The Blue Goose / Lost Landmark Remembered

By: Pauline Masson –

A two-story white frame house once occupied the spot where Bank of America (soon to open new Pacific Post Office) now stands on St. Louis Street. It had crisp shutters, a front porch with a second-story balcony that was supported by six square beams, a railing and a door that opened onto it. For some reason (that I have not uncovered) the house was named the Blue Goose and was later considered by the grandchildren of the owners to be the grandest house in Pacific. 

The adorning feature of the house was a huge sugar maple that stood in the front yard. “It was semi-famous before they cut it down,” one grandson remembered. The day it was cut down to make way for progress, one of the granddaughters stood across the street and cried.

I came upon the briefest of history of the Blue Goose in a two-year correspondence between Eloise Mayle of Pacific and Lyn Gross of Mercer Island, Wash. The letters were assembled chronologically in a 2-inch ring binder that Linda Bruns loaned to me. Linda inherited them from Eloise and rightly thought that they might contain a few gems in the history of Pacific.

The two correspondents were cousins and the letters began with a half-sheet from Lyn dated Aug. 8, 1995, to Eloise noting that they had not seen each other for some 60 years and he worried that she might not remember him. He was in for a shock when he began to interact with Eloise’s photographic and highly enthusiastic memory of her life in Pacific.

The main effort of the letters was to put together a family history of the Mayle families.

In a lively back and forth perfectly typed correspondence – one of Eloise’s letters was eight pages long – they pieced together the names and dates of family members they remembered or had documents on.

A title of this tome could easily have been, “A Train Runs Through It.” One family member after another worked for the railroad before the 1922 strike when the car shops in Pacific were shut down. One father had to go to work in St. Louis after that and only came home on the weekends. But other men looked for work in Pacific. Several deaths in the family were attributed to train accidents.

The brick house next to LeSaulnier Drug Store – later the Iron Gate Antiques – was “very old,” according to Eloise. “It was once a feed store and before the railroad came through we think it was a stagecoach stop.”

In Eloise’s lively prose, a series of love stories tie the various Pacific families together. Here is one terse paragraph.

“Jim Everett and his first wife, Anna, built the two-story white frame house on the corner of Union and Seventh streets here in Pacific in 1897. Jim’s wife was killed in a tragic accident in May 1904. She was hit by a train right downtown in Pacific, near First Street. Louise (Mayle) was working in St. Louis, but when Grandma Mayle died in July 1904, Lou returned to her father’s home to keep house and look after him while right across the street Jim Everett was mourning the death of his wife. What happened? James N. Everett married Louise Mayle in June 1905.”The amount of detail in the letters could make a small book on the history of Pacific, but what captured my fancy was the recurring reference to the Blue Goose.

Lyn had been born in the house that sat behind a handsome rail fence. He suspected that his mother Edna Mayle had also been born there. Lyn said the house survived to the early ’50s when Citizens Bank purchased it and tore it down to make way for a new bank building.

“Along with it went the big maple in the front yard, which by then truly was big,” Lyn wrote. “I’d guess the trunk must have been close to 3 feet in diameter.

Frederick Jacob Mayle and Louisa Naney “Nan” Reed Mayle bought the Blue Goose for $1,200 in May 1903, according to Eloise’s March 30, 1997 letter.

“It was a run-down tenement house at that time and was probably one of the oldest buildings in town,” she said.

Fred had the Blue Goose completely renovated and repaired and the family moved in April 24, 1905.

“I remember the grape arbor behind the house and the big maple tree,” Eloise said. “We were all sad about the place being torn down and I still think it was the grandest house in Pacific.”

Fred was a bartender at Leber’s Saloon and Pool Hall (which would have been located almost next door to the Blue Goose) before he had his store, Eloise said. “I suppose he thought he could make more money if he had his own business.”

Lyn remembered that change of professions a little bit differently. 

“Prohibition forced Fred to switch to running an ice-cream parlor, which we grandkids found most fortunate, even though the Depression surely dampened his dispensation of freebies. It was a popular gathering place, especially for the young school teachers that roomed with Fred and Naney after we moved out about 1930.”

Fred’s ice cream parlor was a one-story white frame building at the corner of St. Louis and First streets. The Smith family later operated Smith’s Confectionery on the first floor. They added the second floor where they operated a dance hall.

Lyn said that his family talked about a Civil War cannonball associated with the Blue Goose.

“When I was young we lived on the second floor of our grandparents’ house, the Blue Goose (which by then was painted white). During a minor skirmish of the Civil War, a 3-inch cannonball penetrated the house and put a dent in the hardwood floor of the upstairs hall. My mother, Edna, treasured the ball, but I have no idea what happened to it after her death,” Lyn said.

“The cannonball your family had was probably found stuck in the wall of the Blue Goose when Fred had it renovated before they moved in in 1905,” Eloise said. “The story in the paper said the house showed scars of two hits from Gen. (Sterling) Price’s cannon.”

In addition to the cousins’ memories of their grandparents home, Lyn still owned one piece of memorabilia from the Blue Goose.

“Still ticking away on our fireplace is a Seth Thomas mantel clock that belonged to Fred and Naney. It probably was a wedding present. If so, it is now (1996) 110 years old. When my mother died, I carried it in my lap on the flight from St. Louis to Seattle; it was far too fragile and precious to trust to the baggage handlers. We had it overhauled about five years ago and it now keeps perfect time.”

The cousins shared a small professionally made oval photograph of a boy of about 7 in white shirt, suit coat and bow tie, which they believed was Fred Mayle.

“I’m sending you the picture of the small boy that I think is our grandfather Fred,” Eloise wrote. “When I put it next to the photo of Fred as a young man the mouth, ears and set of the eyebrows are so much alike. I am anxious to know what you think.”

“You probably are right about the small picture you sent being of Grandpa Fred. The right ear seems to be a perfect match, and I’ve recently read that ears are as distinctive as fingerprints,” Lyn wrote.

And so it went page after page of marriages and deaths, trains and trees and ice cream parlors and a poignant photograph of lilac bushes that had belonged to Vira Jeffries, which had been spared when the Blue Goose was torn down and the bank was built.

A handful of lifelong residents will know all this, but for other readers I hoped it was worth sharing.

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This post is offered as a prelude to a history piece on the the building that stands on the wedge of land at St. Louis and First Street. For one brief period Fred Mayle’s Grocery occupied the site.