It was before the time of large ferries, before the paved roads and the ship canal, that Kirkland was advertised as an industrial center, the home of the great steel mill. To overcome one of these difficulties. Picadilly Street was paved with 3×12 planks all the way from the boat landing at Cedarmere to the steel plant. Heavy wagons carried the materials to-the site, where the old Rose Hill School now stands. The materials had already been trucked clear across Seattle.
When the financial backers of the enterprise visited Kirkland all construction stopped then and there.
Already on the scene of action was Anton Newbom who in 1910 settled on a tract of land he had bought from Burke & Farrar up on Virginia Street, near Kirkland Avenue. Eighty acres of the original plats were to be used for factories in the vicinity. There were no roads past Piccadilly except trail’s. One was made for lumber to be hauled for the two-room house Mr. Newbom built immediately for his family. He was a plasterer in Seattle.
Where the Civic Center now stands was Bonnell’s nursery, and once there had been a brick-yard on the same spot. Bricks for chimneys for the new Newbom house were gotten there, donated by Bonnells.
Mr. Newborn and a Scot, Malcolm McLoed, who afterwards went to Black Diamond, worked dismantling the steel mill buildings and piling the sheets of corrugated tin. Mr. Newbom tells that on one night the tin was in place and next morning it was not, not any place in sight.
Kirkland’s water supply first came from the spring and a well on 122 Ave. or Bernice Street. Pipes were laid from the top of the well but they did not furnish adequate supply. Then the team of Newbom and McLeod tunneled to the bottom of the well and a two inch iron pipe carried the first” water supply to Kirkland. Some four-inch wooden pipe was used to carry the water shorter distances. The well is still there.
Ten years after the Newbom family were settled many others came to Rose Hill, some to stay also. The building of the roads has been a great satisfaction to Mr. Newbom. He feels that the veteran commissioner Bill Brown of Redmond did more for Rose Hill than any other person. Although the factories never materialized Mr. Newbom has always been happy here and he is glad he came. He lives on 126th Ave. N.E.
