Whitman Bay - Forest to Metropolis

[cemaphon 0]

Introduction and Overview

I've been reading these journals for years but never got around to posting one myself. I like making cities that have a natural growth and a sense of history to them, so that is the approach I am taking to the CJ as well. Currently, the Whitman Bay region is home to 4 small towns, but I plan to grow it into a fairly large city. I have way too many downloads to list, or even remember, but I'll try to point anyone to BATs they like. I would like to offer a general thank-you to everyone who creates them. The amount and quality of custom content for this game is truly amazing, and has kept the gameplay fresh for years.

I love maps as much as I love history, so here's a map! (yes, primitive image editing for the time being - I'll see what I can do about this.) This is a resized and tweaked version of the really elegant Gotham map from the stex, but here in the CJ it is part of the Olympic Peninsula to the west of Puget Sound in Washington State.

Whitman Bay is an estuary formed where the Olalla, Pielle, Cedar and Black rivers flow into Puget Sound. (This is not a real map, but it is the most logical geography for the region.) The low-lying areas near the Pielle and Olalla are some of the most productive soils in the Pacific Northwest, and are farmed extensively, while the thick timber stands between the Black and Cedar Rivers provide the other main industry - lumber. The red areas on the map are the four towns in the region. They are, from south-north:

Whitman -  A small farming community.

Glanton -  County seat for Olalla County, and the largest town in the region.

Holden -  A company town set up for the benefit of the nearby Holden Sawmill. Since the coming of the automobile and labor laws, most of the mill employees live in Glanton, and Holden has become a depressing slum.

Novgorod - Originally a Russian settlement, it's now a small farming town on King's Island with a majority Chinese population (any good American-style Chinatown downloads around?)

The blue areas are government land - the small triangle of land in the south is Richmond Beach State Park, the peninsula north of that is Federal land held in reserve, and the mountainous area up north is part of the Olympic Mountains National Park.

Another map!

Yep, it's griddy alright. I know some of you don't like grids, but these are western American towns from the 19th century. The Federal land grants and sales were parceled out in square lots, so the roads and land development tended to reflect this underlying structure. The original plat for the city of Tacoma was designed by an architect with all sorts of ahead-of-his-time concepts like loop roads and natural contours. He was laughed out of town and a proper gridded plat was drawn up immediately. Fortunately, there is a lot of terrain to work around, and colliding municipalities, so it shouldn't end up too monotonous. 

North of Holden, you can see a logging trail going up into the mountains. The Northern Pacific railroad to Tacoma is hard to see on this map, but it runs along the south bank of the Olalla River, skirts the eastern and northern edge of Glanton and crosses the Cedar river at that island ending at Holden.

Enough introduction. We'll meet the towns in later updates, but I'll leave you with some pictures of the oldest non-indigenous settlement in the region:

Fort Richmond - This fort and accompanying wh

[LilFlipper 0]

the region looks amazing, good start so far ,i really like your pier / waterfront, can

[KingTitan 6]

Looking great cemaphon

Congrats on your CJ...Looks wonderful.. I love terraforming and maps as well. Great stuff friend.

[Benedict 3,119]

Ah, the start of a thoughtful CJ - right up my alley! And 2 posts in 3 years - that's impressive on the lurker scale

[penguin007 27]

Great start there I love the region youre using

Will

[fern244 1]

Yes, i love it, i cannot wait for an update!

[Teeparex 6]

A promising start! The region view looks quite realistic so far.

[jacqulina 162]

great start and intro my friend,very nice region.love the boardwalk,great use of pegs things.very nice work and pics

[bbfan02 23]

I love the use of Pegasus' products. I can't wait for more pictures of all of the cities!

Keep it up,

-bbfan02-

[Schulmanator 5,787]

This is a very promising start to your CJ!

[2nerdy4u 1]

I like it. Great start.

[cemaphon 0]

Replies

Thanks for the welcome everyone - a few specific comments:

LilFlipper, Jacquilna and bbfan02 - Yeah, Pegasus makes nice lots. Skyscrapers could take awhile unless I start getting impatient.

Benedict - Heh. Who knew I had another post?  I suppose I should start commenting on other journals. I've been reading them long enough.

Teeparex - That property buying scheme in your CJ is clever.

[cemaphon 0]

Holden

It's not the nicest part of the region, but it is one of the most historically significant. Prior to 1851, the only settlements in the area were the tiny British garrison at Fort Richmond and the abortive Russian colony of Novgorod. But in 1849, gold was discovered in California and San Francisco grew from 1000 to 25000 people in a year with no signs of slowing down. In 1851, a Vancouver (WA, btw - Vancouver BC was not yet founded) shopkeeper named Doc Holden realized there was money to be made supplying lumber to the booming gold towns, and acquired financing to build a sawmill and small settlement on Puget Sound in the newest part of the Oregon Territory.

Finished lumber was rolled straight out of the mill onto ships that would take it to Olympia, where it was transferred to rail. Doc Holden was able to use native labor for logging, but the demand for finished lumber quickly outpaced the capacity of his original expedition, so he looked for a way to attract more settlers.

In 1854, the sawmill bought the nearby homesteads, and built several blocks of cheap housing. These houses would remain the property of the mill, but free lifetime leases were offered to settlers who would work at the mill for 15 years, This attracted a number of settlers, and business boomed, especially since San Francisco kept burning down every few years. These days, most of the millworkers live in nearby Glanton, and Holden has turned into a squalid slum.

The few commercial businesses in Holden today.

This is the modern sawmill complex. The old mill is mostly used for storage and repair of industrial machinery these days.

Well, that's Holden. It ain't pretty, but it's where it all began. Next update will be the much more attractive and pleasant Glanton.

[penguin007 27]

Nice update I agree that its not pretty but not everywhere is pretty and the area around it looks good enough

Will

[2nerdy4u 1]

Great work. That place sure is ugly (in a good way)!

[bbfan02 23]

Great update, I love those suburban back allies. Cant wait to see more pictures!

-bbfan02-

[Skram 4]

This cj is very nice looking!keep it up

[palin1388 0]

Nice cj. The region looks awesome and I cant wait to see the city and regions grow and this cj as well. keep up the good work.

[Cleaner475 150]

very nice pics - you've got a great cj so far

keep it up,

Richard

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Well crafted slum. You do ruined logging towns well. Also, I love the region.

[Benedict 3,119]

Excellent logging mill, and I always enjoy seeing depressed areas as they are so rarely seen in the CJ section.

[OffTopic 3]

Wow, the lumber mills look very cool. Nice update.

[cemaphon 0]

Replies

penguin007, 2nerdy4u, edmonton_stinks, Benedict - I always try to make sure I have a good slummy area going on. Totally pristine cities don't seem real to me unless they are those suburban "planned cities" (and even those can start getting pretty run down after awhile)  And it was fun to make one that wasn't a NYC-style tenement slum. Here in Seattle, most of the really poor neighborhoods are largely single-family houses.

Offtopic - Yeah, I agree they are very nice sawmills. I'll probably leave the old one around as an historical museum when the rest of the area redevelops.

Cleaner475, palin1388, Skram, bbfan02 - Thanks for the kudos.

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work on the logging mill ect great work and pics my friend

[cemaphon 0]

Glanton

This is Glanton, the county seat of Olalla County and the largest city in the region.  In the 1870's, Northern Pacific created a rail line from Olympia to Holden. As a result, the excellent but remote farmland in the river valleys became accessible and were gradually developed. A few canny homesteaders realized that the peninsula where the Pielle, Olalla, and Cedar rivers converged would be a great place for a town, so they pooled their land and incorporated in 1880, using a typical township-derived gridded plat.

Most of the civic buildings in town are centered around 5th and Main Street.

The simple brick town hall building was built in 1885, but was quickly overshadowed - in 1889 Washington became a state, Glanton became a county seat, and was allocated funds to build an elegant neoclassical county courthouse and administration building.

Glanton has diversified its economy beyond farming. Businesses line main street for several blocks...

while warehouses and light manufacturing have developed along the railway ringing the town. There is also a fairly large industrial area just south of Glanton across the river where many residents work.

There are even a few modern corporate offices along 1st street.

Glanton boast a few impressive mansions, largely owned by the descendants of the original founders, who made a fortune as their land holdings skyrocketed in value. A few are owned by the more successful business owners.

Our old friend, Doc Holden built this beautiful Second Empire house with the profits from his sawmill.

The owner of this Mediterranean-style mansion was bankrupted, and the house split up into apartments.

A typical middle-class block. Why do so many people build swimming pools on the edge of a rainforest? (As an aside - does anyone know of any good Craftsman-style residential downloads? There are tons of these in Seattle, and I would like to incorporate them. The dark brown house in the lower-left is close, but I'm really looking for some single-story bungalows.)

The northern edge of the town is mostly made up of smaller house and even a few rowhouses.

No small town would be complete without its high school.

That's all for now. Next update are the two smaller farming towns of Whitman and Novgorod.

[Cleaner475 150]

nice update, the school looks very nice - so do the houses - nice update

keep it up,

Richard

[penguin007 27]

Nice update the choice of buildings in the city give it a unique character

Will

[bbfan02 23]

I like the use of the custom content! And also nice middle wealth houses! Where did you find them?

Keep it up,

-bbfan02-

[2nerdy4u 1]

I like that road with the poor houses and that school in the last pic. Nice job.

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Good that you like to make things realistic. Slums can be an art form.

Great use of the Smalltown stuff, and I like the medium wealth suburban blocks. bbfan02, I believe that most of the non-Maxis houses are the American Four Squares by homefryes, which are available right here on the STEX.