An idealist
might suggest that Lyman was a quiet little river town during the 1940’s and
‘50’s, but there were normally loud logging trucks passing through town so it
was actually pretty noisy. And it didn’t matter where you were in town you would
hear their noise. It was pretty much a constant yet occasionally we would hear other
noises over the drone of the trucks.
So, one day my
brother and I were uptown and we heard a loud roar coming from down by the
river. Curious, we went to see what it was. We knew it wasn’t a logging truck,
it was a different noise. And what we saw was different as well. There was a
tugboat very slowly chugging upriver coming around the far side of Hodgin Island.
That tug’s engine was working hard and making a very loud roar straining
against the strong Skagit River current. Oh, we had seen tugboats before. Sometimes
there were huge log rafts floated downriver with a couple of tugs to guide them,
but they were relatively quiet. This tug chugging upriver was anything but
quiet and it was pulling an obviously very heavy load we had never seen before,
a huge barge. And both the tug and barge were pushing up walls of water. To our
amazement, the cargo on this huge barge was a house, a whole house, a two-story
house, sitting on big blocks of wood and on some sort of trailer with lots of
tires. Behind that two-story house was a trailer-house, weirdly just sitting
there. We wondered why everything didn’t just roll overboard.
The loud
commotion quickly drew a crowd. Soon, it seemed most of the town was there. Comments
like, “what in the world”, “holy-cow”, “where’s it headed”, “what is that” were
heard repeatedly. Most of us expected the tug and barge to pass us by and
navigate on up the river, but it didn’t. It rounded the island like it was
going to circle it but instead headed toward the riverbank below Sweeten’s
barn. From where we were standing the tug was turning away from us so we hurried
toward home where we would have a viewing.
We passed by
our street and going toward the river and Sweeten’s barn. Then we saw a very
strange sight. We saw the back of the barge with the trailer-house and the
two-story, but no tugboat. At first we couldn’t tell if the barge was adrift or
not. But the noise was still loud and actually the tug had simply turned around
and was pushing the barge backward. It maneuvered the barge into deeper
backwater and slower current near the riverbank. Once the tugboat entered the
backwater its engine didn’t work as hard and it slowed and grew quieter. When
it reached the lowest area of bottomland between Chambers’ and Sweeten’s fields
the tug guided the barge over alongside the riverbank and came to a stop. Both
the barge and tug were then moored to trees several yards from the river. And we
still didn’t know what was going on. But it was pretty exciting, whatever it
was.
By then it
was late afternoon and apparently nothing else was going to happen when
suddenly two men from the tug appeared carrying guns and climbed up onto the
barge and took positions at each end of the barge and yelled for everybody to
go away and stay away. I guess they were there all night making sure nothing
else did happen. The guns scared us so we headed home.
As we came
down our own now noisy street we were smacked with another opened-mouth
surprise. Here was a crew of men working feverishly on the Holden’s house just
two doors down from ours. It was on big wooden blocks like those under the
house on the barge. It also had a lot of tires under it and a big noisy truck
cab was beginning to slowly pull the Holden house out into the street and turning
towards the highway. Well of course, we weren’t going home now, we had to watch
this stunning undertaking. Here was a truck moving our neighbor’s house, our
friend’s house and literally leaving our neighborhood with it. Oh, and, on top of
that, there was another house on a barge down on the river less than
two-hundred yards away. We were stupefied. “ What in the name of Harry S.
Truman was going on?” we wondered. We certainly had not heard anything about
all of this. And even though we were young kids we thought we were usually “in
the know”.
As the truck
slowly pulled the Holden’s house away from their lot and nearer the highway we could
see that the highway was now blocked off and was in the sole possession of the
truck pulling the house. But where was it going? We had no clue. Were they
going to put it on the barge, too? We were about to follow along when our Mom
called out to us from the crowd to come on home. Sulking, we did so. While she
prepared dinner Mom told us she just learned about all this earlier that day.
Since we were gone she couldn’t share it with us until now. The Holden’s had
purchased the Richfield Gas station on the west side of town near Lyman
Elementary and were moving their house because there wasn’t one there. And the
house on the barge should be moved tomorrow to where the Holden house had been,
just two doors away from us. Our new neighbors would be the Hittson family, a
dad, mom, two girls and a boy, the kids all in high school.
Exhausted, we
went to bed earlier than usual that night but were up early the next morning to
watch the unfolding events of the day. We sat and stood for hours and watched
the two-story house being moved from the barge onto land and then pulled by the
same truck that had moved the Holden house, through fields and up a short steep
hill, over the railroad tracks and up onto the highway for about fifty yards
and then turn down our street. It was a heck of an undertaking. It passed the
recently vacated lot, stopped, and then performed an amazing reverse maneuver
backing the two-story house onto the property exactly where they wanted it, and
with the front door facing the street. We could tell they knew what they were
doing.
By noon, or
there about, we were hungry again and ran home for lunch. Mom wasn’t there to
fix it, so we improvised with peanut-butter, jelly and banana sandwiches. Taking
our lunch with us, we hurried back out to see what else was going on, and to
our happy surprise there quietly coming down the street was the trailer-house
that we had all but forgotten. Hitched to a wagon it was being easily drawn by
two huge horses that we knew, Buck and Major. Old Bill Sweeten and his team
maneuvered that trailer-house exactly where it was wanted, unhitched it from
the wagon and setting its tongue on one of those big wood blocks and hoofed it
back home. Wow! What a mesmerizing two days this had been! One captivating
event after another. We were almost giddy.
Over the
next few days, a concrete block foundation was constructed under the two-story house
and it was lowered off the big wood blocks onto its new foundation. The same
was done at the Holden house over by the Richfield Station. Mr. Hittson, our
new neighbor, stayed in the trailer-house for a couple of months while he made
the two-story livable, installing new plumbing, wiring, straightening doorways,
making repairs, painting inside and out, and making sure everything was level. We
introduced ourselves and became his friends and helpers.
Epilogue
While this
excitement was all new to us, apparently bringing houses into the upper Skagit and
other river valleys by barge was not that unusual. I never knew where the
houses came from but a widely accepted rumor claimed they came from
rights-of-ways where new highways were being built. Apparently, they were very
cheap, perhaps even free. They just had to be moved.
Anyway, we
had thoroughly enjoyed that amazing new experience, one that, to my knowledge,
has never been duplicated quite like that.
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