Face of the city changes with the times

By JACK HOPKINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Visitors can get a sense of the town's coal-mining past by visiting the Black Diamond Museum, located in the old Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad depot, which was built in 1886. The museum is on Railroad Avenue just up the street from the Black Diamond Bakery.

What has happened at the bakery in recent years is perhaps symbolic of the community's future. Growth is coming to what is fondly referred to as "Old Town."

Early owners of the bakery were at times cavalier about the way they ran the business. If the fish were biting, customers might find a note on the door saying the owner had closed for the day. But Doug Weiding, who bought the bakery 15 years ago, established regular hours and started opening the bakery seven days a week. And then there was the expansion.

Seven years ago, he opened a restaurant-deli just south of the tiny bakery. Four years ago, he added a dining room. Then he put in an ice cream parlor, coffee shop and art gallery to the north of the bakery.

He also has bought a large strip of land across from the bakery and is planning more retail businesses by 2002 -- in time for the 100th birthday of the bakery.

"The whole goal is to make Railroad Avenue a small Winthrop or Leavenworth," he said, referring to towns that have Western and Bavarian themes, respectively.

Most of the land to be designated for urban development probably will end up in residential construction, Weiding believes. But there's no guarantee of that. Nobody's sure how it will be developed. "That is really all yet to be determined," Sorci said.

Still to be determined is the exact zoning in the areas where urban growth will be permitted. Black Diamond officials plan on incorporating those sections into the city's comprehensive land use plan as they are annexed. But until that happens, developers will be looking to county officials for approval of their plans.

What many residents don't understand, Sorci said, is that the urban growth agreement will help protect the town -- moving pressure for development to the area outside the existing city.

City officials adopted a comprehensive land use plan last summer that is designed to guarantee that the existing town doesn't lose its rural flavor. Much of the town's future development will include clustering of buildings and provide for considerable open space, they say.

Sorci said he thinks the new area would be ideal for light industry -- "Silicon Valley type of development," as he puts it. And he said housing in the newly annexed areas could be clustered around open space.

But the uncertainty of it all is still unsettling to some residents, including Dan Palmer, a musician and artist who has lived in the community for 17 years. "I have always believed that Black Diamond's future is in its past," Palmer said.

One thing's for sure: The town's future will include growth.

"You can't not grow. You have to grow. So the question is how to grow with proper controls," said Luther. "It's a big struggle. This city really is at the crossroads. What happens in the next few months will set the tone for the next 20 to 30 years."

See also: Get Jon Hahn's take on the museum (from 1991)Continued:

• Historical coal town is getting ready to grow up
• A quiet town that likes it that way
• Yielding to the inevitable
• A mining town, then and now