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)

The Highline Historical Society has received a $3,000 grant from 4Culture for the purpose of housing threatened documents, photographs, negatives and films in the Society’s collections.

The Society owns more than 100,000 items that are subject to this grant.

Curator Nancy McKay working in the photo stacks. Photo courtesy Highline Historical Society.

“Media such as negatives need to be kept in acid free containers, sleeves and folders to prevent deterioration,” said Nancy Salguero McKay, the Society Curator of Collections. “At the present time many of our negatives and photographs are not being correctly stored because of the cost of buying these materials. This grant from 4Culture will be extremely helpful in providing materials to appropriately preserve our communities’ archival treasures.”

Highline Historical Society is a 16-year old non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history and telling the stories of Highline (we’re members – you should consider joining/supporting them – click here to join!).

Collections are in storage pending the construction of the Highline Heritage Museum in Burien (read our previous coverage here). For more information visit the Society’s web site at http://www.highlinehistory.org.

The Highline Historical Society is holding an online auction fundraiser, which runs until Tuesday, Dec. 15th, and offers local restaurants, foods, trips and unusual experiences – all perfect gifts for the holidays, all the while supporting a great local cause.

You can access the auction here:

www.highlinehistory.cmarket.com.

Proceeds from the auction will benefit the ongoing programs and activities of the Society, including their capital building campaign for the new Highline Heritage Museum on their property in “Old Burien.”

“We cannot thank our local vendors enough for their participation. I encourage everyone to take a look at the website and support the Society by bidding on something fun for the holidays,” said Terry Anderson, Society President.

The new Highline Heritage Museum, designed by Rohleder Borges Architects, will be located on the Southwest corner of SW 152nd Street and Ambaum Blvd. SW, where Karuna Yoga Arts is currently housed.

The online auction is hosted by cMarket, which is the country’s leading provider of non-profit online auction services. On any day there are as many as 200 cMarket auctions underway online nationwide. With their secure servers and a growing number of community-minded vendors, more and more shoppers are finding that this is an excellent way to shop close to home for the holidays and to also assist a worthwhile local charity.

Duane Quande, the owner of Burien City Garage, has been involved in collecting and fixing cars since he was seven or eight years old.

Back then it was just something people did.

Duane is also the proud owner of a ’57 Chevy museum. His museum contains pretty much anything and everything to do with Chevys and Coca-Cola.

The museum is centered around Duane’s prized ’57 Chevy, a car that is very special to him.

He had stripped down said Chevy back in 1989 (when gas was just 65 cents per gallon) and finished rebuilding it in June of last year – a total of 18 years of work. When he first got it, the car had a lot of rust and he and his buddies (Dennis Biggerly, John Zimmerman and Mike Mintern) decided to strip it down, take the body off the frame, and rebuild or repair all the parts.

This cost him a lot of money and time so he will most likely not try re-building another one (unless of course it belongs to a customer).

Duane’s other belongings in the museum include:

• Old Coca-Cola products
• Models of Chevys
• Old auto parts
• Old ads
• Old gas cans

Duane Quande is also a businessman.

In his younger days he went to junior college, and then technical college to become a mechanic (somehow, mechanics are now called “technicians”). After college he worked at a job for ten years before buying Burien City Garage from John Cabela Jr., whose dad, John Cabela, started the business in 1942.

Burien City Garage does general auto repair, which means they do everything on the car except body work.

Drop on by, check out Duane’s cool ’57 Chevy, and tell him The B-Town Blog sent you.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Josh Hart is the B-Town Blog's first Intern! He's also a 15-year old student at Highline's “Big Picture High School” in SeaTac.

You can read more of his writing here...]

View Larger Map

The museum will be housed in a brand new building with some rather innovative features, including:

• Interesting “box-on-box” styled building (see pics below)
• Innovative circulation system that utilizes natural cooling from underground
• A large room suitable for Smithsonian traveling exhibits (making it the only Smithsonian-suitable museum in the area)
• Unique ground floor windows with the faces of local pioneers (again, see photos below)

According to Cyndi, the museum will include some rather unusual (and ambitious) elements:

“The environmental system for the building will be geo-thermal. In this particular application we will be digging 25 pits to around 250 deep below the ground to a place where the temperature is a steady 57 degrees.  Tubes of liquid will circulate through these pits and a heat exchanger will heat and air condition the building using the temperature of the liquid in the tubes. For example, rather than bringing in 37 degree air and heating it to 68 degrees for the building in the winter, we will be using liquid that is already 57 degrees, not needing as much energy to bring the building to the required temp. For a slightly increased installation cost, we will install a system that will pay for itself in energy savings in 5-7 years, and perhaps sooner.

The upstairs gallery will not be developed with permanent exhibits.  Rather, it will be used for temporary and traveling exhibits.  The Society is working with the Smithsonian Institution to become a Smithsonian Affiliate Institution, making it possible to obtain artifacts and exhibits for long term exhibition. It is our intention to use Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Services (SITES) several times a year, as well as other nationally recognized traveling exhibit services to bring changing and interesting materials to the Highline community. The entire building has been designed with the security and environmental conditions in mind to house good traveling exhibits.”

Here are some photos provided by Rohleder Borges Architecture, the architects of the design:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

She never won a race, but for a scrappy boat on a relatively low budget, she was pretty competitive (kinda like Burien, no?), and certainly helped increase the profile of this here ‘burb.

Here are two recent videos of our namesake boat in action on Lake Washington:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQuwMMHsqe8

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRGTJMCNfUs

The story of this much-loved and historic machine goes back to the late 1950s, and involves an organization called “Greater Burien, Inc.”, a precursor to the current-day Discover Burien (hey, how about a “Miss Discover Burien” hydro? Or “Misunderstood Burien“?), which funded its own hydroplane.

According to the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum:

The original Miss Burien became kindling on Lake Coeur d’Alene during the running of the Diamond Cup in 1959. Like all unlimited hydroplane aficionados, owner Peter Woeck wanted to see the legacy of his boat continue. Woeck and his supporting cast of Greater Burien Inc. commissioned Ted Jones to build a larger, more competitive Miss Burien.

The Burien remained the flagship of every person who dreamed of running with the big boys. While she never had the depth of financial or equipment resources that the well-heeled teams possessed, she still put on a good show. In her first race, the 1960 Apple cup, she took third behind Miss Thriftway and Nitrogen Too, but out pointed Miss Bardahl. Chuck Hickling, a steady pilot, drove her in the Apple Cup and in a number of other races. Hickling later guided her to a second place finish at the Diamond Cup, winning the final heat but losing on total points. In 1961 Hickling and the Burien took second in the Seafair Trophy Race.

The Miss Burien never raced east of the Rockies, but she always put up a fight on the Western circuit. She campaigned as the Tempest in 1962 and ’63. She continued to be competitive, but never sustained the pressure to earn the winner’s circle. In 1964 she raced under three different names with results similar to her past. In 1965 her registered number was changed to U-50 and she competed as Savair’s Probe and was finally known simply as Probe. The boat was retired in 1980 and later donated to the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum.

She was restored by the Museum in 1996 as the Miss South Park and finally completed her return to her roots by representing the ageless dream of every racing fan under her given name: Miss Burien, U-4.

Last we heard, the Miss Burien was still doing “vintage hydro” exhibition heats during races. We’re not sure where she’s stored these days, but we bet the good folks at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum know.

They’re located at 5917 South 196th Street in Kent; phone: 206.764.9453


View Larger Map

The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated, determined young men who enlisted to become America’s first black military airmen, at a time when there were many people who thought that black men lacked intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism.

Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no U.S. military pilots had been black, so you can imagine the hurtles they faced.

They came from every section of the country, with large numbers coming from New York City, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each one possessed a strong personal desire to serve the United States of America at the best of his ability.

On Saturday, you can meet four actual surviving members of the 477th Bombardment Group out of Freeman Field, Indiana, including:

• Leslie Williams
• Fitzroy Newsum
• Lt. Roger “Bill” Terry
• Robert Maxwell

This historic program is free with Museum Admission.

The Museum of Flight is located at 9404 E Marginal Way South in Tukwila; the phone number is (206) 764-5720.

‎

View Larger Map

PAST: 1940’s view of SW 152nd Street looking west from Ambaum Blvd. SW. The Tradewell Building (on the left side) once housed Burien’s first movie theatre. “They would set up wooden chairs for us to sit on,” said the late Angelo Balzarini, long-time resident. Another early pioneer recollection notes that the first talking movie was shown there. This building subsequently housed Pacific Fabrics, then an Oak Furniture store before being purchased by the Highline Historical Society:

PRESENT: Currently housing Karuna Yoga Arts (notice the recognizable facade of the building across the street, on the north side):

In 2009-10, the building will be razed and replaced with the Highline Heritage Museum:

The Highline Historical Society is seeking donations to help build the museum, and you can dontate quickly and easily online by clicking here.

If you’d like to join the Society, prices start at just $20 per year!

Do you have a historical photo or anecdote about the greater B-Town area? If so, please email us!