ACTIVITIES

...Walking Tour of Roche Harbor

Pick up a fold-out map from the Front Desk of Hotel de Haro while you are here to guide you around the historical village. It will explain a lot about its rich history during the "Limekiln Years". We have many pictures on display in the hotel lobby that were taken by a photographer hired by Mr. John S. McMillin, owner of Roche Harbor Lime & Cement Company in the late 1800's.

The Hotel de Haro was built around an existing log bunkhouse in 1887. Construction was overseen by John S. McMillin who founded the Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Company in 1886. The building was remodeled to provide twenty-two guest rooms for McMillin's customers while they were at Roche Harbor negotiating the purchase of lime.

In 1906, then President Theodore Roosevelt visited his longtime friend McMillin. He stayed in room 2A which has since been known as the Presidential Suite. The Ruggiero portrait of Roosevelt, which hangs on the third floor stairway of the Hotel was purchased at an auction in 1957. In the Hotel Lobby is a register bearing the President's signature which he signed during a 1907 visit here. The register which Roosevelt signed in 1906 was stolen from the lobby in 1977.

THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

The road in front of the Hotel was paved in 1975. The yellow pavers are the fire bricks which lined kilns one thru eight. As there was no local source of brick when the kilns were built, bricks were purchased in Canada and shipped to Roche Harbor. You can also see many of the bricks which have been recycled from the rusty kilns taken down this year (2004) and incorporated into the paving of the parking lots in the village core.

KILN BATTERY ONE

The two stone kilns and retaining wall were possibly built by the Scurr brothers in 1881 or the Royal Marines that were stationed in English Camp. The Scurrs were the first to produce lime at Roche Harbor. The two steel clad kilns were added by McMillin in 1886.

THE GENERAL STORE AND WHARF

The general store was opened by the company to provide groceries and staples to the townspeople. Each worker's pay included scrip which was redeemable in the company store. In 1923, the store was destroyed by fire. When it was later rebuilt the company offices were built on the second floor along with a thirty by fifty foot auditorium which boasted a maple dance floor and stage. Silent movies were shown on Saturday nights. The Roche Harbor Yacht Club was also housed here. Unfortunately, this portion of the building was torn down in 1969. Behind the store were the warehouses and dock where the company ships were loaded before sailing to ports as distant as San Francisco and Hawaii. The warehouses stretched several hundred feet into the bay and held up to 20,000 barrels of lime.

At the head of the present wharf stands the pilothouse from the sixty-ton tug "Roche Harbor". The tug was beached in 1938 near where the swimming pool now stands. It was burned by arsonists in 1975.

THE GENERATOR PLANT

These MorseFairbanks diesel-fired generators powered the lime plant and supplied Roche Harbor with electricity until the Rural Electrification Association brought power to the islands in the early 1950s.

The smaller, a 150hp two-cycle engine originally provided power to the lime plant by using belts from the engine. In the late 1930s the larger 225hp 3-cylinder engine was installed and the belts replaced with the direct drive shafts now in place.

With both plants running (belching large quantities of black smoke), enough power was produced to supply the lime plant, offices and hotel. Electricity ran as far as the Japanese settlement on Westpoint and the McMillin home on Afterglow Beach.

KILN BATTERY TWO

When kiln battery number two was built in the late 1890s, it allowed an increase in production to 1,500 barrels per day.

This made Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Company the largest lime works west of the Mississippi. On July 28, 1923, a fire started by an untended forge swept through the wood frame plant. The building, warehouse and adjoining dock were completely gone by the next morning. Within months the building was replaced by a sheet metal clad structure.

In 1971, the building was razed and the kilns dismantled. The fire brick was later used to pave the yellow brick road in front of the Hotel. The large wheel, part of the rock crusher and clean out chutes are all that remain of this once busy plant.

WESTPOINT

The area which is now the site of the Westpoint, Lagoon Park, and Lagoon Shores Condominiums was once the site of a Japanese settlement. The people were employed by the company as waiters, cooks and gardeners. Stories say that at one time the workers were required to handweed McMillins ninehole golf course which was located near the present day airport.

THE QUARRIES

This area was once completely denuded of trees and brush and only recently has the second growth timber gained a toe hold on the rims and cliffs of the 13 quarries. The lime deposits were originally estimated to be located in a vein only three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. However, excavation proved them to be much larger. The rock faces of the hillside were dynamited and the resulting stones were loaded and hauled to the kilns first by horse drawn wagon and then in later years by the only steam locomotive ever used in the county and finally by truck. After arriving in the plant the rock was broken by hand using eightpound sledge hammers and later by mechanical crushers.

THE WOODYARD

The kilns were fired by wood, each one burning up to ten cords per six hour run. Firewood was cut from the 4,000 acres of densely forested land owned by the company. It was stacked here in the woodyard. When the company sold to the present owners in 1956 there were a remaining 4,000 cords of wood stacked and ready for the kilns!

THE COMPANY TOWN COTTAGES

The cottages were built shortly after McMillin purchased Roche Harbor in 1886. They served as housing for married employees of the company. In front of the nine cottages still remaining were ten larger, two story cottages. The roads in front of the cottages were named "Waterfront," "Maple," "Hemlock," and "Alder." The cottage which now stands in the northeast corner of the village was used as the schoolhouse in later years. On the southside of the village stood several bunkhouses used by the unmarried men.

THE CEMETERY

The cemetery is the final resting place of many people who lived, worked and died here at Roche Harbor. Many graves were marked with only a wooden cross or a small picket fence on which weather and time have taken their toll. For this reason many graves are now unmarked. The more prosperous families were able to erect wrought iron fences and small head stones which make up the cemetery today.

THE MAUSOLEUM

John S. McMillin wished to leave to posterity, a memorial to the dreams and aspirations of the things he and his generation believed in. His family, his religious beliefs, his associations are all enshrined here.

Paul McMillin, the youngest son, stated that the limestone table represented the family table, around which all the family would symbolically gather in the hereafter. There is a chair for all of the sons and daughters of the union of John S. McMillin and Louella Hiatt. The chairs are also the crypts for their ashes.

John S., because of his love and respect for the Masonic Order turned to its teaching for overall design. Masons will quickly recognize these symbolic signs of love for God, Country and Mankind. In the construction of the mausoleum he exemplified the Brazen Pillars; the Flight of Winding Stairs as a means of reaching the Middle Chamber by the teachings of the three, the five and the seven steps. The steps are situated on the east side of the structure.

The practice of erecting columns at the entrance to an edifice dedicated to worship prevailed in Egypt and Phoenicia and these ancients believed the earth to be flat and that it was supported by two Pillars of God, placed at the western entrance of the world as then known.

The broken column on the west side of the edifice was erected in the manner to represent the broken column of life and signify the unfinished state of man's work when the string of life is broken.

The Winding Stairs as a whole are representations of life, not the physical life of eating, drinking, sleeping and working, but the mental and spiritual life, of the world as a whole; of learning, studying and enlarging mental horizons, and increasing the spiritual outlook. They are winding to represent, to some extent, our path through life in that we will be unable to see what lies ahead of us and keep hidden the future of everyday living. The Three Steps are emblematical of the three principal states of human life-youth, adulthood and old age. In youth we ought to industriously occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, we may enjoy the happy reflection consequent on a wellspent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

The Five Steps represent the Five Orders in Architecture, the Tuscan, Doric, ionic, Corinthian and the Composite, and is a regular arrangement of the projecting parts of a building which united with those of a column, form a beautiful, perfect and complete whole. These Five Steps also represent the five senses of human nature: Hearing, Seeing, Feeling, Smelling and Tasting. The Seven Steps represent the seven liberal arts and sciences: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy.

The Mausoleum is not complete as Mr. McMillin envisioned it. His heirs, for various reasons, did not see fit to install the bronze dome with its Maltese Cross.

THE SHIPYARD

A once busy shipyard sat on the water's edge at the end of Waterfront Lane. The company maintained a small fleet of ships for transport of its products. The "Star of Chile," a 1001 ton brigantine was the pride of the fleet. After serving the company for many years it was sold and eventually, while being used by the Navy was torpedoed and sunk in the Philippines. The 550 ton brigantine "William G. Irwin" made monthly sailings to San Francisco. The "Archer," another of the transport ships burned in the early 1900s. The 60 ton steam tug "Roche Harbor" was beached here in 1938 after fifty years of service. In 1975 it was burned by arsonists.

OUR LADY OF GOOD VOYAGE CHAPEL

In 1892, McMillin, a devout Methodist, had this small church built. Services were performed on a regular basis by a "circuit rider" minister. During the weekdays the church served as a schoolhouse for the children of the company's employees.

In 1957 Clara Tarte, wife of Reuben Tarte, (then owner of Roche Harbor) directed the renovation of the chapel. The altar was donated by the Holy Family Church of Kirkland and the pews by the Holy Family Church of White Center in Seattle.

After three years of work the Chapel was complete. Mrs. Tarte invited her close friend Archbishop Connelly of Seame to consecrate the church. In 1960 it became the Chapel of Our Lady of Good Voyage, the only privately owned Catholic chapel in the United States. The carillon of bells, which plays regularly from the tiny steeple was installed in 1972. It was donated by family and friends in loving memory of Ruben Tarte, who purchased Roche Harbor from the McMillin's, beginning the conversion to a resort, and Robert Tangney, his son-in-law, who worked closely with him in this process.

The stained glass window above the door of the church was installed in 1978 in memory of Dr. Lawrence Tarte, one of Ruben's sons. The design illustrates Dr. Tarte's devotion to the medical profession and his love of tennis.

Since the Ecumenical Movement of Pope John XXIII, the chapel has been used by many other Christian denominations.

THE HOME OF JOHN S. McMILLIN

The building which serves as the resort's restaurant was formerly the McMillin home. Around 1910 McMillin enlarged an existing building and made it his personal residence. Up until this time he had made his home in the Hotel. This building was remarkably plain considering the building trends of the time and the status of its owner. McMillin also had constructed a semicircular deck which was covered by a conical striped canopy which in good weather enabled Mr. and Mrs. McMillin to overlook their formal gardens and the bustling activity of the harbor.

HOME OF PAUL McMILLIN

During the decade between 1910 and 1920 several buildings were moved. This house was originally located in the garden next to the restaurant. The house was renovated after being moved to its present location. The wide veranda was built and stucco replaced the typical Roche Harbor white wooden facade. When the work was complete Paul McMillin, John McMillin's son, and future president of the company moved in. After Paul's death the house was used as family housing by the Tarte's and company housing by employees until 1999 when the house was remodelled into four luxury suites called The McMillin Suites.

THE STONE SEAT

This seat was probably built in 1910, after Paul McMillin's home was moved to its present location. This seat serves as a quiet rest stop for passersby. When pruning the ivy above the seat a sign was discovered which read "The Throne of..." The last portion of the inscription had been broken off. It was learned from a former employee of the Company that it was called the Throne of Jupiter. Why, we have yet to discover.

THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE

This building has now been dismantled carefully and stored in a safe place - it will be rebuilt at a later date. It was situated where the green grass is located in front of the Cottages on the Green behind the Hotel de Haro.

The strict rules enforced on the residents of the company town (no drinking or gambling) were counteracted to some extent by company provided benefits. In 1898, the company hired a resident doctor, something unheard of in most company towns and built this Victorian style house for the doctor. This building is particularly significant in that it is the only example of Victorian architecture in a town that was built and prospered during that era.

THE HOTEL COURT GARDEN

In the process of rearranging buildings during the decade between 1910 and 1920 the area directly north of the Hotel was opened up and a banquet court was built. McMillin had the large limestone fireplace built for barbecues. Inscribed on the mantel are the words "Friendship Fires are Always Burning". Pictures of the barbecues and parties show the green and white striped awning suspended by cables over the courtyard. Paper lanterns and an organ (now in the Hotel lobby) added to the festive atmosphere.

Roche Harbor is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some of this information was drawn from "Roche Harbor: A Saga In the San Juans".

Further research has uncovered some conflicting points in the history of Roche Harbor. This tour reflects some changes due to recent discoveries. Our research into the history of this unique part of our Northwest heritage still continues.