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P
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ANUARY
2006H
ISTORYIS
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 JANUARY 2006 NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1OUR MISSION:To Discover, Recover, Share and CelebrateRedmond’s HistoryHISTORY IS HAPPENING IN REDMOND!
REDMOND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
16600 NE 80th Street, Room 106Redmond, WA 98052 ~ Tel 425.885.2919website ~www.redmondhistory.orge-mail ~ redmondhistory@hotmail.comHOURS: Mon.-Thurs., 1-4 p.m., or by Appointment
1F
rom the hundreds of homes going in on 116th tothe shopping/cultural/religious campus proposed for thecorner of Red-Wood Road and 124th, North EducationHill is going through major changes.At our next general meeting, we’ll bring togetherfolks who have lived there and seen the shift from farmsand ranches to dense housing developments andcommercial use.We’ll also survey ourmembers on where theystand with the pro-posed campus, andpass that feedbackalong to the CityCouncil andPlanning Commission.
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The hillside at Redmond-Woodinville Road and 124th Ave NE wouldbecome a shopping area and church campus under a proposal before the City.
NEXTM E E T I N G
S a t u r d a y, January 1410:30 a.m. to noonO
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resident’s Corner
N
orth Education Hill:Then and Now
H
unting season has ended and now all those“hunting widows” will probably be “fishing widows,”for it is time to dust off the steelhead fishing rod andhead for the Sammamish River. Years ago, this was apart of life for many folks in Redmond and might bet o d a y. I don’t even know if the river is open for fish-ing any more. No matter the weather, the banks of the Sammamish River would be lined with fishermenand some women to fish for steelhead. Part of thissport was sharing the fresh catch and home smokedfish with the neighbors. What a treat! I know myfamily had never eaten this delicacy until Art andNancy Lang and sons Allen and Vernon moved intomy Wi l l o w ’s Road neighborhood.
(Continued on page 3.) As did most local men, Bob Martin’s g r a n d f a t h e r, Henry Johnson, supplied meat for his familytable during theGreat Depression byhunting and fishing.He writes, “This photo was taken about 1930 ~ on the front porch of the Redmond home about one block north of the Redmond School.”
 
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G E N E R A LM E E T I N G S
2nd Saturday of the Month10:30 a.m. to noonO
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2005 E
XECUTIVE
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OARD
 Judy Lang
 P r e s i d e n t 
Naomi Hardy
Vi c e - P r e s i d e n t 
Miguel Llanos
Vi c e - P r e s i d e n t 
Teresa Becker
Tr e a s u r e r 
M a rgaret Wi e s e
Corresponding Secretary
Beryl Standley
 R e c o rding Secretary
B
OARDOF
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Terri GordonTom Hitzroth Jon MagnussenAmo MarrDaryl MartinDoris SchaiblePatti Simpson Wa r d
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Published nine times annuallyMiguel Llanos
E d i t o r 
Patti Simpson Wa r d
 Newsletter Graphic Designer 
©2005 Redmond Historical Society
One of Redmond’s great personalities passed  away last November. Bob Sollitto served as R e d m o n d ’s police chief for 17 years from4/1/1963 to 4/1/1980. He was also a member of the Redmond Lions Club, Veterans of ForeignWars, American Legion and Redmond Historical  S o c i e t y. His Society talk on Redmond’s early policedays left the audience in stitches. Writer 
D a n A z n o ff 
captured that humor in a 2003 inter-view for our upcoming Redmond Reflections book.Below is Dan’s profile of Bob:
Born in Brooklyn, Bob Sollitto had always wanted to be a policeman, justlike his father and his grandfather before him. His hometown turned down theeager young man because he wore glasses, so he headed to the Northwest whererequirements weren’t as stringent.When Bob became Chief of Redmond’s three-man Police Department in1963, he brought with him all the tools of his trade. He had two generations of police service, the knowledge of advanced police techniques, and one moreasset: his own gun. Redmond provided him with a uniform and a badge. Andthat was about it. “I had my father’s snub-nosed .38, but I had to go out andbuy a pair of handcuffs before I started my patrols in Redmond,” he recalled. “Ialso had to take the City’s physical exam. I was breathing, so I passed.”With only three officers, the police force Bob inherited couldn’t offerRedmond 24-hour protection. So, every morning Chief Sollitto closed up shop,and handed the protection of the City over to a King County sheriff. Sixmonths after being hired, Bob demanded and received funding to hire fouradditional officers. In less than a year, the Redmond Police Department hadgrown by 300 percent.Forty years ago, Redmond was known for the number of taverns servingalcohol late into the night. Bob made a habit of paying a visit to the bars justbefore closing time, giving safe rides home to anyone in need. Bob raisedeyebrows when he told of being the new chief, and immediately squashing hisofficers’ routine of having “a snort” before going out on patrol.The chief’s biggest case of his career came 18 months into the job, when theFBI informed him that an anti-Communist group dubbed the Minutemen hadplans to bomb Redmond City Hall as a diversion while they attempted to roball three banks in town. Bob was told the Minutemen intended to toss a pipebomb into City Hall just after it opened for business in the morning. TheMinutemen thought the confusion created by the bomb would enable them toloot all the cash in Redmond’s banks before noon, after which they planned tocontinue their crime spree in Des Moines with a similar scenario that sameafternoon. In the end, FBI agents arrested the Minutemen in a parking in theOverlake area, as they were attempting to steal getaway cars for their scheme.
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n Memoriam: Robert A. Sollitto, Jr.
 J
ULY
23, 1924
TO
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OVEMBER
21, 2005
 
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“Q”
QUOTABLE
“The 1950s plateau hadchanged little since settlersfirst came here in the 1890s. Thebig chicken farms were still here,the dairy farms were still here, as wellas the orchards, the trees and theresorts. People living here then say thatthe 1950s were the last decade that wasso much more like the old than the new.In the 1960s, the farms and resorts beganto gradually disappear; by the late 1970ssignificant development was underwayhere, transforming Sammamish into thebustling 21st century Seattle suburbwe know today. ”
From Phil Dougherty“Sammamish in the ‘70s”~ The Sammamish Review ~
H
istory Mystery Solved
(Continued from page 1.)
Redmond was home to many great and avid hunters andfishermen. Two who stand out in my memory, and who are nolonger with us, were Leonard Carlson and Art Lang. They alwaysbagged the game and caught the fish. I put these two guys at thetop of the list. They are a legend among the outdoor sportsman. Iknow there are others because
Bob Martin
provided us with someold hunting photos of his family for our collection.We still have some hunters and fishermen who are around today~
A l l e n
,
Ve r n o n
and
Mike Lang
and old time friends
C o r yD e J o n g
and
Walt Cooper
.Not only has hunting season ended, but now
 S p o r t e e ’s
is closing.The first real exclusive sporting goods store in Redmond has beenaround since the ‘70s. This place has been a haven for the manyoutdoorsmen and sportsmen and ladies too. Some of you readingthis newsletter probably know
Brian Howe,
the owner. He grewup on Union Hill on the Mel Howe Fur Farm.
Larry Miller
, oneof our members, worked at the store and retired a few years ago.When I married into the Lang family, I didn’t have a clue what“hunting widow” really meant, but it didn’t take long to find out.My thought would have been that someone actually lost his or herlife to the sport and in a way I guess that’s right. It didn’t takelong to learn that as long as there is a game tag or a punch left onthe fishing record card, the hunter/fisherman was out of the house.Good luck Brian. Thanks for being part of Redmond’s history.
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~ Judy Aries Lang
N o v e m b e r ’s mystery was solved by
Patsy Cook Rosenbach
, who used the scrapbook of her mother,
Violet GreenE l d u e n
, to identify the photo as the Redmond School, 1911-1912 term. The school was at what today is Anderson Parkand student names listed are: Genevieve Reed, Clemence Martin, William Anderson, Todd Olson, Myrtle Olsen, HazelHuffman, John Huffman, George Keller, Clarence Stitham, Howard Wallace, Oliver Perrigo, Arthur Connery, DorothyBrown, Cordelia Wallace, Mildred Shanks, Manny “Ed” Ta r d y, Lyle Forrester.
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Historic StreetSigns Map
If you haven’t spotted all ten sets of streetsigns named after pioneer families and installedin the last year, the City has published a map of where each one is. To see the map, log on to:w w w. r e d m o n d . g o v / c i t y s e r v i c e s / c i t m a p s . a s p
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