“The mill houses from National were sold when Weyerhaeuser Company decided to completely clear the old town site. Single bedroom houses sold for $100, two bedrooms for $200, three bedrooms for $300, and so on. One condition was that all the houses had to be removed within 30 days Thus started the great National House Movement.
After work each day, teams of the new owners lifted the houses off their foundations, placed them on trailers or skids, then hauled them to the the new site, where they were then lifted onto the newly prepared foundation. Today as one travel from Elbe to the Park Gate, they can see these houses. The Grange building in Elbe and the Whittier Bunkhouse are from National, as are over 20 other homes in the valley.” (Per Upper Nisqually Valley.)
Photo courtesy of Laurie Anderson Osborn.
Click on image to enlarge.
Eatonville To Rainier 
8 responses to “Mill Houses in National (early 1900s)”
The Osborn name does not end with an ‘e’. Please correct
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Hello,
I am looking for any information about National and possible kinship. My mother, Helen Anderson, and her sisters Ester and Ruth were born and raised in National. My mother was taken to Tacoma for my birth and returned to National for a brief period until WWII ended. Her family did not keep in touch or if they did, it was not shared with her children.
Thanks for the photo.
chuckrogers@me.com
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I’ll see what information I have on National. Since it’s not there really any more, it’s a little harder to find.
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I do understand. I went there with my mother around 1960 and there was only a series of cellar holes. Her father was a logger and then a sawyer. My mother used to work at the store there and drive a truck on plank streets to avoid the mud.
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This is so neat to see some of the houses from National. I myself live in one of the homes that was part of that town.
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Do you know any history about your house?
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[…] might remember the town of National, a logging town up the line. There isn’t much left not except for some […]
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[…] are the following if you continued on Center Street: 19 National 14 Elbe 32 Tacoma 2 Mountain […]
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