The process of law was very different in Newcastle, however.

The mining community of the early 1880s had a well-established legal process of constables, courts and justices of the peace, as well as a practical system of crime and punishment based on fines rather than imprisonment. A coal miner in that period might make only $2 or $3 a day and the loss of those earnings was a big motivator to follow the law.

The legal process was important — a fine for assault and battery might be $5, but failure to appear as a witness might cost $50 or more.

Complaints were filed with the constable and arrests were made, and trials before the justice of the peace might happen in only a day or two. A complaint found to be unsubstantiated would find the plaintiff paying court costs.

If found guilty, the accused was fined and would pay the costs. If a party could not pay the costs, they would go to a county camp and work off the debt at the rate of $2 a day.

The court system also provided a subsidy to some of our early residents. If a trial took place, then jurors were paid $2 per case. Witnesses also received $2.

These were part of the court costs paid by the plaintiff or accused. Imagine working eight hours in the dark of a mine shaft for the same amount of money you could earn for a two-hour trial. It was no surprise that on court nights, many residents would hang around hoping to be selected for a jury.

Here are a few of the Newcastle court cases from the 1880s. These short summaries were taken from an actual justice of the peace journal covering cases at Newcastle from January 1885 to June 1921:

• Mr. Graham accused Mr. Getcheman of property damage in the amount of $35. A jury found him guilty of damaging three fruit trees ($1 each) and destroying a fence. He was ordered to pay for the trees, repair the fence and pay court costs of $19.60.
• Mary Barnett accused Sarah Conroy of breach of the peace by calling her a “woman of ill repute” and other abusive, insulting, criminal and obscene language. A jury found Conroy guilty and fined her 1 cent — it seems the accusations weren’t all wrong — plus court costs of $31.56. She refused to pay and went to jail working off the costs at $2 a day.
• John Cahill accused Merdock Welmore of assault and battery. Welmore pleaded guilty and paid Cahill $7.50 for damages and court costs of $2.70.
• A warrant of arrest was issued for Ralph Rockey. He was spotted by a state mine inspector carrying matches and smoking in one of the mines at Coal Creek, a violation of coal-mining laws. He was found guilty and fined $10 plus costs.

A founder of the Newcastle Historical Society, Swanson knew more about Newcastle’s history than anyone, because he actually lived it. Swanson died at the age of 95 in January 2014. In this month’s history feature, Newcastle City Councilman, and history buff, Rich Crispo recalls his favorite Swanson stories.

I had the good fortune to know Milt and spend almost every Wednesday afternoon with him during the two years prior to his death. I was thirsting for information about our city and Milt was always willing to share his personal experiences.

By Greg Farrar
Milt Swanson, recalling the happiness and the hardship of a lifetime lived in Newcastle, poses in a 2012 photo, sitting among the artifacts of local history that he had collected and stored in a makeshift museum building on his property.

Milt was born in a house near the current Coal Creek Family YMCA and lived in the house at the corner of Newcastle Golf Club Road and Lakemont Boulevard since 1922, when his father rented the property from the Pacific Coast Coal Co. Milt told me many stories. Here are two of them:

1.) Did you ever wonder about the slight dips in Newcastle Golf Club Road as you drive over them? The topography along Coal Creek was very different in 1863, when coal production started, than it is today.

South of the creek was a flood plain, and a series of small ravines fed ground water and rain water from the hills to the south into the creek. The first dirt road above the flood plain and along the ravines included a series of bridges made from cedar logs.

Over time, mine waste was dumped along the road, and the ravines and the flood plain were filled in. When it came time to pave the road, the path went right over the existing bridges. Eventually the logs rotted out and the road surface dipped a bit.

The next time you drive along the road, count the dips. Some are obvious while others are subtler.

2.) All of the mine tunnels had air shafts reaching to the surface. One such shaft is located where Newcastle Golf Club Road meets Lakemont Boulevard.

During a heavy rainstorm in the 1960s, a stream of water came down from Cougar Mountain and crossed the covered shaft. The top covering collapsed and dammed up the hole well below the surface. As a result, the hole filled up with water.

A Boeing employee driving his station wagon on the way to work tried to drive across the “puddle.” His car started falling down into the hole, but luckily hung up on the edge.

He called for a wrecker and one came from Renton and stopped on the other side of the puddle. The driver walked around, attached a pull chain, and proceeded to pull the wagon completely into the hole and beneath the water.  The car was removed with the help of another truck.

Shortly after the car was removed, the dam in the hole broke and fell into the abandoned mine far below. The hole was eventually closed using concrete, cedar logs, mine rock and asphalt. That fix has lasted for 50 years and the next time you drive that route look for the circular indentations in the road surface near the curve.

Want to hear more about Milt’s stories and the history of your city? Email me at crispo@comcast.net.

In that year, a couple of explorers found something that would change that landscape forever — chunks of coal along a creek (later to be named Coal Creek).

The first coal wasn’t mined until 10 years later, but when it began, it was in earnest. In the 100 years between 1863 and 1963, the Newcastle coal mines produced 10.5 million tons of coal.

The coal was of good quality, and the proximity to Seattle made it an important commodity. In 1870, Seattle had only 1,107 residents, but because coal was being shipped to San Francisco and the growth of the port, that number grew to 42,837 by 1890, only 20 years later.

In 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes and General Tecumseh Sherman visited Newcastle during a trip to the Northwest. In 1886, Newcastle also had the only post office and voting district on the east side of Lake Washington, and in the late 1890s, Newcastle was the second largest town in King County with 3,000 residents.

Coal was king, but Newcastle was also a leader in the process of justice. There was a resident justice of the peace who oversaw proceedings from verbal and spousal abuse to assault and battery and murder.

Miners were frequently witnesses and jurors. The process of dispensing justice was so important that failure to appear as a witness or juror could result in a fine 50 times as great as the fine for the crime heard at trial. Jurisdiction was not limited to Newcastle. The court also heard cases from Renton, Bellevue and Issaquah.

Mine operations continued at an uneven pace in the early 1900s as demand for coal varied. In 1916, that all changed with the threat of World War I.

From 1916-1918, the mines at Newcastle produced 1 million tons of coal to support the war effort. After the war, demand dropped.

As 1929 rolled around, cheaper coal became available from Montana, oil burst onto the scene, the Depression crippled economies and a fire in Newcastle’s main bunkers caused the Pacific Coast Coal Co. to cease operations.

Newcastle was a company town and with the selling of the homes, dismantling of some buildings, removal and reuse of equipment, and the pulling up of the railroad tracks, by 1937, the town of Newcastle no longer existed.

The Pacific Coast Coal Co. moved operations out of the area, but did sell and lease land to contract-basis mining operators known as “gypos.”

Gypos went into the existing mines and cleaned out smaller pockets of coal. These smaller outfits worked the mines from 1932 until 1963, when all coal mining stopped.

During that time, they produced 536,000 tons of coal. One of the gypos, the Strain Co., strip-mined an area 80 to 90 acres in size that later became a landfill, and in 1999 became the site of The Golf Club at Newcastle.

Seattle continued to grow and the Newcastle area was a prime location as a bedroom community, so it also grew in population. In 1994, the city of Newcastle was incorporated.

The city has 150 years of history that has included discovery, growth, decline and growth again.