By Barbara Mattoon The Society offers many opportunities to learn and develop genealogy skills in both large and small groups. We endeavor to offer activities at times and locations that will allow the largest number of members to participate.  March will  kick-off with the F amily T ree M aker U sers G roup meeting on Saturday March 2, at the Auburn Library from 10:15 – 11:45.  Winona Laird will teach us how to use Error Reports in FTM.  Please RSVP to Dave Liesse at ftm-group@skcgs.org as soon as you know you can attend.  We are outgrowing our space at the Auburn Library and may have to find an alternate location.  If that happens, we want to be able to let you know where to find us. ANNOUNCEMENT                          ANNOUNCEMENT                       ANNOUNCEMENT   Our long-awaited DNA Special Interest Group...

Part II—Fire Spreads Death in Franklin Mine By MaryLynn Strickland By 1894 the miners of Franklin were working side by side—people who had migrated from Pennsylvania and Ohio, immigrants from Wales and England, single young Italian men hoping to earn enough money to bring their families to the US and black miners who had been “imported” from the mid-West in 1891.   Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper articles in 1894 related stories of miners striking throughout the United States.  Miners in Roslyn, Washington, had become divided over a wage reduction.  The August 18 paper reported that black miners had accepted the reduction; white miners were holding out and there was talk of moving black miners from Franklin to Roslyn.  Other news of the world dominated the front page of each issue. Picture property of Black Diamond Museum, permission granted for this purpose But “Stifled by Smoke” was the headline on the front page of the August 25, 1894, is...

Part I—The Rest of the Story By MaryLynn Strickland A couple of miles east of Black Diamond is the town of Franklin, now a ghost town but once the site of the Oregon Improvement Company’s mine.  Inhabitants were made up of immigrants mostly Welsh, English, Irish, Italian and Scots.  Other European immigrants included Swedes, Poles and Austrians.  When the Seattle to Walla Walla Railroad was extended to Franklin, coal was shipped to San Francisco and the operations grew. Picture property of Black Diamond Museum, permission granted for use in this purpose. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 18, 1891, described Franklin thus: Franklin is blessed with one of the most beautiful sites in Washington, though it is the last place a real estate man would choose for a townsite.  It clings to the steep side of a mountain which rises precipitously from the right bank of the raging, roaring, tumbling Green river (sic).  The main part of the town is so high up t...

  by Katie Hanzeli “If it wasn’t for coal, there never would have been a Black Diamond, Washington.” 1 About 1885, the Black Diamond Coal Company of California sent Morgan Morgan, their superintendent and Mr. P. B. Cornwall, the company’s president up North to check out the prospect of moving its entire operation from Nortonville to what is now Black Diamond, Washington. Coal, good quality coal, had been discovered in Newcastle, just North of there and explorations showed that even more was to be had. Morgan and Cornwall liked what they saw. The mostly Welsh and some Italian employees, their families and all the equipment were packed up, lock, stock and barrel, and moved to Washington. Even before coal became king, there were homesteaders nearby, who had to go to Seattle via Covington to get supplies. Everything else they grew themselves, including tobacco. 2 They had been settled in the area since the early 1870’s. Welsh, Italians, Slovenians, British and other national...