Growth hasn't changed logging town

By REBEKAH DENN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

It isn't hard to find the granite in Granite Falls. It glints from the nearby cliffs, from the quarry trucks grinding through the downtown streets, from the rock-solid sense of identity in the old logging town near the base of Mount Pilchuck.

"There's a strong community in Granite Falls. If people leave, they come back, it seems," says gift shop owner Trish Osgood, who moved to California after graduating from Granite Falls High School and soon returned.

"I craved the fresh air, and being able to see wildlife (by) walking out my back door, and the people, the close-knit people that you know by name," she says.

By sheer percentage points, Granite Falls is one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. Its population has roughly doubled in the past decade, and it is technically a city.

But the actual numbers are still low -- about 2,000 at last count -- and residents say it remains the quintessential small town.

The downtown is neat but not prettified, with an unforced old-fashioned air: Stop signs instead of stop lights; a striped pole turning outside the barber shop; old-timers meeting for coffee each day at the Timberline Cafe; hand-weighted post office scales instead of electronic balances.

Historic photos of old businesses spring to color with a walk down the street: Many of the same shops are open for business on the same corners.

At the Corner Tavern, one of the oldest, "they used to make brown paper bag lunches for the loggers," says owner Lori Persinger. In earlier days, legend has it, prospectors drank to their riches at the bar with their pockets full of gold.

The graves of those pioneers are interspersed with graves of their descendants, generations resting together in the quiet cemetery across from the town ballfield.

"It's an attractive community. It has a lot of charm," says the town's only doctor, Barry Tanne, who says he was vetted by Granite Falls elders before taking over the lone clinic seven years ago. An independent practitioner -- a profession nigh-impossible in larger areas today -- he says business is growing enough that he is hiring an assistant.

Even in his profession, the links between past and present are strong. Older patients still recall the city's first doctor, Frank Chappell, who died in 1928.

The Granite Falls Historical Museum has a display case dedicated to Chappell, complete with prescriptions he filled in his dual role as pharmacist.

"He was a good doctor," says historical society President Doris Jacot, who was treated by Chappell as a child. "He was tall and he was gruff, but it was a nice gruffness."

There are fewer residents now who remember those older days, and those who do try to keep the memories alive.

Maria Burrill, who came to Granite Falls to teach in 1940, wrote a history of pioneering families and helped organize the "Railroad Days" event that's now an annual fall celebration.

More than 20 years ago, she helped with a ceremony honoring the loggers who made up so much of the area's history. Tough outdoorsmen known only by nicknames such as "Bull Block Mike" and "Raggedy-Ass Pete" wore red carnations and enjoyed the recognition like a homecoming, the 87-year-old says.

"Gee, it just makes you feel good," she says.

When Burrill herself was laid up for a few months recently, neighbors, friends, and decades worth of old students came by for daily visits. That support wouldn't have been there in a big city, she says.

"I'd never live in a big place."