HOMEPAGE: THE CLAYTON/DEER PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Our Story

During the summer of 1889, while the Washington Territory waited in anticipation of becoming the 42nd State, the Spokane Falls & Northern Railroad was busy pushing a track north from Spokane and on to the town of Colville.  The railroad's intent was to profit from the exploitation of the mining, timber, and growing agricultural wealth of northeastern Washington, as well as from the services the railroad could provide the growing influx of new immigrants to the area.  Over the next several years, railroad sidings were developed every few miles along this new track.

Intended mostly as informal stations for picking up and off-loading freight and passengers, many of these railroad sidings began to cluster homes and businesses that eventually became the seeds of towns.  While most of these embryonic villages proved to be sprouting in the wrong spots - and within a dozen or two years had disappeared - others continued on, with a handful surviving till this very day.

The survivors had a reason to linger.  Located approximately 18 miles due north of downtown Spokane, the village of Deer Park had a thriving sawmill.  Clayton - four and a half miles northwest of Deer Park - had at its heart a major brick factory.  Clayton's brick plant lasted until the late 1950s.  And Deer Park's lumber mill continued until the early 1970s.

Since the sawmill's closing, Deer Park has continued to grow - becoming something of a bedroom community for the city of Spokane.  Clayton has a different story.  It reached its zenith in the days just before the beginning of the Great Depression.  Already stagnant when the brick plant ceased operation in 1957, the little town has gone into a prolonged and sad decline since.

Little evidence of Clayton's best years still stands.  And Deer Park recently demolished, with little thought, one of the few remaining artifacts of its past - the Arcadia Orchards packing shed.  To the best of anyone's recollection, the two towns have never had any strong, organized advocacy for collecting and preserving history - at least nothing close to the efforts put forth by other small communities in the region.  But when Clayton faced losing its landmark schoolhouse to private developers or demolition, things begin to change.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the Deer Park School District was forced to consider putting the old Clayton School - a classic, two story brick structure built in 1915 - up for sale.  For the prior thirty years the building had been used for storage, and, with leaking roof and crumbling plaster, was rapidly becoming a liability.  At that point a small group of locals banded together in an attempt to raise enough money to buy the school, and then turn it into a museum and community center.  By the first month of 2003, the group had incorporated themselves as the Clayton Historical Society.

With a probable asking price in excess of one-hundred thousand dollars, the new society's chance of successfully bidding on the school was remote.  But then a group of educators began to lobby the idea of rebuilding the school as part of a homeschooling outreach program - a program intended to offer classes to homeschooled children that those children would otherwise not have an opportunity to participate in.  With state and local help, the old school was extensively remodeled - while retaining its character and designation as a registered historical landmark.  And the Clayton building now continues on in the role it was originally built to fill over ninety years ago - a public school.

With the school saved, the society reconsidered its mission.  To better reflect its new direction and the areas of interest of its growing membership, the group added ‘Deer Park' to the society's name, and summarized its intentions going forward in the following statement.

The C/DPHS is an association of individuals dedicated to the preservation of the history of our community.  To the preservation of the region's oral history, literary history, social history, graphic and pictorial history, and our history as represented by the region's artifacts and structures.  To the preservation of this history for future generations.  To the art of making this common heritage accessible to the public.  And to the act of collaborating with other individuals and organizations sharing similar goals.

At this time our society has no physical structure - no office, no buildings, and no museum.  But we do have a presence in the community.  And through our publications and website, we are carrying out the primary mission of any historical society - advocating for the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of our history.