PILLARS OF OUR COMMUNITY
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Support for our community has come in many shapes and sizes over the years. A fine example of this is the pillars that used to grace the public school that was built in 1912. The school was located just south of where the San Juan Community Theater is now, in the courthouse parking lot. It was built after the community decided they needed a four year accredited high school. Voted on in June, 1912, it was completed by January 27th 1913, for a cost of $10,000. The school housed students of grades 1-12 until 1936 when an elementary school was built in the present middle school site.
In the late 50s, the building fell into disrepair and the community decided it would cost too much to modernize it. They decided to build a new high school, which was completed in 1959 (Friday Harbor High’s present building). The old school building was torn down in early 1961 after Sam Bridges won a bid to dismantle it. He paid $267.58 for the privilege. Many items were reused including those grand pillars. The cement foundation is now a bulkhead south of Downriggers and some of the windows ended up in Marjorie Walker’s Studio. The timbers helped build Fred Zylstra’s Barn in the valley and also a dock south of the condos on Warbass Way.
Can you guess where the pillars are now?
You see two of them all the time. They are in front of the Friday Harbor Drug Store. The other four are on the south side of the Whale Museum. The railings that sat above the pillars at the old school now sit atop them in their present location at the drug store.

BRAIN SURGERY ON SPRING STREET

Most San Juan Islanders have heard of the remarkable Dr. Victor Capron. Many however may not realize the breadth of his contributions. He was born in 1868 in New York. After receiving his medical degree, he came west to settle in Port Townsend. When the local economy collapsed in 1892, he moved to Hawaii where he worked with people with leprosy, developed an expertise in tropical disease, and started a coffee company. After being thrown from a horse in 1896, he moved to San Juan Island to recuperate.
In 1900, he married Fanny Kirk. Fanny’s parents, Peter and Florence Kirk, founded the city of Kirkland. At the time that Fanny and Victor married, the Kirk’s owned a home and 500 acres on what is now Yacht Haven Road. Doc Capron worked as the Roche Harbor Lime Company physician for 39 years and also had a practice in Friday Harbor.
These are the basic facts of Doc Capron’s life. What made him remarkable are the details. As Friday Harbor’s mayor three times and state legislator four times, he was responsible for many advances in his community. After researching the technology, he brought telephones to the island. He started the first electric light system in Friday Harbor, was responsible for organizing the water system, and consolidated the schools. During his tenure as legislator, he passed “Capron’s Fund” which allocated state monies to those counties without state roads. The fund brought the first “real road money”* to the county. That money built Warbass Way, which once was known as the “State Road”. We still receive this money today.
When the saw mill, the only source of electricity in town, burned down in 1911, Doctor Capron figured out a way to run his X-ray machine off the back wheel of his car. That proved to be very handy for a patient with a broken bone when a simple trip to the doctor’s was a bumpy, painful undertaking.
Doc Capron had proficiencies that extended beyond the normal skills of a country doctor. He was reported to have performed brain surgery at his office on Spring Street on a patient for whom all hope was lost. The patient survived. He delivered over 500 babies without a fatality. His five-hundredth baby was our very own Sam Buck Sr.
*From his obituary, Friday Harbor Journal, Nov. 22, 1934

FROM THE SPRING 2003 NEWSLETTER

I was an airplane spotter during the early years or World War II. My shift was from 8:00 A.M. to 10:00A.M. every other Sunday morning. My partner was Jack Geoghegan. At that time I believe that Jack had the only Real Estate office in Friday Harbor. Most shifts were manned by two people. Jack and I decided that he would man our shift one Sunday morning and that I would work the shift the next Sunday morning. That way we would work every other Sunday. Our airplane observation post was located on the hill to the left of the present Friday Harbor water tank. Our duty was to report planes that we either saw or heard on a flash message form that we called to an Army Information Center. The form will explain fully what we reported to an Army Information Center.
The following are memories of two other airplane spotters that I have corresponded with. The “plane spotting” lookout at Roche Harbor was probably a little unique compared to the others in the area. Our lookout was the “pilot house” from the old sturdy, hardworking tugboat the Roche Harbor whose old hulk sat on the beach for many years. If I remember correctly, we had four types of planes we had to watch for. The area between Henry Island and Roche was an area we had to watch carefully as planes could duck lower at that point of land. We then called directly to Bellingham to report a sighting. Hard to believe that segment of our lives in now called “history”. -Betty Felton Ramey
I drove the route to the South End observation post for about one and a half years, 24 hours a day. We had a change in personnel manning the post every three hours. That required my picking up someone at their home, taking them to the post, picking up whoever was on watch and taking them to their home.
I started by standing watches at the observation post at the water tank. Then my dad bout me a Model A ford. We received gas stamps and had a gas tank at the farm so I got the job driving the watch standers to and from their job.
I do remember Bill Jones, who lived at the top of Bailor Hill, was a frequent passenger because there were many who hired him to take their watch. He and I had some interesting times with going into a ditch one night when I fell asleep. Remember, I did this every three hours every night and day and got very little sleep. He helped mw push the car out of the ditch and away we went. I knew that route to the south End like the back of my hand. Boy, the rabbits on the road then were something.
Those who stood watch would look out for airplanes of anything different on the water off the South End. They had charts of different airplanes on the wall of the post so that they could identify what type each plane. There was a telephone there so that they could inform the appropriate agencies on what they saw or heard. Not a very exciting job really but they all took their job seriously. We were at war with a very aggressive enemy.”
-Sonya Arend Flaherty

Article Courtesy of Tony Surina