- L. A. Loomis (1830 – 1913)
Two years ago, right about now, I was beginning to work on the North Beach Peninsula’s IR&N – a book that I did in conjunction with the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. It was an enjoyable collaboration. I researched, organized, and wrote the text; the Heritage Museum’s staff and volunteers supplied the photographs.
One of the first pictures that we were sure we would need was a portrait of L.A. Loomis, “Father of Transportation” here on the peninsula. In the 1870s, Loomis first acquired the mail contract from Astoria, Oregon, to Olympia, Washington. The route involved three steamers and three stage lines and Loomis owned them all. It was the stage run along our ‘weather beach’ that was the slowest leg of the journey and prompted his thinking about a narrow gauge railway.
In his day, Loomis cut quite a figure. He was known for his wide hat, black frock coat, and gold-headed walking stick. As soon as his railroad was up and running he built a grand Victorian mansion just south of near Klipsan Beach that was considered the finest in the county. Four tall bay windows faced the ocean, heavy cornices adorned the roof, and a quartette of ornate fireplaces heated the stately parlors and the master’s bedroom. Its rooms had twelve-foot ceilings, polychrome scrolls around the principal light fixtures, paneled walls topped with decorative moldings, a sunroom and eight bedrooms. Within the fenced enclosure surrounding the house were barns, blacksmith shop, and lodgings for helpers.
It stood to reason that there would be many pictures of such a man. But there was ‘nary a one. There were no L.A. Loomis pictures at the Heritage Museum, nor at the Pacific County Historical Society, at the State Library in Olympia or in the Special Collections of the Washington State Historical Society. None of the major railroad museums across the country had his likeness. Not even Ellen McMurry, Loomis’s granddaughter, had a picture of him. Finally, we located a photograph of Loomis and his grown daughter, Amelia. It didn’t really fit our requirements but our deadline was approaching, so the Heritage Museum purchased rights for its use from the Oregon Historical Society and I re-wrote the text so that it would make a modicum of sense.
Then, yesterday, I was cleaning house in preparation for the coming Christmas doings. In our library, I took particular notice of two large volumes, History of the Pacific Northwest: Oregon and Washington -1889. I spent a few minutes looking through Volume I, curious about possible R.H. Espy references, when up popped a picture of L.A. Loomis! It’s a wonderful portrait and exactly what we had hoped to find two years ago. And to think how hard we looked and all the angst we expended, and here was a picture of him right in my library all the time. I hate it when that happens!
Sydney,
We are so thrilled to have the Loomis picture now in digital format. The wonderful train car that he ordered from the Pullman Company, the NAHCOTTA , is undergoing study for restoration and the Loomis story is a big part of its life. Keep us posted on any other wonderful finds in your library!
We often don’t see what’s right under our noses!
Oooo, I will check a two volume history of WA that I have. It has a picture of my great-grandfather from the same period of time. As a matter of the Royal Austins were friends of the Loomis family and rode the stage up the beach to visit them in their mansion. I used to be able to pick out the trees that were by their house as my grandmother had told my mother, who told me. Kilpsan has so many trees now that I can’t make out the spot anymore, but I would have LOVED to have seen that house. Instead I content myself with the occasional visit to the Flavel House.
Sydney, I will show you my books regardless. I think you would enjoy them.
Indeed I will!
One of the features of writing is that when it is set down in print it seems “cast in stone” and immutable… With all its faults and flaws.
But the ideas that start on a static page aren’t confined to them, they blossom and grow and bear fruit, and take on a life of their own years, decades and even centuries after they begin.
It’s often the flaw that we see that is the impetus for more ideas.
Like seeds, often they bare only a slight resemblance to the parent thought.
What you see as something that could have been done better, I see as fertile ground for new ideas… Looking to the future, smile at past, and see how far you have come.
Sydney, my two volume set, one of which has gone missing, was edited by Julian Hawthorn in 1893. The volume that would be pertinent to us both is not missing and although it has articles about L.A. Loomes as well as Edwin G. Loomis, there is strangely no mention of the Espys. There is a Gilbert F. Little and I was wondering if that was a relation of yours. I will bring the book to the beach and we will have to put our heads over it. One thing I know, the index is not very accurate. The page listed for my great-grandfather Royal Austin is not where he appears.
Yes, the Julian Hawthorne 2-volume set is also in our library. R.H. Espey [sic] is discussed at length in volume II and both he and his wife, Julia, are pictured on separate pages. Interesting, also, is a page devoted to an engraving of the R.H. Espey Resdidence with all of the family pictured in front. Some years back, I found a receipt for that engraving and, as I remember, I concluded that the people pictured had to subscribe to copies of the book — kind of like the modern “Who’s Who.” I.A. Clark, co-founder of Oysterville with Espy, is another person (like Loomis) whose photo I could not find for one of my books but did, finally, find one in this Hawthrone edition. Ultimately, I did not use it because I was not sure how good the likeness was. The ones of Julia and Robert Espy, my great-grandparents have little, if any, resemblance to their photographs. Now, I’m not sure if I looked in these volumes for Loomis or not. I’m almost afraid to go on the hunt now. If I missed him twice in my own library, I don’t think I could wear my researching hat for awhile!
As to the Littles — no relation. My father’s people were from New England; he was the first of our family to come West which wasn’t until the 1920s.