Water Service Comes to the Points

By 1923 there were approximately 110 permanent families on the two points. Up to that time Dash Point’s water supply was the well on the beach. Browns Point’s families either had their own private wells, or carried water from a neighbor’s well.

Captain McDowell founded the McDowell Water Company in 1924 which serviced Caledonia residents. It had a 6″ artesian well 235 feet deep, a concrete water tank and a system of wood creosote pipes. When Gil Garrison began working for McDowell in 1931 the water company had 23 customers. For a year and a half after McDowell’s death in 1945 it functioned under the direction of the Bank of California. It then became publicly owned as the Caledonia Water Company. It had about 155 customers.

The Hyada Mutual Service Company at Browns Point was formed and incorporated in 1924. The first trustees of the company were G. H. Shuett, R. F. Gleason, J. E. Burrows, C. C. Hull, A. R. Wingard, H. Roy Harrison, and George R.Taylor. The first year of existence produced 53 members each paying a $50 membership fee. The system was worked with cast iron pipe. A five year contract was made with Mr. McDowell for the provision of water from the McDowell Water Company. When the contract came up for renewal the third time, Mr. McDowell failed to reply to inquiries and requests to renew. In 1935 the Hyada Company built their own reservoir and dug their own well becoming completely independent from the McDowell Company.

On Dash Point a water system, using wooden pipe, was developed by Harry Kline. This was the water system used by Dash Point after wells on the beach proved to be inadequate. The system later was owned by Claude Austin. When Austin owned it, it consisted of two water tanks, one above the clubhouse and the other above Marine View Drive between Whittier and the school. A spring above Marine View Drive behind the Presbyterian Church was also part of the system. After the new company formed, this spring continued to service the fountain in the park.

Every summer water pressures on the hill would drop due to the influx of summer residents and the upkeep of beautiful lawns on the beach. Due to a misfortune of the Olson Brothers Logging Company which logged the upper part of Dash Point’s hill, Dash Point residents were presented with an answer to their water problems. John Austin, who was then a little boy, remembered the logging company’s operation. A Fordson gasoline tractor pushed logs on a track alongside the creek all the way to the water. The system of track, made from small round trees chiseled together at each end, carried two cars filled with logs which were pushed by the tractor down to the water. The empty cars were then pulled back up the hill. In the water men used pike poles, boom sticks and chains to raft the logs, preparing them to be pulled by tug to the Tacoma mills.

It is not known how long the Olson Brothers had been in business, but in 1924 they could not meet their mortgage payment. Because the property had natural artesian resources that required no pumping, the Dash Point Cooperative Water Association purchased the 122 acres. The Dash Point Cooperative was registered on January 9, 1924. Its first Trustees were O. E. Tisch, David Smith, A. L. Geiger, Walter Steele, and John W. Hillis.

Eastside Drive/Marine View Dr.

From the beginning of building on the two points, the developers had promised their clients a road into the area. Browns Pointers could come up Julia’s Gulch to what is now Browns Point Boulevard to today’s Slayden Road. Dash Pointers came the same way through Northeast Tacoma but just to the top of Dash Point hill. All of these roads were narrow dirt roads, usually impassable in rainy weather.

Finally, in about 1918 three men formed the Pacific Boulevard Association. They were Frank Ross, one of the Hyada Park owners who was nicknamed “the Daddy of Tacoma’s Tidelands,” Henry Sicade, a prominent Puyallup chief, and R. P. Milne, a Tacoma newspaper man who lived on Dash Point. One of their accomplished projects was getting the release of properties necessary for a scenic road called Marine View Drive (Eastside Drive) between Tacoma and Dash Point via Hyada Park. It was supposed to be part of the entire proposed Marine View Highway System going all the way to Seattle. The road was completed in about 1920 and paved to the middle of Marine Hill (the hill below the Cliff House) in 1925. The section between the low tide flats and the top of Marine Hill was particularly hazardous due to narrowness, steep cliffs and rock and dirt slides. The part of the road not paved was little better than the road through Northeast Tacoma because it was also a dirt road. In dry weather it was dusty and during rainy weather it was muddy, but it was a road and the residents valued it no matter how bad it was. The next community project became the paving of Eastside Drive. Meanwhile, Ed Newcome, who still owned his two mules, was hired by the county to maintain the road. He scraped it to keep it tolerable.

The Need for Larger Schools

As the population increased larger schools were needed. At Dash Point, the school district owned property near the top of Dash Point hill. They wanted to build a school exactly where Claude Austin had built his home midway up the hill. He consented to a land swap in 1921 and moved his three-room house up the hill to the new site (next to today’s Austin mansion/Dash Point Retirement Home). He rigged a capstan consisting of a drum ( a tree log), a large cable wrapped around a drum and a block and tackle that capped a long 15-foot log lever. The house was put on roller tracks built of planks. Claude turned the huge lever in circle wrapping the cable around the drum, pulling the house up the 45 degree hill. He ground the cable and changed the rollers as needed, accomplishing a little distance at a time. He had help only when he had to move the house over the road and did not want to block traffic too long. After Austin cleared the new school property, two portables were set up. By 1924 a new stucco two-room school was completed. It had a basement and a playroom. Claude Austin, meanwhile, began building the Austin mansion which sits on Austin Drive.

In 1924 the Tacoma School Board decided to close Browns Point School and send the children to Dash Point School, probably because Dash Point had a large brand-new building. Due to many letters of protest and delegations of parents, the board rescinded their decision. Enrollment at Browns Point increased and by 1928 a second room was added. In 1932 another portable was moved in and set perpendicular to the first. It became the playroom and lunchroom. Browns Point children attended their school for about 15 more years. However, in 1934 and 1935 dissension again became very apparent over the assignment of teachers to the Browns Point, Dash Point and Northeast Tacoma schools. The board decided that Browns Point should have two teachers for 60 students and one teacher for Dash Point.

Dash Point Dock Dinner (Hoop-tee-doo)

The annual Dash Point Dock Dinner began in the summer of 1927. It was called a “Hoop-Te-Doo” and for a few years was an in-community festivity. After Roy Allen donated the materials and the labor for a 40-foot high dive and 15-foot springboard, the dock dinner took on a water carnival atmosphere. By 1934 the range of activities at the various dinners included diving demonstrations, swimming races, boat racing, pole walking, tugs-of-war, a bathing beauty contest, and a dance in the hall. In 1936 the dock dinner was expanded to a two day event and added to the main events were a street dance and band concert. The dock dinners were held every year until 1940 when everyone’s way of life was interrupted by World War II.

A spectacular and very beautiful custom was adopted by the Dash Point residents during the 1920s. The Community Club purchased Japanese lanterns and candles which were placed along the dock and on the porches of homes lining the beach. During the summer all lanterns were lit from dusk (when the last waves of the steamer hit the beach) until 11 p.m. This practice lasted for almost 10 years and was a very beautiful sight to behold.

The first telephone exchange for both points was located in Dash Point’s new store building that replaced the Churchill store that burned down where today’s Lobster Shop is located. Later, the exchange moved onto a private home on the hill just below Eastside Drive. A local operator assisted residents in making calls. In the mid-1930’s a new telephone building was built at Browns Point, and direct connections could be made by dialing the telephone; instead of asking the operator to make the connection.