Snohomish County News
Doug Ramsay photo
Cheyenne Ramirez, 14, of Everett (right) covers her sister’s ears, Jaidyn, 3, as a passing fire truck blows its siren at the Colors of Freedom parade July 4 in Everett. Thousands of people lined Colby and Wetmore avenues for the two-hour parade that wound its way through downtown.
Doug Ramsay photo
Blurred by radiant heat, a Snohomish Fire District 4 firefighter runs down a hill to gather more hose to battle a brush fire off 123rd Avenue on Lord Hill July 1. A land clearing operation may have been burning illegally because a fire official said they were not aware of any burn permits issued in Snohomish County. The fire quickly took off up the tree-lined hillside threatening three homes. District 4 deputy chief Ron Simmons said the fire consumed more than two acres and came within 100 feet of one home. The fire was reported just after 6 p.m. after being spotted by a resident living across the valley. Simmons said it took nearly 40 firefighters from six fire districts to attack the three-hour fire.
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Where will Kikendall cabin go?
Doug Ramsay photo
Standing in front of the 1875 Kikendall cabin, Terry Creasey (left) shows Guy Betten a photo book of log homes Creasey’s company has restored. The cabin was part of the former Pioneer Village that sat behind a shopping center near Second Street and Pine Avenue.
SNOHOMISH - A pioneer cabin that has stood for more than 100 years is finally receiving some needed care, but the next question is whether it will move again.
The Kikendall cabin was built by family patriarch Charles M. Kikendall in 1875 near Machias, and two generations were birthed there before it moved in 1966. Older Snohomans and Generation X schoolchildren may remember the cabin as part of the Pioneer Village, where the cabin was moved to be part of a 1960s historic curio among other buildings near Second Street and Pine Avenue.
Decades after the village closed, the cabin sat as part of the Pioneer Cemetery. The Snohomish Historical Society kept care of it for years until it became abandoned and later broken into as a refuge for homeless people. The city owns the land.
When Snohoman Guy Betten saw the state of the cabin in April, he was shocked and driven to fix it.
Since then, new windows and wood have been put up to protect the cabin, donated by local businesses and volunteers.
There is still the tricky issue, though, of what is underneath the cabin at the Pioneer Cemetery — Snohomish pioneers.
The Pioneer Cemetery is expansive and human remains still lie underground on both sides of Second Street. The presence of human remains discovered by the city in 2006 forced the Snohomish Senior Center to build a new, larger building elsewhere. The nonprofit had been looking to build a larger building on its old property on Cypress Street, which rested on top of the old cemetery.
Among the bodies buried underneath the Kikendall cabin, Betten and Northwest historian David Dilgard believe, is the county’s second sheriff, Salem Woods. The man has an elementary school named after him in Monroe.
Others buried at the cemetery included Pilchuck Julia, Isaac Cathcart and Averill family members, or at least they were until Second Street cut a path through the cemetery.
Those bodies were moved in 1947 so Second Street could connect to U.S. Highway 2, state Department of Transportation records show. The state Department of Transportation graded the land and moved the bodies elsewhere. Speculation has it most of those bodies were unceremoniously buried at the G.A.R. Cemetery, west of Snohomish, as part of the process.
The headstones were swept away and pioneer-era buildings were moved onto the property, but the rest of the bodies stayed. With the creation of the Pioneer Village, children played and unknowingly danced on the graves while also learning about pioneer life in the Kikendall cabin.
Today, Betten would like to move the cabin to another location and continue restoring it. His vision is to turn it into a museum at its new location under a new nonprofit called the Kikendall Cabin Historical Society. He is seeking the lease for the cabin from the city.
Jim McAllister, president of the Snohomish Cemetery Preservation Foundation, is not sure whether the cabin should be moved. McAllister has been keeping tabs on the Pioneer Cemetery for years and would like the cabin to be restored with authentic detail. His main concern, though, is preserving the cemetery, he said.
McAllister would be OK with moving the cabin if it is continually preserved. He has had others interested in the cabin for two and a half years, declining to name them.
With the cabin’s multiple suitors, the issue of who gets it will likely need to go before the City Council for a decision, City Manager Larry Bauman said last week.
Descendants of the Kikendalls have been watching the issue with great interest in preserving it, Betten said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s (the Kikendalls’) cabin,” Betten said.
The other buildings still on the property — two dilapidated Victorian-era homes — will be demolished, public works facilities manager Mike Johnson said last month. Johnson just doesn’t want one inch of soil to be dug up, though, because of the American Indian remains still there. He doesn’t want to create a new situation for the city.
Restoring the cabin into a museum or its original state will require searching for the artifacts. Because the cabin was insecure and items had been pilfered, McAllister asked the Snohomish Historical Society to take the remaining items out to keep them from being stolen.
The whereabouts of some of the items are known, but an organ that Charles and Zilpha Kikendall brought on their 1870s covered wagon trek from Kansas currently is displaced, Betten said.
The cabin is now much more secure, though, and where it may go for the next chapter of its life is yet to be determined.
By MICHAEL WHITNEY