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Jim Kleinbeck in a Lion Suit!:

Striped Water Poets: Maurice G. Whale

Subscribe to this blog to see more videos from 2010 and 2011 shows.

Marshallese Gospel Church:

Striped Water Poets: Maggie Kelley

What do you think is “Tops” about Auburn? Now you can weigh in on that question in the Uniquely Auburn “Top Ten” list contest.

The theme for the Uniquely Auburn event this year is “Late Night with Uniquely Auburn.” Part of the program will include “Top Ten” lists related to our city. On Facebook search for the Uniquely Auburn page and submit your suggestions for top ten list themes.

Current top ten theme ideas include:

• Top Ten Places to Kiss in Auburn
• Top Ten Restaurants we Need in Auburn
• Top Ten Scariest Places in Auburn

You can also submit your ideas on this blog using the comments function. Remember to keep it clean. This is a family friendly program.

Uniquely Auburn, a FREE community-sponsored celebration of cultural diversity recognizing people, places, and events that make Auburn unique, will be held Sunday, January 29, 2012 at the Performing Arts Center at 2:00 p.m.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog for updates on our program and for video clips from last year’s program.

A Rock founder and owner, Jay Gigandet, lives near Lake Tapps in Auburn.  One of his pleasures was flying his Robinson Clipper 44 helicopter with a brilliant flame paint job around the area.

Jay remembers one particular time he took his flying machine out. “My wife and I flew to Tacoma on a Sunday afternoon thinking it would not be busy at the UW [Tacoma] parking lot across the street.  I did a fly by and there wasn’t a car in the lot so I landed.” They went in and ordered pizza.  About 20 minutes later Gigandet heard sirens and dashed out.  Several police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance were pulling into the lot. 

Gigandet said, “I casually went over where they had the helicopter surrounded, I asked ‘hello?” The officer said they received a call that a helicopter crashed in the lot. Supposedly the guy who called was drunk, and couldn’t tell the flames were not real.  Jay told the officer everything was okay. “Needless to say, I took my pizza to-go and got out of there.”

About 2 or 3 years ago, he got rid of the helicopter, but the memories will always last.

Guest Author Jordan Hoerth Was born in Auburn in 1992, and continues to live there now. He is an aspiring artist, and writer.

Helicopter photo courtesy of Jay Gigandet

The Rock Wood Fired Pizza locations can be found all along western Washington. Every year, The Rock holds a battle of the bands competition with entries from high schools in the area.

Hop Pickers in Slaughter (Later Auburn) Washington

Trains, Boeing, hops. What do those words make you think? How about beginnings, our beginnings. It is true there are many things that turned the community of Auburn into the flourishing place it is today. One of the earliest influences was–hops. Hops are small cone shaped buds that grow on vines. These vigorous plants can grow up to six inches in a single day. There are many hop farms around the world. Most of the crops are used to flavor and stabilize beer.

Around the 1880’s Auburn was gripped by a hop craze. The price of hops hit an all time high, thanks to a major crop loss in Europe. Fulfilling the need for the bitter bud demanded a lot of work. Many workers toiled from dawn till dusk planting, harvesting and just keeping the hops healthy. The hops craze ended in the 1890’s after an infestation of aphids. In the early years of our community hops were a large part of the economical engine in Auburn. Hop farms supplied work, money and enjoyment for just about everyone whether it was growing, selling or drinking the resulting beverage.

During the craze Auburn’s community bustled thanks to the influx of money. In a good year during during the boom farmers could expect to earn four hundred dollars or more per acre of hops. You can imagine how incredibly disappointing it was when an aphid infestation wiped out the industry and spelled the end of the Auburn hops craze.

Even today you can spot wild hop vines growing along roadsides or in fields. The perennial vine is even grown in backyards and used by home brewers to make their own beer.

When we look back into our past we should remember those times. They helped shape what we are now.

Guest Author Ian Bruner was born in Tacoma in 1992. He moved to Auburn in 2003 and is now a flourishing author and musician.

The Hop Pickers photo is courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society Research Center located at 315 North Stadium Way in Tacoma. The Research Center’s Hewitt Research Library and Special Collections are open to the general public, via the special collections reading room on the 3rd floor of the building, by appointment only, Tuesday-Thursday from 12:30PM to 4:30PM. Additional opportunities for visitor research of Society’s Collections are available via their Featured Collections, Collections Highlights, and Finding Aids

The circumstances surrounding the lioness, Little Tyke, are quite unusual. She was born in September 1946 to an erratic mother at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. Her mother was captured in the wild and lived as a zoo attraction. The first four times she gave birth to a litter of cubs in captivity she killed each of them. When she birthed a fifth litter, one female cub was saved by the zookeeper. They turned her over to Auburn residents George and Margaret Westbeau who adopted the lioness and named her Little Tyke. They lived on their farm, Hidden Valley Ranch, which was located near where the 8th Street NE Bridge crosses the Green River at the base of Lea Hill.

The couple learned an astonishing fact about their new pet: she refused to eat any meat despite years of efforts to introduce her to a normal carnivore diet. George and Margaret were finally convinced by a visitor that a chapter in the book of Genesis provided an explanation for Little Tyke’s vegetarianism. He told them to read Genesis 1:30 which proclaimed, “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

As a strict vegetarian, her diet consisted of various types of grains and gallons of milk for meals. Alongside her at the ranch lived other cattle, chickens, lambs, and a deer. Little Tyke even became friends with a lamb named Becky and a photo of the “Lion lying down with the lamb” became popular.

Taking care of a growing lioness came with its fair share of obstacles. Despite her gentle disposition some community members believed that Little Tyke would eventually show her true nature. Eventually the city council passed a law directed at her that required “dangerous” animals to be caged.

Little Tyke became internationally famous and George Westbeau published a book Little Tyke: The True Story of a Gentle Vegetarian Lioness, about raising their unique pet. The Westbeaus used the notoriety of their lioness to raise funds for Seattle Children’s Orthopedic Hospital.

Little Tyke contracted pneumonia during a trip to Hollywood and died just short of her ninth birthday in 1955.

Many Auburn residents have memories of Little Tyke. If you have one to share, please select the “Leave a Comment” link below and share your story.

To see a series of Little Tyke photos in the Tacoma Public Library archives click here.

Guest author, Tishayla Williams, was born in Newport News, Virginia but has lived in Washington since the age of four. She recently moved to Auburn and is a high school junior at Auburn Mountainview where she’s on the staff of the school newspaper, In View.

In 1893, only two years after incorporation, the town name was officially changed to Auburn. Supposedly an influx of settlers from Auburn, New York triggered this change. Some traditions hold that the new name came from “The Deserted Village,” a poem penned by Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith. The first line of that poem is, “Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain.”

Several years ago the history of Auburn was the theme at a meeting of a local Toastmasters group. One member was inspired by the question, “What if our town was still called Slaughter?” and produced a poem on the subject. I don’t think that it will be nominated to be the official poem of our city, but his humorous look at the topic is worth sharing:

Slaughter, Washington

There once was a town named Slaughter
Where people said change our name we oughter
They looked not to the west to find a name that was best
But turned to New York and found a name to exhort
Slaughter they said sounds frightening and full of dread
But Auburn, now that’s an inviting place to lay your head
To them it seemed to make good sense
But thought they not of the consequence
They built a high school Auburn by name their athletic prowess they do proclaim
But can you imagine the fear and distain if the Slaughter High Butchers were your next game
Surely Green River College is a place of higher knowledge
But oh the career you could pursue if you graduated from Slaughter U
I don’t mean to whine, I guess Auburn is fine 
We’re an upstanding community with hope and opportunity
But as a recovering plotter, and occasional squatter who loves to sit in warm bathwater
A man who courted my wife until I caught ‘er and father of a son and daughter I kinda like the name of Slaughter.  
And you gotta admit it’s better than massacre. 

by Tony Garcia, 2007

Lt. and Mrs. William A. Slaughter, 1852. (Courtesy White River Valley Museum)

Tony’s look at what might have been if our town had not been renamed to Auburn is interesting. But there are towns with the name of Slaughter or some variation of the word. But that’s a story for another day.

Tony Garcia lives a happy and full life with family and friends in and around the Auburn area.  He enjoys connecting with people through work, fellowship, laughter and mutual respect.

The Auburn Morning Toastmasters (where Tony got his poetic inspiration) meets every Thursday at 6:35 AM at the Rainbow Café, 112 East Main Street in Auburn. http://auburnmorning.freetoasthost.cc

Subject:  16th Annual Uniquely Auburn Celebration

To be held Sunday, January 30, 2011 at the

Auburn Performing Arts Center

For More Information Contact:  Janice Nelson 206-349-3061

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AUBURN, WASHINGTON – Uniquely Auburn, a FREE community-sponsored celebration of cultural diversity recognizing people, places, and events that make Auburn unique, will be held Sunday, January 30, 2011 at the Performing Arts Center at 2:00 p.m.   

The 16^th annual Uniquely Auburn, “An All-American Story”, will feature performances by Igneous Rocks; Latin Rhythms, a dance group from Green River Community College; Marina Shats, an accomplished pianist; Timmy Kosaka, a young harpist; Kate Kosaka, playing the Thai Dulcimer; “unique” stories about Auburn, a very special re-enactment of “Casey at the Bat”, and much more. 

There will also be an art and poetry exhibit in the lobby featuring works from students in the Auburn School district and various community artists with hors d’oeuvres provided by Tastefully Simple.  The King County Library System’s Digital Discovery Zone bus will be there for young and old to learn more about computer graphics and animation.

Following the program in the theater, there will be a complimentary “sit-down” picnic-style dinner featuring fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, green beans, rolls and apple pie.

Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, City of Auburn, Soroptimist International of Auburn, Auburn Arts Commission, Auburn School District, and Trillium, sponsor the 16th annual event. The Auburn Performing Arts Center is located at 700 E. Main Street.

For more information, please call Janice Nelson at 206-349-3061, or visit our website at www.uniquelyauburn.org.  Also check out our blog at www.uniquelyauburn.wordpress.com.

We don’t know our Angeline’s maiden name, but we do know that she spent the majority of her life as Angeline Tumas. She and her husband Charlie Tumas were members of the local Muckleshoot Tribe. They can be found in Washington’s territorial census reports of the late 1800’s living on the reservation, on a farm they shared with their daughter Mary.

Except for these few details, we know very little about Angeline’s life. The 1900 Federal Census tells us only that Charlie had died by that time, leaving Angeline a widow. Her daughter Mary was no longer a part of her household; she had probably married and moved on to a home of her own. Angeline would have been 68 years old at the time of the census-taker’s visit.

Auburn’s Angeline faced old age in a new century without the company of her husband or her daughter. Was she lonely? Perhaps, but she did have some company. There was one other member of her household in that 1900 census report: a hired man named John Seattle (some sources report that John was a cousin of the famous chief). Sometime before her 1907 death, Angeline and John married. It’s because of this late second marriage that Angeline Seattle is buried under that name in the Auburn cemetery. Angeline’s tombstone, although it occasionally causes a bit of confusion to scout leaders and other amateur historians, is one of the most ornate markers in the cemetery—it’s certainly suitable for any “princess.”

Kristy Lommen is an English and History teacher and a volunteer at the White River Valley Museum. She has lived in Auburn for 12 years. You can find more stories from Auburn’s history at her website for the Auburn Pioneer Cemetery: www.auburnpioneercemetery.net.

The Auburn Pioneer Cemetery is located at the corner of 8th NE and Auburn Way North, across from Fred Meyer. It contains monuments for many Japanese American families that lived in the Auburn area. Stop by to pay your respects to some of our earliest settlers.