane sidelights highlight the south facing dining room window. Windows on the remainder of the house are, for the most part, rectangular single pane, double hung. Modest amounts of red, green and blue stained glass are used in some first and third story windows. A utility porch opens off the kitchen on the rear façade. Stairs from the porch lead to the garage and backyard. The kitchen porch is enclosed with square, wooden lattice. Beneath the kitchen porch and pantry, an exterior, granite walled stairway provides access to the basement. The lower area of the porch is enclosed with square lattice. A second story porch with sheet metal flooring opening off a bedroom is built atop the kitchen porch roof. The second story porch rails are a combination of shingled partial walls and square lattice. The north portion of the rear façade is set back slightly. This set back, combined with wide roof eaves supported on a cross beam, shelter the porch. The north (alley side) façade includes the most significant change to the exterior of the house. The north wall was a simple, uniform horizontal plane. A shed roof addition to the kitchen was added in 1993. The original kitchen windows were reused in the addition and the structure was designed to match the exterior of the house. A twenty-one by twenty-one foot garage is located at the rear of the property. The garage is clad in shingles. The shingled walls rest on a poured concrete foundation. Six double hung, ten over ten light windows are arranged in sets of two on three sides of the garage. The garage roof is near flat with wide eaves supported by decorative corbels. The original, bypass carriage doors have been replaced with a single, overhead door, but the side access door is original. The garage floor is concrete. The interior of the garage is remarkable. The walls and ceiling are clad entirely in time darkened, unpainted, vertical clear grain fir boards. The garage appears to have been planned to serve both horse and car. Iron harness brackets are attached to the interior walls, but the garage also featured a hand operated gasoline pump, since removed. A lighting gas jet is mounted in the wall, but the garage was originally lit electrically. A wooden work bench extends along a side wall and cold water was supplied.



Narrative Continuation

Physical Description Narrative, Part 2, Continued

All of the windows in the house and garage are original with the exception of one that has been replaced by a garden window, one replaced by French doors, both on the rear façade, and some of the basement windows damaged in a fire. The basement windows have been replaced with in-kind wooden sashes. The upper sashes of the windows have ogee lugs. All of the original exterior and interior doors are in place. There have been four changes to the exterior. The most significant alteration is the previously mentioned two and a half foot deep by twelve foot wide cantilevered addition to the kitchen on the north facade. The second is addition of the triangular braces to the east and west facades. This was apparently done in the 1990s by an owner thinking she was restoring a “lost feature.” The braces do not seem to appear in the first photos of the house. The third change is replacement of the butler’s pantry window on the rear façade with the previously mentioned garden window. The current owner intends to restore a wooden sash to this location. The final change was removal of the dining room window on the rear facade in the 1990s and installation of French doors opening to a small deck and stairs. The changes to the rear façade are not visible from the street. The house is well maintained.

Interior

The room shape, function and arrangement have not been altered in 106 years. The original door, window and cabinet hardware is intact. Much of the woodwork is varnished. Heat is provided by the original, iron hot water radiators. The interior lighting was gas/electric, but no more than one or two of the original fixtures remain. The fixtures have been replaced with period or reproduction lamps. Harry Roegner, son of the second owner, recalls the gas/electric fixtures were removed and stored in the basement when replaced with electric fixtures. The primary rooms on the first floor are a hall, living room, library, dining room and kitchen. In addition there are a butler’s pantry, kitchen pantry, side hall, back stairs and half bath. The flooring in the living room, hall, library and dining room is quarter sawn oak. Other floors are fir. The lower half of the walls in the living room and hall are paneled in varnished fir. There are large pocket doors opening from the hall to the library, dining room and living room. The doors may be products of Snyder’s Tacoma Fir Door Company selected to display the mill’s products as they feature intricately grained, inset fir panels measuring up to 21 inch wide x 60 inch tall. Each panel is apparently a single board. Substantial cornices surmount all of the doors and windows on the first and second floor. Similar cornices are found in other Russell houses. The fireplace and hearth in the living room is tiled with green arts and crafts style tile. The bookcase doors on either side of the fireplace were glazed with leaded glass with a stylized tree motif (Illustration 22), but were removed by a previous owner, as was the plate-rail in the dining room. A fragment of the rail was found in the basement allowing it to be reproduced. There are servant call buttons in the dining room floor and living room. They were connected to an annunciator in the kitchen. There are picture rails in all primary rooms. The kitchen includes an original built-in cupboard. Additional kitchen cabinets replicate the design of the original. A pantry off the kitchen may have served as a cool room as what appears to be a large ice delivery door connects to the back porch. A butler’s pantry, lined with original cabinetry, connects the kitchen and dining room. Back stairs provide access from the basement to the third floor and circle around the laundry chute. A diamond pane, leaded, obscure glass relight provides illumination from the dining room to the back hall. The half bath appears to contain original fixtures, including an oak tank toilet. The flooring is possibly the original black and white linoleum squares. The second floor contains four bedrooms, a large hall and bathroom. This hall space is said to have been used as a breakfast or tea area. A speaking tube allows communication between the hall and kitchen. The majority of the second floor woodwork is also unpainted. Walk-in closets adjoin the bedrooms. Three of the four bedrooms have windows. An exterior door in the northeast bedroom provides access to the balcony. The third floor was largely unfinished with the exception of a maid’s room.




Nominations to the Tacoma Register of Historic Places are processed according to the procedures and standards described in TMC 1.42 and 13.07. Submittal of a nomination form does not obligate the City to place a property on the Register or to extend financial incentives to a property owner. Documents submitted become public record. Additional requirements may be imposed by other City, state or federal regulations.

Physical Description Narrative, Part 2, Continued

The basement includes a fuel, or coal, storage room, laundry area and hot water boiler. Exterior stairs provide access to the backyard. A fire in the mid-1970s seriously damaged the basement resulting in removal of some interior partitions. Only one set of house plans drawn by Ambrose Russell are known to have survived. They are for the Stevens’ house and are housed at the University of Washington Special Collections. The house was built for John Stevens, John Snyder’s business partner and friend, and completed in 1902. Review of plans show similarities in design of the two houses. For example, the Stevens’ house, as planned, included a speaking tube connecting the upper hall with the kitchen, a “cool room,” a centrally located laundry or clothes chute, large upper and lower halls, a second story porch above a lower porch opening off the rear, left bedroom, and sandstone and other stone used in the main porch area.




Statement of Significance, Part 3, Continued

History of 612 North 4

th Street

During the first seventy years the house at 612 North 4

th Street had only two owners, the Snyder and

Roegner families. The Snyder Family

Ella M. Frost and John Snyder (Illustration 1) were married in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1886. Ella was born in South Bridgton, Maine on September 9, 1855. Her parents, Benjamin B. and Mary Ingalls Frost, moved to Ohio when Ella was nine months old. Benjamin worked as a contractor building railroads. The Frost family had been in the United States for several generations.

1

In contrast, the Snyder family was recent immigrants. John’s parents, Jacob Peter Schneider and Magdelena Gartner, were born in what is now Germany and came to the United States in the 1840s. Jacob started a hardware business in Chillicothe and John was born in the town on September 22, 1852.

2

John is described by his granddaughter as “an adventurer, the sort who was strong, brave, energetic, and undaunted by change or adversity.” Bonney’s History of Pierce County described him as a “man of action.” During his life he would demonstrate these qualities on numerous occasions and is remarkable for his ability to overcome adversity. John’s first challenge came when he was just six years old. His father died of pneumonia in 1858 leaving a pregnant wife and three children aged eight, six (John) and four years old.

3

Jacob’s death placed the Snyder family in financial peril. John began working before and after school at S.C. Swift’s hat and notion shop in Chillicothe to help support the family. He attempted to enlist in the army at age 12 as a drummer during the Civil War, but was rejected because of his age. To provide more income for the family John left school when he was 14 to work full time as a salesman in the hat store. He later traveled by wagon selling his merchandise primarily to coalmine stores in Southern Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia. In the 1870 census, John is living with his mother and extended family and his employment is given as “clerks in notions store.” About 1875 John moved to Detroit and continued in the hat business. While working for A. C. Bacon & Company, a hat wholesaler, he met a co-worker, John B. Stevens. Stevens was born in Dentons, Michigan in 1858, and in addition to his work in hat sales, possibly had experience working in a lumberyard. Like Snyder, Stevens had worked in the hat business from a young age. The two friends continued working from Detroit for the next ten years.

4

Snyder and Stevens were living and working in difficult economic times. There had been a nationwide depression in 1873 and an economic recession between 1882 and 1885 culminating in the Panic of 1884. The economy may have prompted a life changing decision – to move to Tacoma - made by the two. In Tacoma the hat salesmen would re-invent themselves as lumbermen. A 1909 article in the Tacoma Sunday Ledger, based on an interview with Stevens, discussed what happened,

Stevens had a cousin in Detroit who was intensely interested in the West…he saw an opportunity on the Pacific coast that he was deeply anxious for others to grasp. It was about this time that the Northern Pacific railroad made Tacoma its chartered Western terminus and began to exploit the city throughout the country. The cousin read every scrap of literature he could obtain concerning Tacoma and Puget Sound and talked so insistently that John B. Stevens’ interest was aroused. One of Stevens’ friends was at the time also a traveling salesman for A.C. Bacon & Company, and heard much from Stevens’ cousin concerning the West. Finally in 1885, Stevens




and his friend made up their minds that they would come and find out for themselves…Stevens and his companion arrived in January 1885. They hunted everywhere for employment but found none…It was this way. There was no work, not even as much as an odd job. All the woodpiles had been chopped and stowed securely from the weather. The entire bottom had fallen out of the labor market and gone so far that a man had to hustle to give his service for gratis. And they were hungry, these two determined Wolverines. It was not so much a stomach hunger, although some of that existed every once in a while, as it was a lack of nourishment for the ambition which is the anatomical ‘organ’ that determines the value of all other parts. The Wolverines wanted to work. They were bound they would, but after many and diligent searches they discovered no one wanted them to. There was a ‘boom’ coming in the near distance, but that did not make a ‘job,’ so they resolved to make their own ‘job.’… That year 1885 was a lucky one for Tacoma’s present industrialism. That was the year Stevens and his companion were foiled in their attempts to do anything for somebody for nothing and came to the conclusion they would have to start something of their own or take water for the benefit of the folks back in Detroit. You see, both of them had solemnly sworn before leaving the soil of Michigan to stay with Tacoma or die in the attempt, and they did not to go back to where they originated with any traces of the yellow streak. They hung on by their eye winkers… Stevens was nigh penniless, but he managed to borrow enough to make a start, and a sawmill was built by Snyder & Stevens.

5

The friends were not alone in their decision to move to Tacoma. In 1885 four out of five residents had not been living in Tacoma five years earlier. Tacoma’s population in 1880 was 1,098, 6,936 in 1885, 36,006 in 1890 and in 1920, a few years before their deaths, 96,965. During their years in Tacoma Snyder and Stevens witnessed a 14-fold increase in the local population.

6

Arriving via the Northern Pacific Railway, the Tacoma that Stevens and Snyder likely first saw is depicted in an 1885 birds-eye of the town (Illustration 2). The site of their first business, located between Tacoma Flouring Mill and C.M. Johnsons’ Planning Mill along Commencement Bay, the area of the Snyder’s home prior to 1905, as well as the site of family’s eventual home on North 4

th Street can be seen in this

illustration.7

Three years after the arrival of Snyder and Stevens, the founders of the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company came to town from the East. In contrast to Snyder and Stevens, these gentlemen had $1.5 million in capital available to finance their venture. While arriving with considerably smaller resources, within twenty years, Snyder would be living within a block of two of the St. Paul and Tacoma’s founders, Griggs and Hewitt. Stevens would be nearby as well.

8

Snyder and Stevens had not left economic bad times behind them in the mid-West. Tacoma, like the nation, was experiencing a business decline, locally compounded “through the supposed intention of Mr. Villard to not extent the road across the Cascade Range, or if he did to make Seattle the terminus instead of Tacoma.” The Daily Ledger reported on New Year’s Day, 1886,

Nearly every enterprise and business, contemplated or projected here, has been postponed, awaiting the beginning of work on the railroad tunnel; and real estate investments have been postponed in sympathy…the attitude of business through the year [1885] was one of delay, awaiting the beginning of events that will indicate the progressive future of Tacoma.

9

Facing economic reality, the friends decided “they would have to start something of their own” and formed Snyder, Stevens and Company building a sawmill at East 21

st and East D Streets. The mill is described




in A History of the Puget Sound County as “the first one to be built at the head of Commencement Bay.” The entry for 1885 in Herbert Hunt’s Tacoma Its History and Its Builders describes their work,

Snyder, Stevens & Co. were building a sawmill at the head of the bay. This firm was none other than John B. Stevens and John Snyder, then struggling for a foothold in the new town, both in overalls, working almost night and day to clear the site of timber and brush.

10

The mill site is not within the coverage area of the 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, but appears on the 1888 map (Illustrations 3 & 4). Map notations describe the mill as employing 19 workers. It apparently provided lumber to Johnsons’ adjacent planning mill as a “yard track” is shown connecting the two facilities. It is said that the mill purchased logs from smaller logging operations and retrieved abandoned logs from the local waterways. Mill products were sold locally. No doubt Snyder employed his well honed skills as a salesman in his new work. The year the mill was founded was also the year white residents forcibly evicted their Chinese born neighbors. Apparently the Snyder and Stevens’ mill employed Chinese born employees because a family history recounts that John “defended with his rifle the Chinese employees during the ‘Chinese Wars’…It was not reported that any shots were fired at the mill”.

11

In the 1885 territorial census John Snyder reported his occupation as “lumberman” and the City Directory shows him living at 9

th and St. Helens. Once his business was established, John returned to Chillacothe

and married Ella on October 21, 1886.12

The couple returned west via the Canadian Pacific Railway. Their first child, Mary, was born October 24, 1887 while the family was living at 1107 A Street. During that year John told the territorial census taker that his occupation was “wharfinger.”

13

Territorial court records reveal some of materials manufactured by Snyder and Stevens and the business challenges they faced. Between 1885 and 1889 the partners took four customers to court for failure to pay for lumber purchased to build homes. Three of the cases involved $30 of lumber, $25 of lath, and $44 worth of “rustic.” In the last case, the mill’s former salesman, (possibly a former employee because he released lumber from the yard on unapproved credit), testified that the firm had four or five teamsters hauling lumber at any one time. Snyder and Stevens, in turn, were taken to court in a criminal suit by the federal government in 1888. The partners, and George H. Lathrop a logger who operated a logging camp on Wollochet Bay, were accused of illegally cutting and milling 140,000 board feet of timber from public land. The timber was estimated to be worth $805. The case was settled with a $410.32 payment by the defendants.

14

Snyder’s first Tacoma business venture came to an end July 28, 1890 when the mill was destroyed by fire. At about 2 o’clock in the morning the dry kiln at the adjacent Johnson mill caught fire. Most of Tacoma’s fire companies responded, but in spite of their efforts the flames spread to the partner’s m ill and it was “reduced to a harmless pile of smoking embers.” Apparently the mill had stopped work sometime before because, reporting the fire, the Tacoma Times noted,

The Snyder & Stevens mill was partially dismantled and had been lying idle since last April. The firm had no stock on hand and their loss will probably not reach over $10,000.

The Tacoma Daily Ledger reported, “the loss to the latter [Snyder and Stevens] building is merely nominal as there was no valuable machinery in it, everything having been taken out sometime before.”

15

Following the mill closure and its subsequent destruction, Snyder and Stevens did not continue in business together. However they remained friends and their lives would run in rough parallel for the next three decades – both would found prosperous businesses, both served on the City Council, both hired Ambrose Russell to design homes for them, the homes were located just four blocks apart, Snyder was a




witness at Stevens wedding and they died within just a few months of each other. Stevens went on to found John B. Stevens and Company and Snyder next became, surprisingly, a banker.

16

Snyder’s new employer was the Tacoma National Bank (Illustration 5). Over the course of four years he worked there in a variety of roles including director, vice president and cashier. Allen C. Mason, the Tacoma prompter, was one of the other directors of the Tacoma National Bank. At the bank, or possibly before, Snyder and Mason became friends.

17

John’s name is associated at the time with an attempt to build an electric line to Seattle from Tacoma. He is also listed as President, with Mason as a Director, of the Shelton Southwestern Railroad. The Railroad was planned to connect Shelton and Grays Harbor. Apparently the friendship continued for decades as Mason and Snyder were riding together in an automobile that collided with a motorcycle in 1912 near the Snyder home.

18

The year 1892 was eventful for Snyder. He described himself as a “capitalist” in the 1892 census and was elected as one of the directors of the Commercial Club that year. He won a seat on the Tacoma City Council in April representing the Third Ward. On April 1

st, Ella and John’s son, Frost, was born.

19

Snyder had been active within city level politics since the at least 1890 and was identified as “an ardent supporter of the Republican Party.” His name regularly appeared in newspaper accounts of local Party activities. The degree of his involvement is revealed when, at one point, he faced the worst of all possible charge for a resident of Tacoma – “selling out to Seattle.” The Tacoma Times defended him when the Tacoma Ledger apparently editorialized about

the terrible combine made up of notorious rascals as John Snyder… who patently have no other purpose in life than the plundering of Tacoma and its eventual merging into Seattle or Puyallup…

20

Quotes in contemporary newspapers reveal that Snyder was an active, assertive and vocal member of the Council. He served on the Fire and Water, Finance and Streets committees. Significantly, he was one of the three Council members who traveled to Philadelphia to negotiate the purchase of the Tacoma Light and Water Company from C.B. Wright. However, he was not reelected when his one year term expired.

21

The Snyder’s lived at 1017 A Street until 1905. In his brief autobiography, Frost Snyder describes the house as “quite old and unsophisticated. We had neither, electricity nor gas, nor did we have a bathroom.” Ella was taking the first steps to remedy this. On April 18, 1893 she purchased, in her name, lots 1 and 2 of block 3313 (612 North 4

th Street) for $4,000 from W.S. and Sarah Gleason. On December

20, 1900 she purchased lot 3 for $675 from the Tacoma Land and Improvement Company. The final parcel that makes up the current house site, Lot 4, was purchased January 4, 1907 by Ella for $1,500. This purchase was made almost two years after the home was completed. It is the site of the current garage and suggests the garage might have been built shortly after the house. John contributed to the house site by requesting and receiving, after initial opposition, a vacation of a portion of the adjoining alley, increasing the overall parcel size allowing construction of a larger house.

22

The Panic of 1893 presented the Snyder family, and Tacoma, with their next economic challenge. The Panic was second only in scale in United States history to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Most Tacoma banks failed and on July 24, 1893 the Tacoma National Bank did not open its doors. The bank was able to reorganize and to continue to operate on some level until December 4, 1894. On that day a notice was posted on the door signed by “John Snyder, Cashier,” announcing the permanent close of the business. John told a Tacoma Daily News reporter, “Owing to the general unsatisfactory business conditions prevailing, we thought that best step to take was to go out of business.” Snyder was once again unemployed and left holding 95 shares of bank stock making him responsible for $6,175 in bank




debt. His granddaughter reports that he was “cleaned.” Court records show his bank stock debt was satisfied January 4, 1898.

23

Herbert Hunt writes that in Tacoma during this time, “Rich men sawed wood, picked blackberries and dug clams for a livelihood. Women with diamonds and valuable deeds resorted to kitchen labor to keep the larder replenished.” John took a variety of jobs to support his family. He worked as a stevedore and checker on the waterfront. He traveled with a group of four others by ship to Wrangle, Alaska to mine for gold. The family history recounts a dangerous and difficult trip up the Stikine River poling and pulling a small boat with John swimming the river with a line to shore. One of the party died and after about half a year, John returned to Tacoma without gold and having lost thirty pounds.

24

John next sought to support his family through gold mining in the Cascades. The Tacoma Daily News reported August 8, 1898,

The Peshastin Placer Company, composed of John Snyder and other Tacomans, has its hydraulic plant in successful operation 32 mines from Cle-Elum, Kittitas county…Allen C. Mason leaves this afternoon for Peshastin to spend a week or two with John Snyder.

The operation included a mine and sawmill. The City Directories for the late 1890s list John as a miner or involved in mining. In 1901 he is listed as the Superintendent of the Mohawk Mining Company at Blewett Pass (Illustration 5) on Peshastin Creek. In the 1900 census John’s occupation is given as “miner quartz.” He continued to work in the Peshastin District for at least three, possibly four years and was visited by his family there each summer. The mine location was remote and difficult to access and the work was not, in the end, financially rewarding. Leaving mining, John next opened Snyder and Neyhart, a wagon and farm implement store in Ellensburg in 1902.

25

The History of Puget Sound records his next decision,

Early in the spring of 1903, however, Mr. Snyder returned to Tacoma and organized the Tacoma Fir Door Company, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars, half of which he owns, and he is the president of the company. This company is now building on the tide flats across the bay, under the superintendence of Mr. Snyder, a first-class modern mill for the manufacture of doors and other building requisites, made of Washington fir. The plant will be completed in the summer of 1903 and will constitute one of the leading new industries of the city.

26

The mill was located at East Q and Cleveland Way along the Puyallup River (Illustrations 6-9). Snyder’s return to the lumber business coincided with Tacoma’s recovery from the 1893 depression. This venture finally provided the foundation of the family’s financial success.

27

Articles of Incorporation for the Tacoma Fir Door Company were filed with the Secretary of State on February 24, 1903. They list a capital stock of $42,000, increased to $84,000 in 1906 and to $168,000 in 1914. Joining Snyder in the venture as owners were William Charles Davie, William Ferguson, William H. Snell (his future neighbor at North 4

th and Tacoma Avenue) and Thomas Harbine Monroe, Snell’s step-

son. In March, Snyder bought lots 73 to 84 in block 7145 on the Puyallup River for $18,000. A building permit was issued for the mill on March 29, 1903 listing C.A. Darmer as architect. The original mill building was planned to be 65 by 160 feet and estimated to cost $9,000.

28

The mill was a success. On June 14, 1907 Snyder and John S. Baker bought additional property in an auction of Puyallup Indian lands for $14,000. Snyder and Davie purchased yet more Indian land in the area on September 25, 1909 for $11,600. Mill capacity was doubled in 1915, a second railroad spur added and 9,000 square feet of warehouse space constructed. An additional dry kiln was added in 1917.

29

The family history states that Tacoma Door was the first mill in Tacoma to successfully manufacture doors from fir. Hunt’s History notes that:




Snyder is the head of the Tacoma Fir Door Company, with 125 employees. This concern was established in 1905. Snyder was the fir-door pioneer, Cedar had been used exclusively. Snyder discovered that by proper kiln-drying the fir would not warp. He had difficulty in persuading Eastern buyers, but his smile and his persistence won.

30

The Snyder’s choose now to build on the land they had been accumulating and move to a neighborhood that reflected their growing prosperity. The Tacoma Daily Ledger announced on December 18, 1904,

Russell & Babcock, the architects, have drawn plans (Illustration 10) for a handsome two-story dwelling to be erected for John Snyder, on North Fourth Street, and the contract has been awarded. The residence, complete, will cost $5,000.

31

Construction began in 1905. The Ledger reported it’s near completion on June 24th. Photographs of the house appeared in the Tacoma Daily News on June 29, 1905 and the Ledger, September 27, 1905 (Illustration 11). Russell and Babcock included a photo of the home in their Tacoma, Architectural Souvenir booklet (Illustration 12). Family tradition recalls John was so pleased to have indoor plumbing that he yodeled in the bathroom.

32

Having moved, the Snyder’s sold their A Street home for a reported $25,000 in December, 1906 to W.F. Sheard, fur dealer and neighbor. The house was to be replaced by a business building.

33

Ella and John were active in the city’s social life and the First Presbyterian Church throughout their time in Tacoma. Their names often appear in the social section of area newspapers. Helping them maintain their home and entertain were servants Bertha Woodang, listed in the 1910 census, and Laverne Duvall, listed in the 1920 census and probably others.

34

Their daughter, Mary, having graduated from Stadium High School in 1905 and from Wellesley College, was married at home on February 12, 1914. Her husband, James Monroe, was the stepson of the Snyder’s next door neighbor and business partner, Judge William H. Snell. The wedding was reported in the Ledger on February 15, 1914,

One of past weeks prettiest bridals was celebrated. In rooms flower-filled and springlike with nodding Easter lilies, daffodils and tulips, Mary Frost Snyder, lovely daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Snyder, Thursday evening became the bride of James Vincent Monroe of Wenatchee in her parent’s home on North 4

th Street. The ceremony was preformed by Rev. Murdock McLeod of

First Presbyterian Church in the presence of relatives and close friends. As the orchestral notes of the Lohengrin Bridal Chorus sounded the bridal party entered. …An elaborate collation was served from the dining room by the Union Club caterers. As a setting for the wedding the rooms were very beautiful in decorations of flowers and greenery. The drawing room was entirely in green and white and a bower of palms, huckleberry and ferns, intermingled with the bell-like clusters of Easter lilies, was the feature. Smilax and lilles were draped against the walls and pink roses and begonias. In the dining room the flowers were all in the yellow taints and a colonial basket of jonquils and tulips centered the bride’s table…. Both are favorite members of the younger set in Tacoma and the wedding was one of the most notable of the winter season. The bride is a Wellesley graduate and very charming and popular. Mr. Monroe is the second son of Judge and Mrs. W.H. Snell and is a prominent young business and club man.

35

Meanwhile, Mary’s brother, Frost, had attended high school in Tacoma and at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He graduated from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in 1913. The Tacoma Times reported that with his Yale roommate, Phillip Caesar, Frost and three others climbed Mt. Rainier, reaching the summit in mid-July,1912 following a reportedly new and unexplored route




(Illustration 13). The party survived on short rations including Caesar’s home canned mutton. Frost married Margaret Snell, his neighbor, on November 17, 1921 at her family home.

36

Following college, Frost worked for his father as a sawmill superintendent. He entered the Army as a captain in the Quartermaster Corps March 27, 1917. One of his first responsibilities was to assist in the construction of Camp Lewis. Possibly in this role, Frost was at the Tacoma Fir Door Company mill on July 18, 1917 when The Tacoma Times reported,

One of Tacoma’s most spectacular fires in years occurred late Tuesday afternoon when the large factory of the Tacoma Fir Door Co; on the Puyallup river bank at East Q Street burned to the ground in less than 10 minutes. The blaze originated in a “blowback’ at one of the furnaces…The lost to the property is estimated at $150,000…the plant was insured for $102,500…the plant was filling an order of thousands of doors and sash for the American Lake army post…several hundred workmen were throw out of work by the blaze.

According to the News Tribune, “Captain Frost Snyder, quartermaster reserve corps, was present at the fire and helped in fighting it.”

37

While the loss of the mill was no doubt a setback, other plans where already in motion. Edward P. Snyder, John’s brother, had moved to Tacoma. Together they had formed a new company, Snyder Brothers, as early as 1911. This venture built a saw mill at Day Island by 1912. The mill was planned to “cater to Eastern trade on high class lines of finish, flooring and similar material.” Apparently it had not been active after 1913, but was being rebuilt when the Door Company fire occurred.

38

The Snyder Brothers mill was enlarged to form the nucleus of a new company, the Clear Fir Lumber Company (Illustrations 14-18). Edward and John Snyder, Aaron F. Anderson, Fred A. Anderson and W. Yale Henry had joined together to incorporate the firm on February 28, 1916 with a capital stock of $140,000. The stock valuation was increased to $420,000 in December, 1922. The remodeled mill had a capacity of 125,000 board feet per day. Like the Fir Door Company mill, Clear Fir was a success and was enlarged and upgraded in 1923.

39

The Ledger reported March 26, 1923,

On work now under way at the big lumber plant of the Clear Fir Lumber Company, in the Day Island district, it is estimated that $125,000 will be expended. These improvements go into additions to the plant…On this new work will be located the door manufacturing department where 1,000 doors per day can be turned out. The dry kiln will have a capacity of 50,000 feet per day. The plant at present is employing 125 men and turns out 120,000 feet of lumber a day. John Snyder, old time Tacoma mill man, is president…with Frost Snyder, vice president.

The mill operated until October 18, 1934 when it too was destroyed in yet another spectacular fire. John, however, did not live to see this fire.

40

When he was 71 years old John contracted throat cancer. He was ill for several months and sought treatment in Portland. He died there five weeks later on March, 30 1924. Coincidently, John’s death came only two months after that of his life-long friend and former partner, John Stevens. John’s funeral was held at the family home on April 1

st.

41

On his father’s death, Frost became president of the Clear Fir Lumber Company. After destruction of the Clear Fir mill, he purchased Vancouver Plywood in April, 1935. Frost became a leader in the plywood industry. He was one of the founders, in 1936, and first president of the Douglas Fir Plywood Association. He was also one of the owners of the Longmire Mineral Springs Company and served as a director Bellarmine Preparatory School and Puget Sound National Bank. In addition, he was an officer of West Coast Lumbermen’s Association, the American Export Door Corporation and, during World War II, served as a “dollar-a-year man” coordinating national plywood production. He and his wife formed the Frost and Margaret Snyder Foundation in 1957 with a focus on Catholic education in the Northwest. Snyder Hall at Bellarmine Preparatory School is named for the Snyder’s.

42




Ella continued to live at home after John’s death. She died there July 1, 1931 at age 75. Ella and John are buried at the Tacoma Cemetery.

43

Following Ella’s death, the house passed to the Snyder children and became a rental for ten years. Renters included Vernon and Olive Severance, George and Ruth Williams, John and Charlotte Baxter and Kenneth and Anna Roegner. Vernon was assistant supervisor at Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, George was a sales manager for the Peterman Manufacturing Company and John was a manager at Kelley-Clarke Company.

44

The Roegner Family

Kenneth Agenbroad and Anna F. Roegner rented 612 North 4th in September, 1940 and purchased it from Frost Snyder and Mary Snyder Monroe on October 1, 1941 for approximately $5,600 (Illustration 19).

45

Kenneth (Illustration 20) was born October 18,1895 in Piqua, Ohio. His parents were Frank and Nellie Roegner. Frank was a grocer. Kenneth attended Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia from 1907-1909. The Roegner family, including the parents and three sons, moved to Ellensburg in 1910. Kenneth worked as a cub reporter for the local newspaper in high school, graduating in 1913. After high school he worked for the railroad for a year, entering the University of Washington in 1914. Kenneth attended the University for two years, left to work for the railroad again and was drafted into the army September 1917. After a time at Fort Lewis, he served in the field artillery in France as a Sergeant and Second Lieutenant. Leaving the army in September 1919, Kenneth returned to the University and graduated with a degree in law in 1923. While attending law school he worked the night shift as a reporter for Associated Press. Kenneth married Anna F. Christoffersen in Seattle on July 14, 1923. Anna was born in Portland, Oregon in 1891. Her father was Herman Christoffersen, a pioneer store owner and Portland city councilman. Anna and Kenneth had two sons, Kenneth Junior and Harry F. Roegner (Illustrations 21-24). The family moved to Tacoma in 1929. Mr. Roegner was employed as an attorney at Commonwealth Title Insurance Company. Kenneth Senior was recalled to active duty during the Second World War and initially served in local port operations. Later he was assigned responsibility for court martials and was sent to France once again. Both of his sons served in the War as well, Harry in Army in Europe and Kenneth Jr. in the Navy in the Pacific. Harry participated in the Battle of the Bulge. Mr. Roegner retired from the Army Reserve as a Major. Returning from the War, he became Vice President of Commonwealth Title, retiring in 1964. His other activities included membership in the Washington State Bar Association, Tacoma Kiwanis, University Union Club, the Fort Lewis Officers Club and First United Methodist Church. Kenneth also served on the Tacoma Planning Commission. He died April 6, 1975.

46

Anna sold the house on July 5, 1975 to Byron and Caroline Bentley. She died at age 88 on January 9, 1978.

47

Later owners, or residents, included Bruce E. and Nancy R. Young, Ralph H. and Aileen Moir, Linda S. Dahl, Michael and Dale Reed, Caroline Welborn and Michael A. Lahman, and John and Janet Schultz. The house was included in the Second Annual Tacoma Historical Society tour of home in 1994.

48




Ambrose James Russell, Architect

The Snyder house was designed by Ambrose James Russell (1857-1938). Russell was born October 15, 1857 in Trivandram, then in the Kingdom of Travancore on the far southwestern coast of India. His parents were the Reverend James and Rhoda Louisa Russell. James was a native of Glasgow and a missionary representing the London Missionary Society. He first arrived in India in 1837 or 1838, having previously served as a Congregational pastor in Rendall, Orkney. His obituary notes he built a “bungalow for his residence” on his arrival along with several mission buildings founding a mission station, James Town. Russell left his mission in 1856 to recover from illness in Australia. There he met Rhoda, the daughter of Ambrose Foss of Sydney, a fellow Congregationalist. They married January 1, 1857 in Sydney and returned together to India.

49

Rhoda Jane, Ambrose sister, was born October 6, 1858. Their mother died the same day. The remaining family left India in 1860 and went first to Australia. On October, 24 1860 they set sail from Australia on the ship Rifleman arriving in England, January 22, 1861. The Russell’s settled in Glasgow and the children appear there in the 1861 census living at Auburn Cottage, Rutherglen, Lanarkshire with their grandfather. As a young adult Ambrose made a decision to become an architect. He attended the University of Glasgow between 1874 and 1876. University records show he took mathematics, Latin and civil engineering and mechanics. He then studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris as a student of Julien Guadet between 1881 and January, 1884. In Paris he formed a lifelong friendship with fellow student, Bernard Maybeck.

50

At the Ecole it is likely Russell’s studies included an emphasis on the rational organization of a structure, a sequential planning process, arranging rooms in order of importance and focusing first on the primary purpose and spaces of a building. Stress was placed on the usefulness of the building’s space and design and only secondarily on its style. Guadet is said to have taught design, not style. Training at the Ecole also broke free of a focus on past abstract ideals of beauty and took an eclectic approach that allowed attention to contemporary needs. Students were taught to think through design problems by considering the plan, elevation and section of the structure. This resulted in an integration of the interior and exterior. Russell’s ability to thoughtfully plan comfortable homes in a wide variety of architectural styles and to innovate stylistically may well be grounded in this training.

51

Leaving Paris Russell moved to Boston and began work March, 1884 for famed architect Henry Hobson Richardson, a former student of the Ecole. Richardson died in 1886. Russell next worked in Worcester, Massachusetts and then Kansas City and St. Louis. In Kansas City he worked with Maybeck at the architectural firm of Van, Brunt and Hunt. Later Maybeck and Russell formed a brief partnership in Kansas City, but business was slow. Maybeck relocated to California and Russell moved to the architectural firm of Eames and Young in St. Louis. Russell married Louella Sargent October 28, 1891 while there.

52

The couple moved to Tacoma in 1892 and Ambrose became a naturalized citizen there in 1896. He initially worked for the Cottage Home Building Company as the Architectural Department Manager and probably designed the Calvin W. Stewart House at 4305 North 42

nd. By 1893 Ambrose had his first

independent commission, the Davey House at North 5th and Sheridan, and formed a partnership with

Albert Sutton which lasted until Sutton moved to San Francisco in 1896. Russell formed a brief partnership with George W. White in 1899, followed by the Spalding & Russell (about 1900 – 1901) and Spaulding, Russell & Heath (1901-1903) partnerships. In 1905, the firm of Russell & Babcock formed, which lasted until 1911.

53

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travancore




Russell opened branch offices in Seattle with Walter E. Rice and in Vancouver, B.C. He closed his Tacoma office in 1912 and focused on Vancouver, but the business did not develop beyond a commission for the Weart Building. Russell returned to Tacoma in 1915 and worked independently until he formed a partnership with Gaston Lance in 1930. They were joined by A. Gordon Lumm briefly and in 1936 took a new partner, Irwin Muri. Russell was active as an architect until his death in Tacoma March 16, 1938.

54

Russell designed many significant buildings in the Pacific Northwest including the Governor’s Mansion in Olympia, the Tacoma Armory, the Masonic Temple, Perkins Building, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Rust Mansion, First Baptist Church in Seattle, Wells Hall at Christ Episcopal Church, Weart Building in Vancouver, BC, John Stevens home, and Albert and Henry Rhodes homes. He participated in the civic affairs serving as president of the Ferry Museum.

55

In about 1908 Russell published an Architectural Souvenir, Russell & Babcock and which includes a photograph of the Snyder home. Russell continued to work until his death March 18, 1938.

56

Russell and Dissemination of the Shingle style57

Identified by Vincent Scully in the 1950s, the Shingle style occupies a design space between the English influences and informality of the Queen Anne style and the Colonial Revival’s formal Georgian strand. It borrows the massing and asymmetry of Queen Anne and some of its picturesque features, such as turrets, an abundance of complex windows, and broad verandas. From the Colonial Revival, it borrows embellishments, such as Palladian windows, classical columns, balustrades, and oval windows. To this borrowing is added a strong low, horizontal continuity, a near uniform sheath of wooden shingles unbroken at corners, simple window surrounds, variations of cross gable roofs, use of rusticated stone, and sometimes steeply pitched roof line, much of which is seen in the Snyder house. The style also drew on English vernacular architecture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Americanized by use of wooden shingles. Shingle style architects were further inspired by published photographs of basic 17

th

Century New England shingled homes. As Scully, in the Architecture of the American Summer, says, “It cannot satisfactorily be called either “Queen Anne” or “Colonial”, although both those terms were often applied to it interchangeably during its period.”

The style emerged in the 1880s on the East coast in the work of W. R. Emerson, H. H. Richardson, R. S. Peabody, and especially McKim, Mead & White. By the 1890s the Shingle style was declining among the Eastern wealthy in favor of more formal neo-colonial and Beaux Arts styles. However, as Scully has shown, the style blossomed across the rest of the country as dozens of young architects, trained in the offices of Richardson and McKim, Mead & White, moved west. The journals Inland Architect and Western Architect of the period featured numerous photographs of homes in the style. Russell was part of this westward dissemination.

When Russell joined the firm of Van Brunt & Howe in Kansas City, his junior colleagues, like him, had East coast experience with the Shingle style. His school friend, Bernard Maybeck had come from the New York firm of Carrere & Hastings, recent graduates of McKim, Mead & White. Another Kansas City colleague was Willis J. Polk, whose family was from Kansas City and who had also worked in New York City for another McKim, Mead & White veteran, A. Page Brown. In 1889, Brown would move to San Francisco bringing along his chief draftsman, A. C. Schwinfurth, and hiring Polk. Maybeck and Russell tried to make a go in Kansas City, but eventually the two friends would head further west: Maybeck to San Francisco and Russell to Tacoma.

Maybeck’s relocation to the San Francisco Bay area placed him within one of the earliest, if the not the earliest, centers of the Arts & Crafts movement in American and Shingle style construction. For a time he was a neighbor of Swedenborgian minister Reverend Joseph Worcester. Worcester was a West Coast




advocate, and pioneer practitioner, of Arts and Crafts building. Maybeck saw his neighbor’s use of redwood boards on interior walls and experienced a “revelation.” Russell would use local Douglas fir in place of redwood.

The Shingle style in California through the work of Brown, Polk, Schwinfurth, Coxhead and Maybeck has been well documented, as is its transition into the Craftsman style. In Tacoma, Russell was surely aware of the work of his Kansas City friends and the developing interest in the Arts & Crafts movement. He often worked in the popular Shingle style. Tacoma was not only a town of lumbermen, but its sawmills were churning out wood shingles for California and the mid-West. The style was a natural fit and one that continues to influence the architecture of the Pacific Northwest.

The 1892 Stewart house (4305 N. 42nd) is probably Russell’s design since he was architect for the company that built it. It shows a distinct Richardson influence with its shingles, cross-gambrel roof, turret with conical roof, and recessed porch with wide arch and balcony above that recalls Richardson’s Stroughton House (1883). About 1896, Russell designed two small, Shingle style houses that demonstrate the versatility of the form on a small lot. The quaint Russell House (1222 N. 4th), which Russell built for himself, has an unusual half-gambrel roof, recessed porch, and a small, one-and-a-half story bay with pedimented gable. The Albertson house (823 N. I) is a small, two-story house with a wide, front-facing gambrel roof, recessed porch, and a squat, two-story bay on a rough stone foundation to one side. In 1898, Russell designed a fine Shingle style house for F. W. Sheard (421 N. Yakima, not to be confused with the Mission villa Russell would build for Sheard across the street in 1905). This two-and-a-half story house features a sharply-pitched, cross gable roof whose lines appear to cut into the second floor, coupled with a dramatic three-story, polygonal bay on one side and a two-story bay on the other. The complex interplay of lines recalls aspects of McKim, Mead & Bigelow’s 1879 classic “Alden House on Fort Hill”.

In 1901, Russell designed the Murray house (402 N. Sheridan) with its soaring two-story, side facing gable roof that sweeps forward over the veranda. It recalls the Cresson house by McKim, Mead & White (1884), who decorated their vast roof slope with three, asymmetrically-placed, rounded dormers. Russell emphasizes his roof’s height with two dormers whose gable roofs are even more sharply peaked. The dormers are decorated with Art Nouveau patterns, which Russell may have seen from the 1900 Paris Exposition, featuring the work of Hector Guimard and his associates, or perhaps from the burgeoning Glasgow Style that developed around his old university in Scotland. To one side is a large two-story bay with balustrade with a rough stone first story that comes directly from Richardson’s “Stonehurst”, Paine House (1886).

In 1902, Russell designed the two-and-a-half story Stevens house (801 N. Yakima), an interesting example of the Shingle style transitioning toward the Craftsman. The side-facing gable roof features very wide eaves that overhang simple bay windows on either side. A recessed porch extends to one side. The second story is slightly proud of the first, creating a visual divide between first and second stories (again similar to the Rhodes house). The house rests on a stone foundation that is exposed as the hillside falls away to the rear of the house. Russell’s Stevens house recalls “Wave Crest”, John Codwin house (1885) but also shows similarities to contemporaneous work of Maybeck (the Issac Flagg house, 1901), Charles and Henry Greene (the Duncan-Irwin house, 1901) and Gustav Stickley’s magazine The Craftsman (1902).

In the book, “Craftsman Style” it is noted that “the Shingle and Craftsman styles merge almost imperceptibly.” Both looked backward to a supposedly simpler time. “Building with Nature, Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home” proposes that Gustav Stickley’s architectural inspiration came largely from California and his magazine tied the California Mission style to the Arts and Crafts movement in American and in turn to Maybeck and others. Virginia and Lee McAlester in their “Field Guide to American Houses” explain,




Craftsman homes were inspired primarily by the work of two California brothers - Charles and Henry Greene – who practiced together in Pasadena from 1893 to 1914. About 1903 they began to design simple Craftsman-type bungalows. Several influences – the English Arts and Crafts movement, an interest in oriental wooden architecture, and their early training in the manual arts – appear to have led the Greene’s to design and build these intricately detailed buildings. These and similar residences were given extensive publicity in such magazine as the Western Architect, the Architect, House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, Architectural Record, Country Life in America and Ladies’ Home Journal, thus familiarizing the rest of the nation with the style

58

The Snyder house embodies the continuing transition from the Shingle to Craftsman style of architecture and their intermingling as interpreted by Russell. The house maintains the height and horizontal quality of many of Russell’s other designs while incorporating Craftsman elements to a largely Shingle style home. Influences drawn from the European travels of Shingle style founders can be seen in the Snyder house. While in Brittany, and elsewhere in Europe, the young architects saw bellcast roofs, slate covered side walls (mimicked in shingles here), stories cantilevering out above each other, walls that flare at the lower edges, as well as half timber construction. To this Russell added Craftsman styling including wide unenclosed eave overhangs on both the house and garage; exposed, shaped roof rafters; heavy, square beams on the front and side porches and above the second floor porch; gabled dormers; simplified, interior woodwork that emphasizes the natural grain of the lumber; hardware simplified in comparison to the Victorian era; and organic qualities such as rough, square stone porch columns and foundation work and an iron front porch lamp. He also incorporated Tudor features, a common secondary element in Craftsman homes. Russell continued moving toward the Craftsman style as can be seen in his “Swiss” house at 1318 S. 4

th

from 1906, 702 N. J and 609 N. I Streets from 1907 and finally the Frederick Denman house at 4415 N. Stevens.

59

Stadium-Seminary Historic District

The District is an early residential district of substantial two and three story homes developed between 1888 and 1930. It is located northwest of the central business district along a bluff overlooking Commencement Bay. This neighborhood is distinguished by its exceptional quality and variety of architecture and its unusual continuity of period that is only rarely interrupted by more modern structures. The Snyder house is a contributing structure within the District.

60

1 John Snyder, unpublished biography by Margaret Snyder Cunningham, (hereafter: “Cunningham”),

2007; “John Snyder,” William Farrand Prosser, A History of the The Puget Sound Country, 1903, pages 532-534, (hereafter: “Prosser”); William Pierce Bonney, History of Pierce County, 1927, (hereafter: “Bonney”), pages 219-220; Tacoma News Tribune, (hereafter: “TNT”), 7/2/1931. 2 Prosser; Cunningham; Bonney and John Snyder’s News Tribune obituary give his birth date as

10/23/1852 , but Margaret Cunningham lists 9/22/1852; “John Snyder,” Sketches of Washingtonians, Wellington C. Wolfe & Co., page 282; TNT, 3/31/1924. 3 Cunningham; Bonney; U.S. Census, 1860.

4 The 1880 U.S. Census lists a John B. Stevens of the correct age working in a lumberyard in Monroe,

Michigan. However this may not be the same person. Cunningham; Bonney; Prosser; U.S. Census, 1870. 5 “Ledger’s Series of City Builders-No. 25,” The Tacoma Sunday Ledger (hereafter: “TDL”), 11/14/1909.

6 Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Facts website; Report of the Governor of Washington Territory, 1885.

7 Cunningham; Tacoma City Directory.

8 Murray Morgan, The Mill on the Boot, the Story of the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company, pages 5 &

59-61.




9 TDL, 1/1/1886; Pam Holice, Tacoma Illustrated, Her History, Growth & Resources, A Comprehensive

Review of the City of Destiny, page 41. 10

Prosser; Bonney; Cunningham; TNT, 3/31/1924; Herbert Hunt, Tacoma Its History and Its Builders, (hereafter: “Hunt”), page 352; a Samuel B. Baker is listed as a co-partner and appears in the City Directory as the mill sawyer. 11

Cunningham. 12

Washington Territorial Census, 1885; Tacoma City Directory, 1885; Ohio Marriages, Ancestry.com; Bonney; Prosser. 13

The Researcher, Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society, 1992; The Tacoma City Directory lists a variety of addresses for the Snyder’s between 1887 and 1904 including 1107 A Street, 1009 A Street, and 1017 A Street. Possibly these are the same location? Frost Snyder’s autobiography states they lived at 1017 A Street. Washington Territorial Census, 1887. 14

Washington Territorial Court Cases, PRC 1650, 2273, 2634, 2709, 2761, Puget Sound Regional Archives & Washington State Archives. 15

The Morning Call (San Francisco), 7/29/1890; Tacoma Times (hereafter: “TT”), 7/28/1890; TDL, 7/28/1890. 16

Washington Territory Marriage Certificates, 10/9/1889; TDL, 11/14/1909; TNT, 1/24/1924; TT 4/1/1912; Cunningham; Bonney; Prosser. 18

Bankers Magazine, 1893; Tacoma Daily News, (hereafter: “TDN”), 1/2/1892 & 2/2/1894; Hunt, page 92; Poor’s Manual of Railroads, page 271 & 1524; The Official Railway List, page 337; TDL, 10/21/1892; TT, 4/1/1912. 19

Washington Census, 1892; TDN, 5/4/1892; City Council Proceedings, 4/12/1892, page 258; Bonney. 20

Bonney; TDN, 4/21/1892, 10/3/1892, 10/14/1890, 12/19/1890, 11/17/1891, 3/24/1892, 4/21/1892, 7/23/1892, 10/3/1892, 10/4/1892, 10/5/1892, 11/21/1892, 3/22/1893, 3/24/1893, 5/6/1893, 7/7/1893,12/24/1894, 1/11/1895, 2/20/1895 & 3/16/1897. 21

TDN, 5/31/1892, 7/15/1892, 8/18/1892, 9/7/1892, 10/22/1892, 1/16/1893, 1/23/1893, 1/30/1893, 2/11/1893, 2/27/1893, 3/6/1893. Hunt, page 133. 22

I do not know if the property was in Ella’s name because she was purchasing it with her funds or it if might have been to allow her to inherit the property under then current laws if John died before her or for some other reason. Frost Snyder autobiography; Deeds, Rainier Title, 4/18/1893, 12/20/1900, & 1/4/1907; TDL, 11/5/1894. 23

Cunningham; U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Reports, Aldrich v. Campbell (97 Fed. 663); Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 12/4/1893, page 76; U.S. Circuit Court, Tacoma, Case #382, P.V. Anderson v. John Snyder, National Archives; TDL, 12/4/1894. 24

Hunt, page 112; Cunningham; Prosser, page 533. 25

Cunningham; U.S. Census, 1900; TDN, 8/5/1898; Tacoma City Directory. 26

Prosser. 27

TDL, 3/29/1903. 28

TDL, 3/29/1903; Washington State Archives, Articles of Incorporation #12668. 29

Seattle Daily Times, 6/16/1907; Certificate of Sale of Puyallup Indian Lands, Series 33, Box 2, Puyallup Agency, RG 75, National Archives; TT, 1/4/1917. 30

Hunt, page 352; Cunningham. 31

TDL, 12/18/1904; 32

TDN, 6/24/1905, 6/29/1905; TDL, 9/17/1905; Cunningham; Souvenir. 33

Seattle Times, 12/23/1906. 34

Prosser; TDN, 6/25/1892, 7/30/1892, 7/21/1894, 8/13/1894, 2/16/1895; U.S. Census, 1910 & 1920. 35

Prosser; TT, 1/13/1914; TDL, 2/15/1914. 36

The contemporary newspaper account of the climb was written in 1912, TT, 8/2/1912, but an article in 1970, TNT, 8/12/1970, featuring reminiscences by Frost and Caesar gives a date of 1913. TNT, 11/18/1921; TT, 6/19/1913; Prosser; Phillips Academy, Andover, in the Great War.




37

TNT, 7/19/1917; TT, 7/18/1917, 11/29/1917; Department of Veterans’ Affairs, World War I Service Statement Cards; Who’s Who in the Construction Division of the United States Army, page 219; Cunningham; Hunt, page 352; Prosser. 38

TT, 2/16/1916; Christian Science Monitor, 7/24/1911; American Lumberman, 10/1911; TT, 9/13/1934. 39

Washington State Archives, Articles of Incorporation #133765; TT, 5/28/1916, TDL, 3/26/1923. 40

TDL, 3/26/1923, 10/19/1934; Cunningham; Seattle Daily Times, 10/19/1934. 41

Cunningham; TT, 1/15/1924, 1/16/1924, 3/23/1924, 3/31/1924; TDL, 1/16/1924, 3/31/1924; TNT, 3/31/1924. 42

The Centralia, Washington Daily Chronicle, 8/3/1939; Plywood in Retrospect, Vancouver Plywood Company, No. 12, 8/1972; The Cage, Bellarmine High School, 1960; Mount Rainier National Park, An Administrative History; Prosser; Biographical Sketch: Frost and Margaret Snyder, the Snyder Foundation; TNT, 12/7/1971. 43

Cunningham; American Lumberman, 1931; TNT, 7/2/1931; TT, 5/23/1931, 5/31/1931. 44

Tacoma City Directory; Tacoma-Pierce County Buildings Index. 45

Deed, 1497209-210, 9/3/1948, Pierce County; Tacoma Sunday Ledger-News Tribune, 2/15/1942. 46

Letters, Harry Roegner to Ken House, 8/28/2010, 9/24/2010, 6/18/2011; Roegner Family Papers, Washington State Historical Society; Draft Registration Card, Kenneth Roegner, 1917; U.S. Census, 1900, 1910, 1920; University of Washington Daily Staff for the Second Half of the Year; King County Marriage Records, 7/14/1923; TNT, 4/7/1975. 47

TNT, 1/9/1978; Deed 2612802, Pierce County. 48

Tacoma City Directory’; Tacoma-Pierce County Buildings Index; Grand Homes of Tacoma Tour, 12/1994, brochure; Deed, 200509080759. 49

His birth date is given as October 17, 1857 in an announcement in The Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter: “Herald”), of 1/13/1858. Herald, 1/3/1857; The Late Rev. James Russell, The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, 6/1890, pages 199-200, (hereafter: “Chronicle”); “Ambrose Russell,” Prosser, page 217; The Southern Spectator, Volume 1, 1858, page 116; Ambrose Foss, Wikipedia; Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Volume VII, 1869, (Will of Ambrose Foss); Cullen. 50

Scotland Census, 1861; Herald, 12/17/1858 and 10/24/1860; Chronicle; The Scottish Congregational Magazine, 1861; Cullen; Prosser; E-mail, Alma Topen, Duty Archivist, University of Glasgow, 2/6/2012; “Ambrose Russell,” Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Architect Biographies (hereafter: “DAHP”); Albert Henry Rhodes House Historic Register Nomination (hereafter: “Rhodes”). 51

Sally B. Woodbridge, Bernard Maybeck, Visionary Architect, pages 17-18; James O’Gorman, Three American Architects, Richardson, Sullivan and Wright, 1865-1915, pages 10-11 and Living Architecture, a Biography of H.H Richardson, page 69. 52

Missouri Marriage Records; Prosser; Cullen; DAHP; Rhodes. 53

Prosser; Cullen; DAHP; Rhodes; Ambrose J. Russell, Pacific Coast Architecture Database; Record of Naturalization, U.S.D.C., Tacoma, National Archives. 54

DAHP; Rhodes; Cullen. 55

Cullen; DAHP. 56

Russell & Babcock, Tacoma, Architectural Souvenir, circa 1906; Washington State Death Records. 57

Courtesy of Marshall McClintock, adapted from the Henry Rhodes House Nomination. 58

Virginia and Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, 2004, page 454; Leslie M. Freudenheim, Building With Nature, Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home, 2005, page 185. 59

Robert Winter and Alexander Vertikoff, Craftsman Style, pages 20-21; Leland M. Roth, Shingle Styles, Innovation and Tradition in American Architecture 1874 to 1982; Leslie M. Freundenheim, Building With Nature, Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home; Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses, 1984; Kenneth L. Cardwell, Bernard Maybeck, Artisan, Architect, Artist; Vincent J. Scully, Jr., The Shingle Style and the Stick Style, revised edition. 60

Stadium-Seminary Historic District National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form, 1976; Historic Property Inventory Report, 612 N. 4

th St., Tacoma, DAHP, page 3.

Ella Snyder

Illustration 1

Snyder photographs courtesy of Mary Smith

Snyder, Stevens Mill Site

612 North 4th

1107 A Street

Snyder, Stevens & Company Mill Site Vicinity, Tacoma Avenue & North

4th Street

Vicinity, 1107 A Street

Illustration 2

Snyder, Stevens & Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1888

Illustration 3

Illustration 4

Detail - Snyder, Stevens & Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1888

Tacoma National Bank, Tacoma Public

Library image

Illustration 5

Miner’s Cabins, Blewett Pass, circa 1920,

National Archives image

Illustration 6

Tacoma Fir Door Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1912

Tacoma Fir Door Company

East 24th & Cleveland along the Puyallup River Illustration 7

Tacoma Fir Door Company Employees, Tacoma Ledger, 11/30/1913

“Tacoma Fir Door Company, Ten Foot Head Rig, circa 1913. Right to Left, John

Snyder, W.C. Davie, Louis Hill (sawyer), unidentified off bearer, and Edward

Snyder.” Identification from print at the Washington State Historical Society.


Illustration 8


Illustration 9

Fragment of house blueprints found on top of a basement foundation wall at 612.

Apparently the only remaining portion of the plans.

Illustration 10

Illustration 11

Tacoma Daily News, 6/29/1905 The Daily Ledger, 9/17/1905

Illustration 12

Russell & Babcock Architectural Souvenir, Circa 1906

Frost Snyder at the summit of Mt. Rainier, July,

1912 or 1913

Illustration 13

Illustration 14

Clear Fir Lumber Company, Metsker Map, 1926

Clear Fir Lumber Company, Day Island

Illustration 15

Illustration 16

Tacoma Tribune, 5/28/1916

Illustration 17

Tacoma Daily Ledger, 3/26/1923

Clear Fir Lumber Company Baseball Team

Illustration 18

Clear Fir Lumber Company, Pete

Cross in car, Ed Grow beside log,

1922

Illustration 19

The Tacoma Sunday Ledger-News Tribune

Illustration 20

Kenneth Roegner’s World War II Military Identification,

Roegner Family Papers, Washington State Historical Society

Illustration 21

Roegner Family, circa 1943

Roegner family photographs courtesy of Harry Roegner

Illustration 22

Roegner family members on front

steps, World War II

Bookcase doors by fireplace in Living Room, circa 1940’s

Illustration 23

Kenneth, Jr.’s Ham Radio and Harry Roegner’s Chemistry Lab, 3rd Floor, 1940’s

Illustration 24

South wall of garage, 1950’s

Illustration 25

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1896

612 N. 4th

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1912

Illustration 26

Illustration 27

Sandborn Fire Insurance Map, 1950

Illustration 28

Cultural Resource Survey Photographs, 1977, Tacoma Public Library

Image on left shows north wall prior to addition to kitchen.

612 North 4th Street Photograph Index

Image # Title

1 612 Front (West)

2 612 Front & Side (Southwest Corner)

3 612 Alley Side (North)

4 612 Side (South)

5 612 Rear (East)

6 612 Side Porch (South)

7 612 Back Porch Detail

8 612 Garage Front (North)

9 612 Garage Rear (West)

10 612 Garage Door Detail

11 612 Front Porch Lamp

12 Butler's Pantry Cabinets, west side

13 Dining Room Pocket Door

14 Living Room Pocket Doors

15 First Floor Main Stairs

16 Hall Radiator

17 Oak Floor Detail

18 Fireplace

19 Linen Cabinet

20 Speaking Tube

1 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #1: Front (West)

Image #2: Front (Southwest Corner)

2 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #3: Alley Side (North)

Image #4: Side (South)

3 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #5: Rear (East)

Image #6: Side Porch (South)

4 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #7: Back Porch Detail

5 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #8: Garage Front (North)

II

Image #9: Garage Rear (West)

6 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #10: Garage Door Detail

7 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #11: Front Porch Lamp

8 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #12: Butler’s Pantry Cabinets-West Side

9 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #13 – Dining Room Pocket Door

10 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #14 – Living Room Pocket Doors

11 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #15 – First Floor Main Stairs

12 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #16 – Hall Radiator

13 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #17 – Oak Floor Detail

14 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #18 – Fireplace

15 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #19 – Linen Cabinet JPG

16 | P a g e - I m a g e s , 6 1 2 N 4t h

S t

Image #20 – Speaking Tube