History of Aldarra Farms

I am excited to publish the information below.  I do not believe some of this information has ever been released publically in a digital form.  The History of Aldarra Farms has always intrigued me.  This post gives all that I know, as told by Bud Abbott.  Mr. David 'Bud' Abbott was the care taker of the farm at the times of its sale to be converted into the amazing golf course we know it as today.  Those eighteen holes are spread out over very interesting history.  Enjoy!

Written by Bud Abbott, Aldarra Farm Manager.
Transcribed to Microsoft word by Mike Swingle

To do a history of Aldarra Farms, one should go back to the 1850’s.

Native Americans occupied the Fall City area.  The only longhouses were in Fall City and Tolt, with their locations near today’s school houses.

This entire area was heavily forested and was opened up by the Homestead Law of 1882, which provided for the disposition of public lands to homemakers free of charge, requiring only residence, cultivation, and improvement.  A person who was the head of a family or who had reached the age of 21 and was a citizen of the United States could apply for 80 acres.  A Civil War veteran was entitled to 160 acres.  Upon residing thereon, cultivating and improving the same for three years in compliance with the law, one would obtain ownership of his land.

In 1883, Bert Taylor homesteaded the most eastern part of Aldarra’s River Farm.  Following west were homesteaders John Warren and Hans Moore, a veteran.   Continuing west were W.A. Cruikshank, Victor Hanson, John T Stone, E.L. Tapert, and William Dudley.  Swalwell, Bailey, and Carmichael were the three homesteaders that farmed what is now the main farm at Aldarra.

The first logging was done along the Snoqualmie River where the logs were branded and floated down river to Everett.  When they were sold was sometimes a year later.  Prices for the logs at the time were as low as $4.50 per thousand.

There was a cedar shake mill on Patterson Creek where Aldarra’s B and B Farm is today.  A picture shows shake bolts being sledded across Canyon Creek.

The use of the Washington Donkey Engines made it possible to pile the stumps up high for burning, and most saw logs were yarded and loaded with such machines.  The western acreage of the main farm was logged by railroad to the mill at Monahan, which was a large sawmill on the east shore of Lake Sammamish.  Two former rail ends can be seen at upper elevations of the farm.  The logs from the lowlands were trucked to the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company which in 1914 became a Weyerhaeuser Mill.  The aid of a tractor was most often needed to get up the Falls hill.  The size of the logs is apparent in some of the photos.

In the early days of Fall City there were two ways to get from Seattle to the Valley.  One was by foot via Renton and Issaquah, a two-day walk.  The other choice was by boat via Everett.  The vessels were the ‘Traveler’ and the schooner ‘A.Y. Trask’.  These trips began in 1855 and by 1883 the vessel ‘Alki’ had a regular run.

In 1889 the railroad reached Fall City via Issaquah.  This brought on a boom to the area.

The first school was founded in Fall City in 1879 and was the only one in our valley until the Patterson Creek School was built in 1890.  This school was on the land that is now Aldarra’s B and B Farm.  It was closed in favor of Fall City in 1915.

In this year of 1915, J.F. Duthie, a ship builder in Seattle, bought the lands held by J. Bailey, D Carmichael, Duelly and Harry Moore.  By the year 1917 he had purchased a total of 525 acres.  It was said that by the end of World War I, Duthie had 150 men working on the farm.  Duthie had named his farm ‘Walldale Farm’ and developed a showplace as a producing farm plus a recreation center.  There was tennis, golf, fishing and skating to keep people entertained.  The generating plant using the flow of Canyon Creek made the farm look like Electric City.  In 1930 Duthie passed Walldale Farm on to J. W. Bullock and C.E. Crandell.

Crandell built one building in 1932, a barn we now call the Homestead Barn.  Lumber from what was U.S. 10, today State Highway 202, was used to build this barn.

In March 1942, William E. Boeing, Sr. took ownership of the Walldale Farm from C.E. Crandell.  There was a total of 525 acres.  On March 17, 1942, Dutch Abbott moved onto the property as the manager of the newly named ‘Aldarra Farms’.  The name ‘Aldarra’ was the name used by W.E. Boeing for his Seattle home.  Mr. and Mrs. Boeing moved into the Duthie house in late 1942 after some remodeling was completed.

Boeing’s plans for Aldarra Farms were not just a comfortable home but to also improve the quality of livestock in the Northwest and to introduce modern farming methods.

In April 1943, a foundation herd of registered Guernsey Dairy Cattle was purchased from Western Glow Farms of Bow, Washington.  In this purchase of twenty-nine pregnant cows was Martha of Aldarra who became National Butterfat Champion on 1949.

In 1945, a foundation herd of registered Horned Hereford Beef Cattle was purchased from the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, which was owned by the Quaker Oats Company.  These, some thirty cows and bulls, became the top herd in this area.  The farm was the proud owner of prize winners in national cattle shows such as Chicago, Kansas City, Ogden and   San Francisco.  They were also prize winners at our local fairs in Western Washington and Portland, Oregon’s Pacific International.  The number of cattle at the year 1955 was over 500 head.  From that time, the numbers of cattle were reduced each year until August, 1993, when the last were sold.

Registered Duroc-Jersey Hogs were purchased in 1944 from three State Fair sales in the Midwest.  These hogs multiplied into eighty head and, because of a shortage of labor, were given to the University of Idaho in 1946.

A close friend of the Boeing’s gave the farm two pregnant Columbia Ewes.  These sheep, being a breed developed for the climate of the Northwest, also multiplied as an annual lamb crop can well be 150%.  Two hundred were sold and shipped to eastern Montana in 1950.  Aldarra was one of the founders of Puget Sound Wool Growers, which is a marketing co-op for our wool from seven Western Washington counties.

Two teams of draft horses came to the farm with Dutch, a great lover of horses.  These horses were used in moving and clipping the fields.  They also helped in land clearing, where they would pull a sled for rock and stick removal.  The last task for the draft horses was pulling a beer keg wagon in downtown Seattle during SeaFair week.

Chickens and turkeys were also raised in limited numbers on the farm.  These were used for domestic use only.  A large garden was maintained at the Duthie Home, and with the aid of a greenhouse, vegetables were supplied to some of the households.

The milk from forty milk cows was used at Aldarra to furnish the needs of each household.  Separated cream was shipped to the Golden Rule Bakery in Seattle.  The skim milk all went to the pigs.

The first plowing by Aldarra was in the Fields NL-1 and SL-3.  These fields were planted with a hybrid corn for silage. This corn grew to thirteen feet high and gave great tonnage per acre for silage.

Two attached silos on the Main Barn were showing age to a point where they were replaced by two tile silos in 1947.  By the year 1950, the corn silage was replaced by grass silage.  This was done because of the volume need and the greater amount of labor required with the corn.  At this time, a glass lined steel silo was also installed just west of the Main Barn, and it had a capacity of 240 tons.  The above mentioned second tile silo was located at Feed Lot No 1.

In 1948, a Heil Hay Dehydrator was purchased and placed on property that was purchased from Siler Logging Company which was on the very southeast corner of Section 6 and the Duthie Hill Road.  This machine enabled Aldarra to make hay from April to October, even in the rain.  A high headed ride o 70 feet for the grass found It baled within three minutes.  Using fuel oil costing five cents a gallon and growing orchard grass resulted in a product with more nutrition than alfalfa.  The fast rising cost of fuel and Mr. Boeing’s passing in 1956 brought on the sale of this equipment in the next year.

Cereal grains were grown from three years but only with success in the first year, 1949.  The need of a full three-month growing season ending with dry warm weather ended this program.

A labeling of Aldarra’s fields by letter and number was most important for all phases of operations.  One enclosed map shows Aldarra’s Township location and a second map shows the field layout.

Water rights were a very important part of the everyday operations with the farm. The first rights were given in 1939 and were later transferred to Aldarra in 1946.  The rights and their locations are on an enclosed map.  Most of Aldarra’s irrigation began in 1939 by C.E. Crandell and was expanded in 1948 with the irrigation of some 100 acres of grassland plus some 6 acres of gardens and yards.  The eight homes that remain today on the farm were built over a span of 80 years.  Six older, or out of need, homes have been removed during Aldarra’s time of ownership.

The main road through the barnyard at Aldarra was once a dead-ending county road, but in November, 1943 Mr. Boeing, having then purchased the 200-acre Foster-Swalwell Farm to the east of the Main barns, got a closure on this part of 292^nd Ave SE.  In 1963, King County did some straightening of the Duthie Hill Road and rebuilt the bridge crossing Patterson Creek.

The last property that was purchased for Aldarra was 21.35 acres in Section 12 to the west of P-1.  Land clearing was a never ending program going back to the Homesteading days and was just about ended in 1977.

Mr. William E Boeing Sr. passed away on his yacht in 1956 and his widow, Bertha Boeing, passed away just twenty years later at the farm she loved so well.  The ownership of Aldarra Farms was passed on to William E. Boeing Jr. in 1977, after his mother’s passing.

I, David ‘Bud’ Abbot, was made the manager of Aldarra Farms on January 1, 1951 upon my father, Dutch Abbott’s retirement. I have seen, been a part of, the past 50 years of Aldarra farms life.  The picture at daybreak that I have enclosed shows why one gets up in the morning.