A Cook’s Cabin Full of Clues

Here’s the month­ly His­to­ry Col­umn for July from San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Museum…

There is so much to see in this his­tor­i­cal pho­to­graph tak­en at a Salmon Bank fish camp on the south end of San Juan Island. It is rare to see an island pho­to­graph of an inte­ri­or scene from over 100 years ago, so this one stands out in the archives collection.

When it was donat­ed to the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um a num­ber of years ago, it came with the sim­ple descrip­tion of “Cook’s Cab­in at Salmon Bank, late 1800s.” Fish traps, as adapt­ed from Native Amer­i­can reef net design, were first intro­duced there in 1892. With the fish trap oper­a­tions came the need for larg­er crews, rus­tic hous­ing, and sup­port build­ings like a cook’s cab­in on shore.

Dat­ing pho­tographs can be chal­leng­ing. How­ev­er, by zoom­ing in on a dig­i­tal copy of this par­tic­u­lar image, we can gath­er some clues about this one.

Four posters on the cab­in wall are of inter­est; two of which are par­tic­u­lar­ly help­ful. Old Cas­tle Whiskey was first reg­is­tered as a brand in 1872. Kis-Me was the first fruit-fla­vored chew­ing gum, estab­lished in 1886, and advances the ear­li­est date of the pho­to­graph to that year. Rainier Beer was estab­lished by the Seat­tle Brew­ing and Malt­ing Com­pa­ny as its sig­na­ture brand in 1893 (“Vig­or and strength in every drop”). The Morrell’s Eure­ka Brand label dis­played in the poster was first used in 1899 to adver­tise a line of cured meats. (We won’t com­ment on the depic­tion of a half-dressed maid­en to sell ham, except to say it helped estab­lish the year.)

Thus it appears, based upon evi­dence pro­vid­ed by the posters, that a time peri­od of around 1900–1910 but not pri­or to 1899 could be assigned to the pho­to. What about oth­er clues? The ladies’ cloth­ing seen in the posters sug­gests an era of 1890s to about 1910, but we don’t know how long this cook had been dec­o­rat­ing with these same posters and cal­en­dars (which dates could not be read).

A pho­to­graph indi­cates more than just a time peri­od. In this one, we also see two love­ly pat­terned table­cloths and a bor­der of lace trim high up on the wall, atop the posters. The cen­tral fig­ure is a man clear­ly con­fi­dent and proud of his dec­o­rat­ed sur­round­ings. He is dressed neat­ly and with style in what looks like a Pana­ma hat, a gentleman’s acces­so­ry pop­u­lar for decades. What about the iden­ti­ty of this dap­per man?

He was pos­si­bly a fish camp cook by the name of Frank McLain, men­tioned as an 1899 cook in a Nation­al Park Ser­vice doc­u­ment about the his­to­ry of fish­ing at Salmon Bank. McLain also appears in the 1900 U.S. Cen­sus for San Juan Island. He is described there as a 36 year old, unmar­ried cook, resid­ing near the Firth Fam­i­ly in what is now Amer­i­can Camp. This cen­sus record for his age and res­i­dence in 1900 point to Frank McLain as the pos­si­ble iden­ti­ty of the mys­tery cook in the photograph.

This cen­sus also lists a 19 year old “ser­vant” in the McLain house­hold. He was also a cook. The Salmon Bank camp was known to employ up to 70 work­ers at a time, housed in dor­mi­to­ries on site while com­ing togeth­er for meals in a com­mu­nal hall. This big oper­a­tion would require a cook with an assis­tant. But is the cook in the pho­to­graph indeed Frank McLain? We can­not know with cer­tain­ty. But we do know that the cook in the pic­ture had a spe­cial woman in his life. In the pho­to­graph, he holds a por­trait of a lady who appears to have been impor­tant to him in some way. Many things are tacked up on the cab­in wall, but this one pho­to­graph of a woman is held dear­ly by the cook.

Thanks for pos­ing, Frank or who­ev­er you are.

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