Click image to enlarge
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View downstream from Skamokawa Vista Park towards Three Tree Point (closest point) and Brookfield Point (point visible behind Three Tree Point).
The former Washington community of Brookfield was across the bay at the base of the ridge.
Image taken March 8, 2013.
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Brookfield, Brookfield Point, Harlow Creek, Beare Hill, and Three Tree Point ...
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Immediately downstream of Skamokawa, Washington, is a two-mile-long stretch of Washington coastline which once was the home of the cannery town of Brookfield.
In 1873 Joseph Megler opened a cannery there.
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"Brookfield ... a town in Wahkiakum County. It was named by J.G. Megler in 1873, the year of his marriage, in honor of Brookfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of his wife. Mr. Megler was proprietor of a salmon cannery at that place. He often represented his county in the Legislature."
[Edmund S. Meany, 1923, "Origin of Washington Geographic Names", University of Washington Press]
The former community was located at Columbia River Mile (RM) 28.5, and was nestled between Brookfield Point (formerly Jim Crow Point, RM 28) and Harlow Creek (formerly Jim Crow Creek, RM 28.5).
Beare Hill (formerly Jim Crow Hill) is the ridge from Brookfield Point and rises above the former community of Brookfield.
Three Tree Point is located upstream from Brookfield at RM 30. Three Tree Point gets its name from once having three fir trees which were used for navigation.
Downstream of the Brookfield area is Pillar Rock and even further downstream is the small community of Altoona. Upstream is the Washington community of Skamokawa and further upstream is the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge.
Brookfield Point and Three Tree Point can nicely be seen from Skamokawa Vista Park, Skamokawa, Washington.
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Early History ...
Jim Crow Point, Jim Crow Creek, and Jim Crow Hill now Brookfield Point, Harlow Creek, and Beare Hill ...
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In 2017 the U.S. Board of Geographic Names officially changed the names of "Jim Crow Point", "Jim Crow Creek", and "Jim Crow Hill" to "Brookfield Point", "Harlow Creek", and "Beare Hill".
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"Wahkiakum County -- Jim Crow Creek, Jim Crow Hill and Jim Crow Point will become Harlow Creek, Beare Hill and Brookfield Point. The new names will honor the long-gone Columbia River cannery town of Brookfield, and a few of the people who lived there.
On May 16 [2016], the state Committee on Geographic Names [Washington State Committee on Geographic Names] unanimously agreed to adopt the new names, pending final approval in October. ...
Most historicans believe "Jim Crow" places were probably named for an early black settler named James Saules, who lived in Pacific and Wahkiakum counties during the mid-1800s. However, some locals argue that the places were actually named for an Indian Chief for a logger named Jim Crow, or for the birds who perched in a tree on the point. ...
In "Company Towns of the Northwest," author Linda Carlson said businessman Joseph Megler built his salmon cannery in 1873, and named the new community after his wife Nellie's home town, Brookfield, Massachusetts. A post office, docks, the Fink Bros. Stave Company, and the beautiful Megler mansion and gardens went in too, but the town remained isolated. "Boat travel was vital" to the town, Carlson wrote, because "there was no road out until 1951." ...
Harlow's Creek would be named for John and Mary Harlow. ... After ending his career as a baseball player, Harlow worked as a fisherman and as the postmaster of the Brookfield Post Office. ...
Georgianna and John Beare, for whom Beare Hill would be named, settled in Brookfield in the early 1900s. ... John Beare got a job at Megler's cannery, and the two grew hay and berries on their five-acre plot. ... When John Beare died at the end of 1941, Georgianna was 78. Locals decided it was best to move her into a Cathlamet nursing and maternity home. The elderly homesteader reportedly adapted well to her new surroundings. "here is where Georgianna heard her first radio, telephone, saw electric lights, indoor plumbing, enjoyed her first automobile ride," ... She died at the age of 95, in July 1958.
By the 1940s, Brookfield had changed a great deal. Megler died in 1915. The cannery was not rebuilt after the July 1931 fire, and the salmon fishery was not what it had once been. Many residents moved away.
In 1951, the Crown Zellerback logging company bought up a big waterfront site, according to local historian Irene Martin. The company built the first road to Brookfield, and began using the site as a log-dump, and logging the surrounding areas. The post office finally closed in 1954. ...
In 1957, the Crown Zellerbach bulldozers arrived, and knocked everything down. ... Today, the frame of the Harlow House still stands, but there are few other signs of the town, aside from a few rotting pilings in the river. ..."
Source:
Natalie St. John, May 31, 2016, "Ghost town memories: Brookfield names will replace Jim Crow, IN: Chinook Observer.
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Views ...
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Brookfield Point (behind) and Three Tree Point (in front), as seen from Skamokawa Vista Park.
Image taken November 9, 2005.
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The cannery community of Brookfield once existed between Brookfield Point and Three Tree Point.
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Brookfield Point (behind) and Three Tree Point (in front), as seen from Skamokawa Vista Park.
Image taken October 13, 2007.
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Click image to enlarge
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Brookfield Point (behind left) and Three Tree Point (in front, middle), as seen from Skamokawa Vista Park, Skamokawa, Washington.
Image taken March 8, 2013.
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Brookfield, Three Tree Point, etc.
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- 1889 "Coast Pilot" ...
- Canneries ...
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1889 "Coast Pilot" ...
From the 1889 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey's "Coast Pilot":
"Jim Crow Point. -- This is one of the well known landmarks along the river, and is abreast the first decided contraction of the river to a main channel-way seven-eighths of a mile wide between it and Woody Island on the south.
It is a vertical rocky cliff, rising to one hundred feet, and projecting sharply from the shore for two hundred and fifty yards; while behind it the basaltic cliffs, fir-covered, rise to eleven hundred feet in less than six hundred yards from the water. The currents sweep very swiftly past it with deep eddies and boiling; the bottom is scoured out to a depth of twenty-two fathoms, with five and six fathoms of water in mid-stream.
In the bight a little over a quarter of a mile northeast from the point there is located the Brookfield Salmon Cannery. Jim Crow Point is twelve and a half miles from Astoria."
"Three Tree Point. --
On the northern side of the river, one and seven-eighths miles from Jim Crow Point, there is a slight but sharp projecting point of basaltic rock, rising rapidly to one hundred feet high. It had upon it three fir trees which served as good marks for the river pilots.
The basaltic but wooded cliffs behind it rise to seven hundred feet in one third of a mile.
The river is here one and seven-eighths miles wide between the high points, but it is largely occupied by sand flats and low islands, through which pass several narrow channels for small vessels. The main ship-channel is close under Three Tree Point, and is less than one-quarter of a mile wide but carries over twenty fathoms of warter directly off the cliffs. The channel follows close under the high cliffs to the northeast and then under the low but heavily wooded shores of the north bank.
The high cliffs northeast from the point reach twelve hundred and fifty feet at less than half a miles from the river.
About one-third of a mile southwest from the point there is a Salmon cannery known as Fisherton; about half a mile to the northeast there was the Glen Ellen Cannery, which has been burned and abandoned; and at one and five eighths miles to the northeast, where the low shore begins, is the Ocean Cannery.
Three Tree Point is fourteen and one-third miles from Astoria."
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Canneries ...
Pillar Rock ... Brookfield ... Fisherton ... Glen Ellen ... Ocean ... Bayview ...
[More]
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From the Journals of Lewis and Clark ...
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Clark, November 7, 1805, first draft ...
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S. 70° W 3 miles to a point on the Stard Side [Brookfield Point, formerly Jim Crow Point] high mountains Some
high mountains on the Lard Side off the river -
we en-camped on the Stard Side under a high hill Steep and mountanious we with dificulty found leavel rocks Sufficent to lie
on, ...
The rain Continued untill 9 oClock moderately. we are in view of the opening of the Ocian, which
Creates great joy.
a remarkable rock of about 50 feet high
and about 20 feet Diameter is situated opposit our Camp
about ½ a mile from Shore
Several marshey Islands towards the Lard Side [part of the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge] the Shape of them I can't See as the river is wide and day foggey
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Clark, November 7, 1805 ...
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