Boom Towns & Relic Huntersof Washington State: Exploring Washington's Historic Ghost Towns & Mining Camps by Smith Jerry

Author:Smith, Jerry [Smith, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Classic Day Publishing
Published: 2011-10-26T21:00:00+00:00

OLD LOUP LOUP: THE LOST CITY

Here on the floor of the dense forest are the unmistakable prints of the lost city, Old Loup Loup, the first platted town in Okanogan County. Still distinct in the shadowy light are foundations indicating where buildings up to sixty feet in length once lined the wide main

streets known as Conconully, Okanogan, Methow, Nespelem, and Wenatchee. Bricks from crumpled chimneys lie exposed in spots, although the forest has begun covering up many signs of the little city that once blazed in the glory of a new mining epoch over 120 years ago.

Loup Loup was the rival sister of Ruby City and lay about four miles away from that town, over Ruby Hill. It was platted in the Loup Loup Valley on August 14, 1888, by W.P. Keady and S.F. Chadwick. Little is known about Keady, but Chadwick was ex-governor of Oregon and the father of Stephen J. Chadwick, a member of the Supreme Court of Washington.

According to Phillip H. Pinkston, who came to Okanogan County in 1888 to act as agent for the owners of the Loup Loup town site, eighty acres of land was filed on the site, and a boom town began exploding.

The plat shows that the two main streets, Okanogan and Methow, were eighty feet wide. The other streets, Wenatchee and Conconully, narrowed toward the city edges. Lots were 25 x 90 feet and sold at $200 to $500 each.

To get mining supplies and equipment into Loup Loup, the promoters scratched a road to there from Malott, through Pleasant Valley and the Buzzard Lake section. Pinkston was notified to put up a gate and place a man on the road to collect tolls, but insufficient travel caused that plan to fall through. An effort was then made to sell the road to the county, but that venture also failed.

By 1890, the mining town had enough people to warrant the establishment of a post office. On January 18 of that year, Phillip H. Pinkston became the town’s official postmaster. The post office was established under the name of Loop. Whether this was a recording error or not is not known, but on June 30 of that same year the name was changed to Loup Loup.

Pinkston was a man of vision, and according to an old newspaper record, he filed a water right on the west fork of the Salmon Creek and had a route surveyed for a ditch to bring water for power and domestic use to both Ruby and Loup Loup.

Pinkston said that at the height of its boom, Loup Loup had a population of four hundred people, an estimate that Mrs. John (Annie) Hilderbrand, a resident of Loup Loup, agreed with.

It was March 29, 1890, when newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. John Hilderbrand arrived in the little mining city of Loup Loup, which at that time was engulfed in deep snowdrifts, following a harsh winter. Barnyard fences all across the Big Bend and through the Okanogan, Mrs. Hilderbrand noted, were hung with cowhides that indicated the heavy loss of stock due to the severe winter.

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