Concrete, Washington - Notable Happenings

Notable Happenings

Orson Welles' War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast On October 30, 1938, Seattle's CBS affiliate radio stations KIRO and KVI broadcast Orson Welles' now famous War of the Worlds radio drama. While this broadcast was heard around the country, some of the most terrified listeners were in Concrete.

At the point of the drama where the Martian invaders were invading towns and the countryside with flashes of light and poison gases, a power failure suddenly plunged almost the entire town of 1,000 into darkness. Some listeners fainted while others grabbed their families to head up into the mountains. Other more enterprising locals headed for the surrounding hills to guard their moonshine stills. One man was said to have jumped up out of his chair and, in bare feet, run the two miles (3 km) from his home to the center of town. Some of the men grabbed their guns, and one businessman – a devout Catholic – got his wife into the family car, drove to the nearest service station and demanded gasoline. Without paying the attendant, he rushed off to Bellingham (some forty-miles away) in order to see his priest for a last-minute absolution of sins. The distraught man reportedly told the gas-station attendant that paying for the gas " make any difference, everyone is going to die!".

Because the phone lines (as well the electricity) were out, the town's residents were unable to call neighbors, family, or friends to verify that their fears were legitimate. Of course, the real story was not as fantastic as the fictional radio drama – all that had occurred was that the Superior Portland cement company's electrical sub-station suffered a short-circuit with a flash of brilliant light, and all the town's lights went dark. The more conservative radio-listeners in Concrete (who had been listening to Charlie McCarthy on another station), attempted to calm neighbors, reporting that they hadn't heard a thing about any "disaster". Reporters heard soon after of the coincidental blackout of Concrete, and sent the story out over the international newswire and soon the town of Concrete was known (if only for a moment) worldwide.

State Bank of Concrete robbery

On April 16, 1931, during the height of the Great Depression, the locally owned and operated State Bank of Concrete was robbed at gunpoint and its employees taken hostage. Two men entered the bank during operating hours brandishing guns and taking $4,491.00 in cash from the bank's vault. After the money had been obtained, the two men then forced bank president George Campbell, bank clerk Ada Seabury, and bank customer George Harper into a car with them and sped away. When town residents spotted loose dollar bills in front of the bank on Main Street and noticed that there was no one inside the bank, town marshall Charlie Bagnell was notified. After a quick investigation, Bagnell contacted "downriver" law enforcement by telephone about the robbery and missing bank employees. The three kidnapped hostages were subsequently released by their captors at an area approximately four miles west of town on the highway known as the "rock-cut" and were soon after picked up by a passing motorist. The three gave descriptions of the criminals to Bagnell who relayed the information to the county sheriff.

A road-block was set up downriver and west of Concrete by the sheriff's department. While driving the side roads off the highway looking for the bandits, searchers came across a fresh set of tire skid marks on what is today known as Cape Horn Road in Birdsview, a small farming community six miles west of Concrete. Following the tire tracks over a steep embankment, the searchers came to a deep eddy on the Skagit River where the getaway car was discovered. Detectives from the sheriff's department concluded that the bank robbers had a boat ready to take them down the Skagit River where they were able to escape completely.

Reportedly, many years later an outdoor writer named Ralph Young hired an Alaska bear-hunting guide on Kodiak Island who told a tale of being one of two bandits who robbed the State Bank of Concrete of $4700.00 in small bills on "April 1, 1930". The guide went on to say that he had lost the entire amount during "a crooked dice game" in Seattle only a few days after the heist. It is unknown if the Alaskan guide's story was true or what became of the bank-robbers.

Historic Concrete grade school destroyed by fire

On April 27, 2008 at approximately 1:45 p.m., the historic Concrete grade school building was reported to be on fire and according to fire officials, was fully engulfed in flames within twenty minutes. Despite the efforts of five fire departments (including Concrete, Burlington, Sedro-Woolley and two rural fire districts), the building was a total loss. Not able to enter the intensely heated building, the firefighters could only contain the fire within the concrete exterior walls in order to keep it from spreading to the adjacent buildings and trees that are located around the structure's perimeter.

After investigation by the ATF, Skagit County Fire Marshall and the Skagit County Sheriff's office, officials determined that arson was the cause of the blaze. According to the Skagit County Sheriff's Department in a press release, three pre-teen boys admitted during an interview that they had been playing with lighters and set a mattress left inside the building on fire. The boys maintained that they believed the fire they started had been extinguished before exiting the building.

The twenty-year owner of the property had initially intended to remodel the exterior of the building with a castle motif. This plan, however, was abandoned sometime in the 1990s, and the property sat uninhabited and the remodel incomplete for an extended period of time. In the years before the fire destroyed the landmark, the building had become known to out-of-towners and locals alike as an eyesore. Since the fire, the building has been slated for complete demolition. As of August 4, 2009, the long-awaited demolition of the buildings damaged by the fire began under the direction of Lautenbach Industries.