By Harriet Muhrlein

Regarding the question of whether it’s North Beach or Saltair Beach: The Historical Society was surprised that we only received four responses. One person was clearly for Saltair Beach because it had a more “historical” meaning. Two are for keeping the name as “North Beach.” Our final responder commented that we should leave the name the same because Kingstonites are very slow to embrace change. “We would all be dead before it occurred.”

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Louise Lien recently gave the Society three copies of an article printed in 1890. A friend of her mother had sent them to Mrs. Soderberg years ago. It was written and published for the “Super Salesmen” Calkins and Brierly, hoping to sell their dream of Kingston as the “Monterey of the North” and thus become very wealthy.

The entire article is too long to print all at once, so you will receive it over the next few months. It is full of unfulfilled dreams and more than a few good laughs.

Part one:
KINGSTON
The Monterey of Washington
(Je 1890 Wn. Magazine) Washington Printing Company
Llewellyn Dodge Block

Sixteen miles to the northward of Seattle, on Admiralty Straits, opposite Salmon Bay, is a natural townsite, which on account of its topographical character and the relation it bears as an outlet to the surrounding country, will one day be a great town.

Just beyond that point of land called Jefferson Point and directly opposite the town of Edmonds, is a beautiful cove extending inland for a mile.

This cove or bay, called Appletree Cove, is a beautiful body of water, one and a half miles wide at its mouth, clear, sequestered, calm; a harbor where the great sea denizens, the ships, may ride at anchor when the storms are sweeping the outside water.

Appletree Cove is charming as a feature of the landscape, from and artistic point of view. Its iridescent colors beam warmly in the light that falls slumberously upon the waters, the soft sunlit foliage beyond the beach, and the distant mountains.

To the eastward portion of the cove there is a clean sandy beach which tapers uniformly out in depth, and which will one day become the most famous bathing resort on the coast.  There are no currents or eddies, and the bathers may wade for one hundred feet into the water.

Upon the northern shore of the cove lies the new town of Kingston.

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The Kingston Historical Society meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m. in the Community Center. Join us and share your memories.

— Harriet Muhrlein, harrietmuhrlein@comcast.net.