Anyways, last Saturday as I was waiting for Mark to finish hanging out with one of his friends, I decided to go on a photo tour of Sumner. A few years ago, I created a list of all the sites on the National Historic Register that were in King and Pierce county, including all of the ones in Tacoma and Seattle. It is a long list, but my goal was to just go explore and take photos of the sites. So on Saturday, I decided to start with Sumner.
I first stopped by a park that I had been wanting to visit, since the website has boasted about its beautiful views of Mt. Rainier, hence it's name Rainier View Park. I went there on a bad day, since it was gorgeous out and there were screaming kids everywhere! I'm sure on a cloudy day or early in the morning it is a nice place to sit and read, but in the afternoon, not so much.
The view of Rainier was nice, but I've had better. I took a few photos and continued on. I drove to the first site on my list, which was a private residence, so I didn't take any pictures. It was a beautiful old house right next to a huge farm, and it was needing a lot of work.
I continued on to the next one on my list, which was the Ryan House on Main St. I had driven by it so many times, but never bothered to stop. I just happened to be taking pictures of the outside when a lady walked out and said I should come in and take a look around. Being a sucker for old houses, I immediately went inside.
Mary Beth gave me a wonderful private tour of the house and told me the story of her family, the Ryans, and how they established the town of Sumner. It was quite an interesting story! She let me wander around to take pictures and then offered to show me the upstairs, which they were still restoring. She told me all about how the family no longer wanted to live in the house after George and Lucy Ryan passed away. It became a library after that, and then had a stint as the city hall, before finally becoming a museum.
They still had lots of stuff packed in to some of the rooms that needed to be sorted. One room had books and folders of old photographs packed to the brim. I wanted to just dive in and look at what they had. And organize it!
If you are in the Sumner area, I definitely recommend stopping by the Ryan House. It is truly fascinating to see how people lived when this area was first being built. They are run by volunteers, so they are usually only open on weekends, but be sure to give them a call if you want to stop by during the week.
There are definitely a lot more places for me to explore in this area. I love finding cool new places! For more photos of my day trip, check out my flickr album. For more information, click here or here.
Find any interesting places lately near to where you live?
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