The first person to find coal in the Carbon River Coal County in 1862 was Van Ogle. The Carbon River Coal County included 11 small towns: Burnett, Carbonado, Wingate, Melmont, Fairfax, Montezuma and Manley-Moore. I am only going to cover some of them and today, I am going to explore Wilkeson.

Brothers William and James Flett, with their brother-in-law John Gale, were the first to find coal in the Wilkeson area. They found coal near a creek and claimed it in 1874. They named the creek Flett Creek but it later changed to Gale Creek. It covered 25 square miles.

A bigger company named NPR took over after a while. They built a railroad and a post office. The Fletts and the Gales left and more new people came to stay and see how things developed. Builders built coal bunkers, a miners’ boarding house and more. A man named John Jones set up the first store. It was not just for Wilkeson. People all over the area came to buy supplies. As people began building houses, there was also a sawmill and a one-room school house for the children. St. Luke Church (1883), the Pierce County Courthouse (1886) and Cowlitz River Bridge (1886) were built out of Wilkeson sandstone. The first big NPR mine finally opened and began to ship coal in 1879. Wilkeson is now becoming bigger and bigger.

The lands of Wilkeson were split into two by a railroad, but both sides are still the same town. Above the railroad tracks, toward the mines, belonged to NPR and was called uptown. Below the tracks was downtown, where most of the homes and businesses were privately owned. In 1889 the territory of Washington finally became a state in the United States. Both sides of Wilkeson became established as a small town.

Katelyn Huff is a student at White River High School and attends Carbanado Community Church. She lives in Carbanado and recently moved to the area from Chillicothe, Mo. Katelyn has moebius syndrome and is hard of hearing, but communicates effectively through American Sign Language. She enjoys working with children and wants to be a writer.