Monroe A Thumbnail History by Nellie Robertson

Monroe, Washington, named for President James Monroe, came into being when Army scouts came to the area to establish outposts. They saw the lush land and stayed. The native population welcomed them as protection since their tribes had been decimated by war and disease.

The Skykomish River that marked the southern edge of the town was the principal travel medium since the trails accommodated only horses. A number of homesteads were established and descendants of those first settlers still live in the area.

Logging was the mainstay of Monroe’s economy for many years with a number of sawmills perched in the woods in the surrounding area. Cedar shakes were the big money crop and now it is illegal to harvest cedar trees. As the logging industry waned, agriculture grew with berry farms taking the forefront. Along with farming came the proliferation of dairy farms. The first purebred Holstein set the tone for the industry and several creameries chose Monroe as their places of business.

The Carnation Condensery in 1910 employed a number of local people and the smokestack still pokes into the sky although the building was destroyed by fire in the 1940’s. The same year it was built, the state chose Monroe as the site for the Washington State Reformatory which became the institution that provided the most jobs. It now contains three prisons on the site; the reformatory, Twin Rivers, and the Special Offender Center. Local residents didn’t worry about escapees. They figured the fleeing felons would leave the area as soon as possible.

The town actually started west of the main part of the city but when the Great Northern Railway completed its tracks in 1893, business owners moved their establishments to trackside and that’s where the town’s core is now. Monroe was an important stop on the line since the GN greenhouses were there. They furnished fresh flowers for all of the trains on the line and on special holidays, corsages were given to all women passengers from the greenhouses.

A Public Hospital District was formed and a hospital built around what had been the home for the indigent. The hospital has grown through the years and gained in stature. Many first rate physicians came to town and the medical community grew in stature and expertise.

The town took care of it young very early on and schooled them. The schools grew in size and in numbers. A Union High School was built in town and the young learners from eight school districts sent there older students there. Since that time, there have been three other high schools built to house the ever increasing numbers of students.

Monroe has always been a close-knit town with many interrelated families and relationships. In later years the locals called it Seattle’s bedroom. People cared about each other and shared information freely.

Monroe sent her sons to World War I and the local American Legion post is named for one of those who died in France. Those who stayed home saved tin foil, endured rationing, dealt with meatless days and substitute flour. They weathered the deadly flu epidemic that closed the schools and cancelled public gatherings. At the end of the war, they burned the Kaiser’s effigy on Main Street

Following the war, the depression hit the town with force. City fathers applied for national funds and established programs to help keep the town afloat. One of the schools was built with Public Works Administration funds. It still sits on Main Street. There are roads that came out of the need to employ residents.

World War II changed Monroe’s character in that local boys saw the world and some of them didn’t come back. Again the townspeople rallied around enduring rationing, filling in for the men in the armed services and buying war bonds.

Following the national trend, women joined in the war effort by working in war-related industries. That shifted the character of the family home because many mothers chose not to be stay-at-home moms any longer. It put further pressure on the schools to jump into the breach for the sake of the children.