Aberdeen History

1890
Census shows 9,325 people residing in Chehalis County.
June – The Washingtonian issues first weekly edition.
August 15 – Hotel Hoquiam opens.
November 14 – Olympia named capitol of Washington State.
December 5 – First brick building in county nears completion in Montesano.

1891
January 16 – Northern Pacific Railroad reaches Montesano.
August 7 – 1,400 wharf running from shore to the wrecked Abercorn nears completion to begin salvaging railroad steel.

1894
Citizens of Aberdeen band together to lay railroad into town with rail salvaged from the Abercorn. Sam Benn gives a lot for each man who donates 10 days labor on the railroad. 160 lots were given away.

1900
December 14 – New telephone directory issued in Aberdeen. 185 phones in use.

1901
March 29 – Twelve-million feet of logs jammed up on the Wishkah River.

1902
January 1 – Door-to-door mail delivery begins in Aberdeen. The first carriers are Edmund J. Croft and Edwin J. Eccles.
September 12 – “Dark Day” in Chehalis county as major forest fires blot out sunlight.
October 13 – George J. Wolff buys store of I. Harris & Sons.

1903
March – New Steam Pumper arrives in Aberdeen.
June – Grays Harbor Packing Co., located at the foot of G street, burns.
July 9 – Billy Gohl takes over as Agent of the Sailor’s Union in Aberdeen.
July 22 – Wilson Brothers Mill destroyed by fire.
October 16 – “Black Friday” – Great Fire sweeps Aberdeen destroying the central business area and leaving three dead.
October 28 – Commercial Block fire.

1905
January 13 – Heavy snowfall stops electric railway.
January 17 – Live wire kills team of horses in Aberdeen.
June 21 – Railway to Moclips completed. First train to run July 1.
July 5 – Jack Donnelly charged with manslaughter after Fred Ross dies of injuries from their July 4 boxing match. He is exonerated on the 7th. Largest headlines to ever appear in the Aberdeen Daily Bulletin.
July 20 – Strike hits Grays Harbor mills.
August 25 – Twenty five ships in Harbor. Grays Harbor currently recognized as largest shipping port in the world.

1906
February 26 – Lizzie Morgan’s opium den unearthed in Aberdeen.
April 26 – 174-foot steamer Quinault launched in Aberdeen. On December 3rd it set a round-trip record between San Francisco and Aberdeen in just under 7 days.
May 7 – Steamer Norwood strikes Chehalis River bridge; a portion of which collapsed the next day.
June 16 – Seaman’s strike shuts down mills.
August 16 – Movement afoot to relocate county seat from Montesano to Aberdeen.
November 15 – Greatest storm in Hoquiam history.

1910
February 3 – Billy Gohl charged with murder.
April 1 – Finch Building opens. First building in Aberdeen with an elevator.
April 23 – Union Pacific begins work on Chehalis River Railroad Bridge.
April 25 – Cornerstone laid for new County Courthouse.
May 2 – Billy Gohl’s trial begins.
May 24 – Billy Gohl sentenced to life in prison.
June 13 – Billy Gohl taken to Walla Walla Penitentiary.
June 15 – New transcontinental railroad, Union Pacific (Grays Harbor and Puget Sound Railroad), reaches Harbor.
July 16 – Forest fires rage in Wishkah.
July 26 – Speed laws opposed by car owners.
August 8 – Broadway Hill on fire.
August 15 – Two railways begin service to the Harbor.
August 30 – Dogs, rats and fleas banned in Aberdeen; 27,000 dogs in Aberdeen.
October 22 – Gohl accomplice denied another trial.
November 8 – Aberdeen will grant women the right to vote.
November 22 – Storm knocks out Chehalis River Bridge.
December 15 – Aberdeen to build highway around bluff.
December 29 – Entire Aberdeen police force dismissed.

1911
January 3 – Mrs. Hilda Willponene is first woman in Aberdeen to register to vote.
June 13 – Rock for new Grays Harbor jetty arrives.
June 26 – First two whales brought in to American Pacific Whaling Plant at Stanford Point.
September 23 – Railroad Day in Aberdeen as Chehalis River railroad bridge opens.
October 10 – First annual Chehalis County Fair opens.
November 1 – Tug Phoenix total wreck at Queets River.

1912
January – 1911 total lumber output was 600,000,000 feet.
May 23 – First car arrives at Lake Quinault.
November 6 – Sternwheeler Harbor Belle gets a plank stuck in the wheel, drifts into a snag and sinks near Montesano.
December 28 – British Bark Torrisdale hits jetty and is beached.

1913
January 31 – Olympia-Grays Harbor canal proposed.
February 1 – Electric Building opens and is illuminated for the first time.
March 3 – Weir Theater in Aberdeen opens with an all-star Vaudeville Revue.
March 7 – Oil is discovered in Hoh River area.
April 18 – John Tornow, “The Wildman of the Wynoochee” is killed.
April 22 – Aberdeen’s wholesale block burns.
May 5 – Timber cruisers say there is enough timber in the county to build a 30’ wide wooden road around the world in wood.
May 20 – First cranberries to be raised in swamps near beach.
May 31 – Sixty school children spend the night marooned aboard the Kennewick on Vincent sandspit opposite Grays Harbor City.
September – Oil companies begin drilling near Taholah.
October 12 – A big storm hits Harbor with 90 mph winds.

1920
April 2 – Two circular saws with 108” diameter (worlds largest) installed at Coates Shingle company in Hoquiam.
April 3 – Powerboat Phoenix fails to cross bar for 5th time; crew blames it on cross-eyed black cat and two caskets going to Queets.
May 27 – Weatherwax High school closed for 10 days due to smallpox epidemic.
September 23 – Sea otters appear on lower Harbor for first time since 1900.
November 5 – Chehalis Highway opens; new entry in east Aberdeen.
November 27 – Barge Pirrie lost on coast; Found December 3 with twenty dead crewmen.

1922
Aberdeen’s Armory building completed.
January 3 – British Liquor ship runs aground at Westport.
January 17 – Booze-laden submarine runs aground at Point Grenville.
August 8 – Worst drought since 1910; ½ inch of rain in 76 days.
August 25 – Sharks, drawn by whale carcasses, put a stop to swimming in Harbor.
September 26 – New port on Grays Harbor dedicated.
October 28 – Whaling season ends with 163.
October 30 – Over 100 tons of salmon caught over the weekend.
December 18 – Moonshiner’s business hurt by snowfall.
December 26 – Grays Harbor Railway & Light Company to lay cable under the Wishkah River to get power to east county.

1923
January 24 – Russia wants to buy airplane spruce; mills say “NO WAY!”
February 3 – Road trip to Gray’s Monument chronicled in Daily World.
February 15 – Storm takes heavy toll on shipping; four missing.
April 21 – Harbor beaches called hot-beds of petty crime.
May 8 – Fierce fire at North West Mill in Hoquiam.
June 26 – Logging camps ban cigarettes due to fire hazard.
August 21 – Rare albino salmon caught on Humptulips River.
September 13 – Alex Polson says timber will last 1,000 years.
A record setting 1,128,750,000 board feet of lumber was cut on the Harbor in 1923; new record.

1924
April 19 – Morck Hotel opens in Aberdeen.
May 8 – D & R Theater opens with “Scaramouche” and various vaudeville acts.
October 13 – Whale season ends with 181.

1925
January 10 – First fully electric house in Aberdeen.
April 15 – Norwegian ship Dagfred carries first Harbor cargo directly to Europe.
November 7 – Elk’s Building & St. Mary’s School buildings under construction.

1930
March 17 – First comics page appears in Aberdeen Daily World.
May 17 – Fox D & R inaugurates Saturday Mickey Mouse Club.
August 18 – MGM’s Leo the Lion visits the Harbor.
December 1 – Feds make prohibition sweep on Harbor.

1931
April 13 – Work begins on East Aberdeen entrance.
July 2 – Harbor spruce used in Wiley Post’s round-the-world flight plane.
August 25-27 – Olympic loop highway celebration and dedication.
November 19 – Oil discovered on the Hoh.
May 24 – Airship Akron sails over Harbor.

1932
December 5 – New Federal Building opens in Hoquiam.

1933
February 18 – “Buy American” week in Grays Harbor.
April 6 – Worst disaster in Grays Harbor history as gale traps trollermen; 200 put at peril/19 dead.
April 7 – Prohibition ends on the Harbor. Beer supply runs out at 15¢/bottle.
May 16 – U.S.S. Constitution arrives on the Harbor for a 9 day visit.
May 18 – Locomotive Old Betsy leaves for Chicago Worlds Fair. Renamed Minnetonka.
May 19 – Entire Aberdeen World issue devoted to Constitution.
May 25 – Storm keeps Constitution here an extra day.
May 26 – Constitution leaves Grays Harbor for Port Angeles. Over 60,000 visited the ship while it was here.
June 22 – Draught beer is legalized in Aberdeen.

1940
January 16 – Grays Harbor PUD established.
March 1 – Fire destroys Aberdeen Plywood Company Mill; one dead, 400 out of work.
May 23 – Three waves of bombers fly overGrays Harbor.
June 20 – Polson’s Eureka Mill in Hoquiam burns.
October 22 – New American Plywood Plant has open house.
December 6 – Tug Tyee sinks.
Sea claims 82 year old North Cove Lighthouse

1941
January 16 – New Aberdeen plant to cut airplane spruce.
March 26 – 30-foot shark washes up at Copalis.
March 31 – Feds seize Danish ship at Grays Harbor.
April 23 – Anti-aircraft guns tested in Grayland.
May 9 – 900 on Harbor join IWA strike.
May 27 – Public barred from Electric Park due to sabotage concerns.
May 27 – Moon Island Airport construction ahead of schedule.
June 12 – Gov. Langlie dedicates Clemons Tree Farm in Montesano.
July 17 – 70 forest fires on Harbor.
November 14 – Moon Island Airport gets CAA approval.
December 7 – Japan attacks Pearl Harbor – United States enters World War II.

1942
July 30 – Scenes for “Lassie Comes Home” begin filming at Lake Quinault.

1943
June 15 – Boeing plant to open on Grays Harbor.
December 25 – Landmark 325 year old Douglas-fir Quinault and DeKay Road felled.

1950
February 1 – Freezing weather snaps main Aberdeen water line.
February 2 – Wishkah River freezes over.
February 4 – Water emergency closes mills.
June 24 – New Heron Street Bridge dedicated.
August 17 – Robert Keys, 19, first Harborite killed in Korean War.
August 23 – New Robert Gray Elementary School ready to open.

1951
January 27 – Diesel engine now pulls Seattle-Grays Harbor passenger train.
January 29 – Fire sweeps Aberdeen’s Washington Fish plant.
January 30 – Fire kills 21 in Hoquiam resthome fire.

1952
October 6 – Safeway opens new store at L and Heron Streets in Aberdeen.
December 8 – Freighter Yorkmar runs aground at Point Brown. (Pulled free December 18)

1953
May 1 – Moon Island Airport renamed Bowerman Field.
August 19 – First concrete poured for Chehalis River Bridge.
May 20 – Dead 48-foot whale washes ashore at North Cove.

1954
May 28 – Dead 40-foot whale washes into Westport.
May 31 – Dying 40-foot whale beaches at Kalaloch.

1955
June 9 – Weyerhaeuser to build $20,000,000 pulp mill in Cosmopolis.
June 21 – 40 acres purchased in South Aberdeen as site for new Grays Harbor Community College.

1960
February 6 – First wooden Charlie Choker statue erected at Grays Harbor College
October 7 – MGM blows up bridge and trestle on Wynooche for film, “Ring of Fire”.

1961
January 2 – Freighter Texmar buckles on Grays Harbor mudflat. Burns June 13.
March 6 – Doughboy statue moved from Simpson Avenue to Zelasko Park and rededicated.

1962
October 8 – Columbus Day storm hits the Harbor.

1963
January 12 – New Aberdeen Lumber Company stud mill burns.
February 21 – New Aberdeen Post Office opens. (Dedicated April 13)
August 5 – “Peanuts” comic premiers in Aberdeen World.
November 22 – President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.
December 20 – Portable spar makes first appearance in Harbor woods.

1964
September 15 – Natural gas begins to flow on Grays Harbor
November 12 – Strike idles local mills.(Ends November 24)
November 18 – Evans Products purchases Aloha Company.
November 23 – Anderson & Middleton buys Blagen’s Mill and Timber

1970
February 28 – Saginaw Mill swept by fire.
March 20 – FBI probes gambling on Grays Harbor
March 28 – Tug H.H. Hubble sinks in Chehalis River when air tank explodes.
September 7 – Lost U. S. Army surveillance plane debris found in Grays Harbor’s North Bay
December 16 – Allman-Hubble Tug Company sold to Seattleites.

1971
April 17 – Aberdeen Fish Protein Concentrate Plant dedicated.
June 22 – Sixty-year old Eighth Street Bridge in Hoquiam closed.
June 30 – Riverside Bridge in Hoquiam dedicated.
August 19 – Aberdeen holds first Rain Fair Festival.

1973
January 26 – Groundbreaking for Grays Harbor College Bishop Center
June 12 – The Daily World unveils new $1,000,000 plant.
July 11 – John Wayne films “McQ” at North Beach and Aberdeen

1980
April 17 – Hoquiam police officer Donald Burke killed.
May 25 – Mount St. Helens ash hits Harbor.
May 28 – Spar Restaurant gutted by fire.
November 2 – Ice Palace demolished.

1981
August 5 – South Shore Mall opens.
August 18 – Fire destroys the old Anderson & Middleton Mill.
December 29 – Harbor unemployment rate hits 16.3%.

1982
July 27 – Fire chars remains of M.S. Sierra.
September 17 – New Driftwood Theater opens at 3rd and I Streets.
October 12 – E.C. Miller Lumber Mill auctioned.

1983
September 20 – Old E.C. Miller Lumber Mill in South Aberdeen burns

1984
February 12 – Electric Park Power House demolition under way.
August 28 – Mayr Bros. Lumber Company files for bankruptcy.
December 10 – Parking meters removed from downtown Aberdeen.

1992
February 16 – George Streater, claimed to be the first white child born in Queets, dies.
September 20 – Former Aberdeen mayor Walt Failor dies.

April 5th, 1994- Kurt Cobain Dies Tragically
Kurt Donald Cobain was the lead singer of the grunge band “Nirvana” together with Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl. He was married to Courtney Love singer/guitarist with the band Hole with whom he had a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington and spent his early years there. He moved to the Seattle area in 1985. Best known for the song Smells Like Teen Spirit, he also wrote the song, Lithium, about the medication lithium carbonate, which is used to treat bipolar disorder. Cobain was highly influential in creating and popularizing what came to be termed “grunge” music – a style that evolved as a reaction against the perceived superficiality of 1980s stadium rock and over-the-top metal bands.

Cobain reportedly committed suicide at the age of 27 with a shotgun blast in his mouth. His body was discovered three days later in his Seattle home by maintenance workers. Toxicology officials have stated that even though Cobain’s tolerance level was extremely high, the amount of heroin injected into his body would have been enough to kill him.

2001
February 14 – Major earthquake shakes Aberdeen. Damage is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.

2002
January 5 – Historic Weatherwax High School burns due to arson.