Gottlieb Burian's gravestone at Lakeview Cemetery.

Story by Scott Schaefer
Photos Courtesy Highline Historical Society

The Highline Historical Society has posted a very interesting article written by Earl F. Charvet (from research by Charles L. Thiesenhusen) on its website that sets the record straight about Gottlieb Burian, the man Burien was named after.

Previously, most B-Towners thought that our city was named after some funny-looking old dude called Gottlieb Von Boorian.

Wrong.

Recently-uncovered documents show that his name was just plain ol’ Gottlieb Burian, sometimes spelled with two ‘r’s', as in ‘Burrian.’

Some other historical info that has been corrected:

• Gottlieb Burian is sometimes mistakenly thought of as the first settler in this area. Others credit a guy named Mike (not Mick) Kelly. Wrong – that honor goes to George Ouellet (just think, Burien should’ve been named Ouelletville!).
• There is no evidence that Gottlieb Burian descended from a noble Prussian family or that family members spelled their name in any way other than “Burian.” Naturalization papers, state legal records, contemporary newspaper accounts, city directories, marriage records of his children, and the family’s grave markers at Lake View Cemetery all show the name spelled “Burian.”
• If Gottlieb was referred to as “Von Boorian” during his life, it may have been a self applied honorific or a tribute by his friends at the Turnverein and the Sons of Hermann Lodge. Another possible explanation for the Von Boorian myth may be that it arose from the notoriety of Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Stephan Burian von Rajecz, called “Baron von Burian” in newspaper headlines during the early years of World War I.

Here’s an excerpt from the story (read the full article here):

In the 1880s, the area ten miles south of Seattle called Sunnydale (now Burien) was densely forested by tall Douglas firs and hemlocks, and mostly unsettled. Land patents for homestead sites were still available for purchase directly from the Federal government. The first record of the Burians residing in Sunnydale appears in March 1885,29 which confirms family accounts stating they arrived in Sunnydale in “about 1884.”30 However, Gottlieb Burian did not purchase his 120 acre homestead in Sunnydale from the Federal land office until about five years later, on 31 August 1889.31 This parcel of land (in Township 23 North, Range 4 East, Section 19; around today’s 12th Avenue SW and SW 156th Street) was handsomely sited on the southeast corner of a lake, later named Lake Burien in his honor.

Evidence from city directories and census records prove that the Burian family maintained two primary residences. The house on the lake served as a home where they raised their children and was a comfortable retreat from city life.32 33 A photo taken about 1893 shows Gottlieb and Emma dressed simply in black on the steps of Sunnydale School, clearly in a place of honor, surrounded by school girls in white dresses with women wearing their finest hats and men in starched collars and ties.34 The occasion is unknown, but it is obvious they were highly respected citizens in the community. Their city home at 1716 Spring Place on Capitol Hill, one block away from Minor Park, was not far from the center of Seattle’s commercial hub, its social events, and Gottlieb’s places of business.35 A few years before Gottlieb’s death, they sold this house and moved seven blocks west to another home at 1020 Spring Place, where Virginia Mason Hospital stands today.36

Gottlieb Burian is sometimes mistakenly thought of as the first settler in the city of Burien area. However, this honor belongs to George Ouellet (variously spelled as Oullet, Ouellette, Oulett, Oulet, etc.), a French-Canadian immigrant born in Sainte-Marie de Beauce, south of Quebec City in 1837.37. Ouellet purchased the first of his several Federal land patents in the area in 1864, fully twenty-five years before Burian bought any land.38 39

Late in life, Gottlieb and Emma retired at their downtown Seattle home. When a census taker arrived in June 1900 and interviewed Gottlieb at age 63, he amusingly gave his profession as “shoemaker.”

Gottlieb Burien and friends, from a photo taken on the steps of the Sunnydale School (circa 1893) at a community gathering. Photo courtesy Highline Historical Society.

Don’t forget – you can help the historical society preserve our area’s history by donating online here.

1932 Highline High School Championship basketball team. Photo courtesy Highline Historical Society.

The Highline Historical Society is inviting the public to a free program celebrating memories of sports teams in the Highline area from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 20th at SeaTac City Hall.

Retired Tyee varsity baseball coach Walt Edmiston will be on a special guest panel that also will include Kaija Lietuvietis (who taught PE at both Highline and Tyee High Schools and coached girls swimming at Tyee), Phyllis Mitchell (who has written extensively about church league basketball in the Highline area), and Gordie Shaw (who was involved with Highline Little League). The program will be moderated by former Highline School District Superintendent Kent Matheson.

Former players, coaches, and fans are warmly welcomed to come ask questions of the panelists, and share their own memories and memorabilia.

The program will take place Sunday, November 20, from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. at SeaTac City Hall, located at 4800 S 188th Street in SeaTac.

A short annual meeting will precede the program.

For more information on the Highline Historical Society and its activities, visit www.highlinehistory.org.

The Highline Historical Society (we’re members – join here) is seeking area residents to share their memories of the 9/11 tragedy on the weekend of Sept. 10th and 11th.

They’ll be videotaping short oral histories at two events – here’s more from an email we received:

In remembrance of the events of 9/11/2001, the Highline Historical Society will be videotaping short oral histories of first responders and the general public at two events on the weekend of September 10 – 11:

• Saturday, September 10: the Historical Society will be at the Burien Fire Station, 15100 8th Avenue SW in Burien, from 10 AM to Noon.
• Sunday, September 11: the Society will be at the SeaTac Fire Station, 2929 S 200th Street in SeaTac, from 1 – 3 PM.

People who wish to share their memories of where they were a decade ago and how they reacted when they heard about the airliners that had been flown into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon are invited to stop by and be videotaped.

These memories will then become a permanent part of the Highline Historical Society’s collections.

For more information on the Highline Historical Society and its activities, visit www.highlinehistory.org.

Retirement has been busy for Jerry Wick. Since selling his J & W Septic Service a few years ago, he’s tackled all of those projects and hobbies he’s always dreamed of doing – metal detecting, building a greenhouse, expanding his vegetable garden, and more.

Last winter, when he found himself in his workshop with some scrap wood and a little free time on his hands – voila! – he added to his skill set once again. Now Jerry can be called a builder of birdhouses. He has created a variety of designs: single, multiple residence, funny face – and recently he’s branched out into building lodges for Mason bees, the peaceful pollinators that help make gardens bountiful.

An abundance of these bird and bee abodes are going to be on display at the upcoming Highline Garden Tour on Saturday, June 11. Jerry will be donating half the proceeds from the sale of any birdhouses to the Highline Historical Society, which sponsors the Garden Tour every year.

This will be just one of the special features on the 2011 Tour, which is going to feature four private gardens in Burien, Normandy Park, and SeaTac, as well as the kitchen garden of the gourmet Copperleaf Restaurant, and the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden.

Ticket holders on the 2011 Highline Garden Tour also will enjoy harp music, artists in the gardens, a plant sale, raffle items, discount coupons, and a lecture on “Small Is the New BIG” by gardening expert Lorene Forkner.

Tickets for the Garden Tour are $15 in advance, with group rates of $12 per person if bought in groups of four or more. Tickets will be $18 on the day of the tour. Tickets can be purchased at Herr Backyard Garden Center, 107 SW 160th Street; Burien Bark, 13258 1st Avenue S; and Lavina Mays, 17824 1st Avenue S. Tickets also can be purchased by calling 206-241-5786.

For more information about the Highline Garden Tour and about the Highline Historical Society, visit www.highlinehistory.org/Programs.html.

The annual Highline Garden Tour will be on Saturday, June 11th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.. with a tour of five gardens, entertainment and plant sales and more.

In collaboration with the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden, the Society and volunteers will be hosting beautiful gardens in Normandy Park, SeaTac and Burien. This self-guided tour visits five gardens in Highline and features musicians, artists, raffles and a plant sale.

Ticket holders also will be treated to access to the organic kitchen garden that supplies the gourmet Copperleaf Restaurant in SeaTac. Other tour features include a plant sale at the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden and discount coupons and other specials provided by tour sponsors.

Tickets are $15 in advance, with group rates of $12 per person if bought in groups of four or more.

Tickets will be $18 on the day of the tour.

Tickets can be purchased at Herr Backyard Garden Center, 107 SW 160th Street; Burien Bark, 13258 1st Avenue S; and Lavina Mays, 17824 1st Avenue S. Tickets also can be purchased by calling 241.5786.

Visit: www.highlinehistory.org for more details.

Phil LeTourneau, an Archaeologist with the King County Historic Preservation Program, studies an artifact brought in for examination at last Saturday’s Highline Historical Society “Treasure Hunt” antiques appraisal, held at the Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center Gym in Burien.

Burke Museum Archaeologists Bob Kopperl and Laura Phillips are in the background.

Closeup of the artifact being examined.

People were invited to bring their treasures in and have them appraised.

“Among the artifacts brought in that day were arrowheads and other ancient stone tools, fossils, traditional Native American baskets and drums, as well as various carved figurines,” said Barbara McMichael of the society.

Photos Courtesy the Highline Historical Society (we’re members – join here).

The Highline Historical Society (we’re members) will be holding its annual “Treasure Hunt” antiques appraisal event on Saturday, April 16th from 10am – 4pm at the Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center Gym.

This year the day-long event is being paired with a brand-new offering – Artifact Identification.

A Certified Appraiser will assess antiques for a fee of $10 per item; but if you’re a Highline Historical Society member, you get one for free – just show your card. People bringing their treasures in are encouraged to bring a notepad, as their appraisals will be verbal. Limit four items per person.

The Artifact Identification portion of the program will be staffed by archaeologists from the Burke Museum and the King County Historic Preservation Program. This is the first time the Artifact ID program has taken place outside of the Burke Museum, and the Highline Historical Society is pleased to be offering this opportunity to Highline area residents. Experts will be on hand to identify cultural objects found in the region, from oddly shaped stones to interesting relics.

There will be no fee for this service, but there is a limit of three items per visitor. No appraisals will be given for the artifact portion of the program.

Admission and parking are free for the Antiques Appraisal/Artifact Identification event. The artifact identification portion of the program runs from 10 AM – 3 PM.

The Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center is located at 1033 SW 152nd Street in Burien.

For more information on the Highline Historical Society and its activities, visit www.highlinehistory.org.

Our friends at the Highline Historical Society (we’re members – join here) remind us that one way to commemorate Valentine’s Day is to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the unearthing of the remains of a giant Ice Age sloth from the north end of Sea-Tac Airport.

According to the HHS:

“…on February 13, 1961, workmen discovered the bones of an Ice Age sloth near the north end of Sea-Tac International Airport. The sloth was about 12 feet long. The animal was a relative of the present South American tree sloth. Radiocarbon dating of the peat in which the skeleton was found established the sloth to be about 12,500 years old.”

Currently, the remains of the now-extinct sloth, which is “about the size of a Mini Cooper,” are on display as a re-created, complete skeleton at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

“We’re planning to install a replica of his 17-foot long skeleton outside our new museum,” said Executive Directory Cyndi Upthegrove.

The 12,600-year old Giant Sloth was unearthed from a bog like this near the north end of Sea-Tac Airport.

Here’s more from the society’s newsletter:

Gordon Simmons found the first bone inside a steel caisson the Sellen Construction Co. was driving into the ground to provide an anchor for a tower on the airport’s runway-approach lighting system. Almost 2/3 of the skeleton was recovered, including some limbs from the right side, the left side, the majority of tail ribs and associated vertebrae. Lacking, and presumed either not present at burial or lost in excavation, was the head, most of the neck, and some limb bones. The missing bones and present skull were cast from another Megalonyx jeffersonii specimen. The original bones, as found, were preserved perfectly. The complete skeleton of this sloth is mounted in the University of Washington’s Burke Museum.

Ten to twelve thousand years ago, as a huge continental glacier retreated from the Puget Lowland, its melt waters carved out the depression in which first a lake and later a peat bog formed. This was the domain of the extinct ground sloth Megalonyx, a lumbering beast about the size of an ox. Its weight awkwardly rested on the outer margins of its huge hind feet, and on the knuckles of its smaller and more agile forefeet (equipped with powerful claws, from which the name “big claw” or “Megalonyx” comes). The animal was further supported by a massive tail when rearing up on its hind legs in search of low-hanging branches on which to browse. What caused its death we may never know, but the body of Megalonyx jeffersonii finally settled on the bottom of the bog to be covered, eventually, by thirteen feet of peat.

Some of the contemporaries of Megalonyx were the wooly mammoth, mastodon, long-horned bison, musk ox, horse, camel, caribou, elk, moose, various ground sloths, lynx, wolf, great short-faced bear, grizzly bear and sabre-tooth cat. The sabre-tooth cat probably was responsible for the death of many a ground sloth. It is believed that some of those species absent today were hunted to extinction by early man.

Of historic interest is the fact that Megalonyx was one of the first fossil mammals described in North America; the author was none other than Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was interested in the natural history of Virginia, and in 1797 presented a paper to the American Philosophical Society on the discovery of the first specimen of Megalonyx found the previous year during saltpeter mining in a cave in what is now West Virginia. In the early 1800’s the specific name of jeffersonii was proposed by a French paleontologist to honor Jefferson’s contribution, and we now know the late Pleistocene species as Megalonyx jeffersonii. Since that time, fossils of this genus have been found throughout North America, from Florida to Washington and from Southern Mexico to Alaska.

RECOMMENDED READING:

• GUTHRIE, RUSSELL D., “Recreating a Vanished World,” in National Geographic, Volume 141, Number 3, March 1972.
• KURTEN, BJORN, The Ice Age, Putnam, New York, 1972.
• MARTIN, PAUL S., “Sloth Droppings,” Natural History, Vol. 84, No. 7, August-September 1975.
• ROMER, ALFRED S., Vertebrate Paleontology, Chapter 24: “Edentates,” University of Chicago, Revised Edition, 1962.
• STOCK, CHESTER, Rancho La Brea, A Record of Pleistocene Life in California, Los Angeles County Museum, Science Series Number 20, Paleontology Number 11, 1965.

To learn more local history, be sure to check out the society’s Photo Exhibit currently on display at the Burien Community Center – read our previous coverage here.

(Photos courtesy the Highline Historical Society)

Cool vintage photos of Burien are on display at the Community Center, located at 14700 6th Ave SW.

Our friends at the Highline Historical Society (we’re members – join here) have mounted a cool new exhibit of vintage photos at the Burien Community Center.

Called “Burien Families at Work and Play,” the exhibit showcases both business and leisure activities of Burien residents over the past century. Photos on display depict everything from early storefronts and unusual real estate enterprises, to marching bands, team sports, and Independence Day celebrations.

The exhibit is open to the public and available for viewing any time the Community Center is open.

The Burien Community Center is located at 14700 6th Avenue SW, and is open Monday – Thursday, 8:30 AM – 8 PM, and Friday, 8:30 AM – 5 PM.

Visit www.highlinehistory.org for more information about the Highline Historical Society.

Professional actress and Chautauqua scholar Joan Wolfberg will take audience members on Eleanor’s transformative journey from a shy, awkward childhood, to the White House, and later to the United Nations. Roosevelt emerged as one of the most influential civil rights advocates of the 20th century.

Wolfberg’s presentation includes discussions of evolving attitudes toward the equality of women, civil rights, human rights, politics and freedom. This program is suitable for middle school students and up. It is made possible with the sponsorship of Humanities Washington and its Inquiring Mind program.

The presentation takes place at SeaTac City Hall, 4800 S 188th Street, in SeaTac. Free admission and free parking. (Donations always welcome.)

Visit www.highlinehistory.org for more information about the Highline Historical Society.