On June 12, 1901, the Barneston Post Office opens. Albert E. Smith serves as the only postmaster. Mail is distributed from the Kent Lumber Company store.
Barneston was a company mill town, center of operations for the Kent Lumber Company. The town was named for John G. Barnes, an officer of the firm. It was located within the Cedar River watershed, a main source of Seattle's water supply.
The post office closed on January 31, 1924. The town was razed that year, after the firm had cut down the trees for miles around. The City, backed up by the courts, disallowed human habitation in the watershed, to keep the water pure.
Barneston was located 28 miles southeast of Seattle two miles north of Selleck at the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter Section 13 Township 22 N Range 7 E.
Sources:
Guy Reed Ramsey, "Postmarked Washington, 1850-1960," Microfilm (Olympia: Washington State Library, February, 1966), 663-664; Alan Stein, "Barneston: Thumbnail History," Metropedia Library, (www.historylink.org).
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