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Local Life

Civic odds and ends, neighborhood stories, local color, public safety, schools, and daily Boise life.

A chest-high wall of split and round firewood with bark and sawn ends toward the camera, snowflakes in the air and a gray sky above.

Local Life/October 13, 2026

Firewood near Enumclaw, the free permit and the cord law

Firewood near Enumclaw: the national forest's free permit, six cords a year, the cutting rules and office hours, DNR's no-permit status and the cord law.

A winter tire with rows of small metal studs set into its tread blocks, seen in a car's wheel well beneath a dusty coil spring.

Local Life/October 12, 2026

Studded tires in Washington are legal Nov. 1 to March 31

Studded tires in Washington are legal Nov. 1 through March 31. What the fine is, when WSDOT extends the deadline and why studs never count as chains.

A blue and white Sounder commuter train led by locomotive 922 stands at the platform at Auburn Station under a gray sky, with an enclosed pedestrian bridge crossing the tracks behind it.

Local Life/October 12, 2026

Enumclaw to Seattle by bus and train, in two rides

Enumclaw to Seattle bus: Metro's 915 runs to Auburn Station, then Sounder or the 578 goes on to Seattle. Times, fares, weekends and the airport.

A field of weathered tree stumps on a bare gravel lakebed beside low water, with lakefront houses, fir trees and a hazy mountain beyond.

Local Life/October 9, 2026

Why is Lake Tapps drained each winter, and when is it full?

Why is Lake Tapps drained each winter? It is lowered about four feet for its dikes: drawdown Nov. 1, refill expected mid-February, summer level due April 15.

Old headstones, obelisks and a white concrete family plot on a sunlit grassy slope in Black Diamond Cemetery, with a gravel lane at left and tall firs and a monkey-puzzle tree behind under a clear blue sky.

Local Life/October 8, 2026

Black Diamond Cemetery ghost stories and the mine beneath it

Black Diamond Cemetery near Enumclaw: who is buried there, the 1910 mine graves, the coal tunnels under the hill, the ghost stories and how to visit.

The Safeway storefront on Roosevelt Avenue in Enumclaw

Local Life/October 6, 2026

Safeway was named for staying out of debt

In 1925 the word on Roosevelt Avenue was a promise about money. In 1986 somebody bought the company with $4.2 billion, mostly borrowed.

A Roman-style mosaic of small stone and glass tiles in ochre, slate blue and deep green: a short, square-shouldered man in a 1920s suit and hat with a star on his lapel holds a folded paper to his chest and holds open a door of iron bars with a ring of keys in the lock, while a smaller figure in a dark coat walks away up a pale road past forested hills, a coal mine headframe, a winding river and a distant city skyline.

Local Life/October 2, 2026

Matt Starwich: the sheriff an ex-mayor swore was no citizen

In 1922 a former mayor swore King County's sheriff was no citizen. Matt Starwich brought the charge that convicted him, then asked the governor to pardon him.

A stop-motion clay diorama of a small farm town behind a low clay fence with a closed gate, and far outside the fence, at the edge of a green pasture, a short row of white container-shaped clay boxes beside four empty rectangular imprints in the grass and one more box set apart at the edge, with a clay cow standing beside them under a painted sky.

Local Life/October 2, 2026

Enumclaw's battery storage moratorium, explained

Enumclaw's battery storage moratorium is set to run to February 2027. What it blocks, what became of the Krain Corner proposal, and the October meetings.

A luminous nineteenth century style landscape oil painting of a terraced open pit in forested foothills, its floor filling with still blue-green water that reflects the clouds, old machine tracks grown over with young alder at the edge, and rows of newly planted firs on the upper benches.

Local Life/October 2, 2026

John Henry mine, Black Diamond: approved in 2018, never dug

Black Diamond's John Henry coal mine won federal approval to reopen in 2018 and never mined again. The permit, the 2021 court decree and the lake in the plan.

A chalk pastel drawing on a dark slate schoolroom blackboard in a wooden frame: a small white schoolhouse with a bell tower and one lit window in the middle, a coal mine headframe with a plume of smoke at the far left, and a row of coat hooks holding five small coats along the bottom above the chalk tray.

Local Life/October 2, 2026

Lulu Kombol: the teacher who went back after the mine blast

A 1925 mine blast blinded Tony Kombol. His wife, Lulu, went back to teaching at Cumberland, then Selleck, and was still in the classroom at 76.

A three-color risograph print of a boxy orange tracked snow vehicle standing in deep snow outside a low, empty schoolhouse beside railroad tracks, with one window lit, tall dark firs and a mountain pass behind.

Local Life/October 1, 2026

Lester, Washington: the ghost town on Enumclaw's school map

Lester, a railroad town behind Tacoma's watershed gate, lost its school district in 1985. A new state minimum sent it to Enumclaw. What the record shows.

A steel engraving in the style of an old stock certificate vignette: a glaciated mountain basin with a small mining camp and a timbered mine portal, a dairy cow standing beside an ore cart in the foreground, and a long single-file line of townspeople walking up the wagon road toward the camp, each carrying a sheet of paper.

Local Life/October 1, 2026

Peter Storbo's Mount Rainier copper mine sent him to prison

An Enumclaw farmer built a copper mine in Mount Rainier National Park and was convicted of mail fraud in 1930. Accounts say 1,200 neighbors petitioned for him.

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