McCleary Musings

Shadows on First Street.

Photo taken this morning behind the McCleary Hotel.

The main intersection

Dec. 28, 2014. Looking west on Simpson Avenue. Third St. is on the left, Summit Rd. on the right.

The Dead Phone

Dec. 27, 2013. At Sam's. It has not been operational for several years, but there it sits, mocking the desperate since there is no other public phone in town.

White Christmas in McCleary

Dec. 25, 2012. Hardly ever happens here in recent history, but it did in 2012.

Simpson and 5th

Dec. 24, 2010. I think at the time this photo was taken McCleary Video was already gone.

Clam shovel

Dec. 16, 2012. The Pacific is only an hour away.

A streetlamp named Desire

Dec. 15, 2012. There is a rumor that a treasure is buried somewhere at the base, so I'll be vague about the location.

Not that it was all cracked to be

Dec. 15, 2012. This pole turned out to be not that it was all cracked to be.

The history of Dink, the locomotive

Dec. 15, 2012. If I'm not mistaken, Dink is one of the oldest locomotives in the State of Washington.

Henry McCleary had a railroad that climbed the hill going south between present 4th and 5th streets, and then turned west, following the present SR8 to Mud Bay. Some of the railroad beds are still visible. The track was built with labor imported from Japan. In the 1930s the track was dismantled and the metal sold to Japan.

Esso Gas Station

Aug. 23, 2016. When this building was first constructed ca. 1960 it opened as an Esso gas station, I think. Over the years it has served, among other things, as the original Gordon's Grocery, a real estate/tax preparation office, and a motorcycle repair shop which was the last incarnation a few years ago. The side building was added not too much later than the central structure.

Misty morning First Street

Photo taken this morning on my walk, 6:02 AM. Lots of rabbits running around the road at that time of morning. Other times I've enountered raccoons and deer on that stretch of First between Beck and Mommsen.

Elton Bennett Serigraphs

Aug. 22, 2016.

If Ken Kesey was one of the authors who really captured the Pacific Northwest in text, Elton Bennett has to be one of the artists who captured the feeling of this region through graphics. These panels are on display at the Summit Pacific Clinic in downtown McCleary.

Dink and the fire engine

Dec. 15, 2012. Dink and the fire engine all decked out for Christmas

Retro chairs

Dec. 15, 2012. McCleary Laundromat.

Laundromat, or, Laundry Mat

Dec. 15, 2012. The outside sign has one version, but inside the name has another. Or at least it did in late 2012.

Major Mite's home?

Dec. 15, 2012. I could be wrong, but I think where the diesel tanks at Cheema's are now located was once the site of the childhood home of Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, otherwise known as "Major Mite" one of the smallest men in the world. Howerton had a career in the circus and even had a role in the Wizard of Oz film as a Munchkin (3rd trumpteer heralding the arrival of the Munchkin Mayor).

As late as the 1960s there was still a home sitting at the spot where the diesel tanks now reside.

Major Mite lived here at the same time as Cecil "Primo" Boling, one of the tallest persons in the USA. As a result McCleary was the subject of a lot of press at the time wondering what was in our water supply.

McCleary Laundromat before the bashing

Dec. 15, 2012. This was shortly before the front of the operation was bashed in by a vehicle. Also note the existence of the veterinary clinic next door, which alas did not last long here. The loading dock of the Post Office is pictured on the far left.

I'm told this area was the site of a garage run by Russ McMillan in the old days and Russ had a stuffed lamb with one head and two bodies in his display window. I was acquainted with Russ but never had a chance to ask him about this oddity or what happened to it.

Fine quilted art

Dec. 15, 2011

No baseball today

Dec. 12, 2010. In the "100 year flood" of 1990, I think it was, I saw Beerbower Park completely under water, basically a lake. The pedestrian bridge over Sam's Canal washed away. First St. north of Mommsen was a river. It didn't help that Simpson had just clearcut the woods on Hospital Hill so the runoff was extra bad.

Simpson cut all those trees and then turned the site into a residential development (now on Oak Lane) originally and ironically named "Evergreen Heights." You could make this stuff up, but no one would believe you.

McCleary Musings

A Buick decorated by cats

Mikes transforms into Cheemas

Oak St.