Summer Week 13: Local History

There are so many tomatoes that are ripening in the greenhouse!

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Lettuces
• Romano Beans
• Swiss Chard
• Beets with Greens
• Fennel or Cabbage
• Cucumber or Summer Squash
• Tomatoes or Sweet Peppers
• Purple Basil or Cilantro
• “Italian Late” Garlic

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON:
Carrots
Arugula
Shelling Beans

You may have noticed that there are signs on our bridge about new weight limits for trucks. This is impacting us a little—the school bus can’t cross the bridge anymore, that kind of thing. The bridge is old and there’s no money for repairing old bridges, so if the trucks don’t stay off it’s going to fall apart. The thing that caught my eye on the flashy sign, though, was that the bridge has a name. It’s the “Thomas Alvord Bridge”. That got me thinking as well, about local history.

Not many people know who Thomas Alvord was. There are a lot of things that share his name. For example, if you look at a map, sometimes you’ll see that our little neighborhood here is called “Thomas”. There’s also a white board sign down behind the White River Feed Mill that calls out the name “Thomas”. You used to be able to see it before the fancy 277th St. overpass was built, when cars crossed the train tracks down there. You might also remember the Thomas Academy, a small, private school just on the other side of 277th. Maybe you saw the historical marker across from the AAA Junkyard down the street, before some ne’er-do-well pushed it over, that identified “Alvord’s Landing”.

There used to be a lot of “landings” on the Green River. I’m sure there were on other rivers, too. The Green River used to be a major commerce-way, with various good being sent up or down the river on flat-bottomed steamboats. These goods were loaded and unloaded at landings. There are number in Kent— Langston’s Landing, Van Doren’s Landing, etc. There’s a mural in downtown Kent, on 1st Ave by the bakery that shows horses and wagons carrying hops, grain, and other goods to a river landing.

Thomas Alvord and his wife were one of the first white families to settle in Kent after the Seattle Indian Wars of the 1850’s, and they bought property on the Green River here and set up their ranch and trading business. They were followed by others, including John Langston and James Jeremiah Crow. Farmers started to move in and settle, and the river landings remained the most reliable method of transportation until the Northern Pacific (now the Union Pacific) railroad came in 1883.

Another interesting note: Kent was famous for growing hops back in the 1880’s. One story says that the city was actually named for the famed hops variety called “Kent”. That industry was sadly dismantled when the hop blight of 1891 swept in and ruined crops for everyone. There are some wild hops growing here and there around the area, and the steel sidewalk grates have stylized hops vining all over them.

At any rate, it’s interesting to know about our surroundings and the history of where we live. I love that the tree tunnel down the road is formed over one of the oldest roads in King County, because of the need to transport farm products to the city and abroad.

Romano Beans are delicious sautéed with Torpedo Onions in butter.

I also love that we have an abundance of tomatoes and peppers right now. The Romano beans are so heavy this year! We’ve been eating them several times a week. They are not a shelling bean, they are a wide, flat green bean. Here’s my favorite method of cooking. Cut the ingredients into chunks. Sauté the onion in a chunk of butter or olive oil, and then put the bean chunks in and sauté them until tender, about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper are all you need. Cosmo likes the stingers cut off the ends, but other than that I use the whole thing.

Soon, fall will be upon us and we’ll be moving back to lots of greens and roots and squashes. And that reminds me as well, that our summer season will come to an end in a few weeks. Our winter season starts the first week of November and runs through the second week of January—10 weeks of delicious winter produce. You’ll get a discount if you sign up by September 15, and that will help us make our annual investment in seed garlic for next year, as well as get started on another big greenhouse!