Olympia and Thurston County, WA History
 
 

Tono, Washington

Located in Thurston County, three miles SE Bucoda,
SE/NE Section 20, T15N, R1W
 
 
 

Main Street, Tono Washington, ca1913

Town of Tono, 1913
UW Special Collections:  Washington Localities Photograph Collection

 

Excerpted from Postmarked Washington: Thurston County by Guy Reed Ramsey:

 Washington Union Coal Company, owned by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, mined coal for railroad locomotives at Tono.  The town residents worked at the mine and bought their groceries at the company store.  They bought stamps and money orders and received and posted their mail at the post office in the company store.  Of course the mail was transported by the railroad.  The postmaster met the train and toted the mail pouches to the post office but the distance was not great, only about a hundred feet.  The post office had a large number of boxes for the cabinet was secondhand, having been secured  from a much larger office.  Some postmasters were mine superintendents, but did no postal work themselves for they delegated it to their store managers or clerks, consequently many of the surviving patrons still think of the latter as postmasters.  Eddis Engle was postmaster of Glenavon before coming to Tono.

    The mine was leased in 1932 to Bucoda Mining Company and the store was closed.  This forced the post office to close.  Many Japanese worked on construction of the railroad spur leading to Tono, and it was related that one of them suggested the name "Tono".  But the meaning is unknown.
 

Ramsey, Guy Reed.  Postmarked Washington: Thurston County.  Olympia: Thurston County Historic Commission, 1988, 95-96.
 
 
Panorama of Tono, ca1909

Tono, ca.1909: Looking north from mine area.
Art Dwelley Collection
 
 
 

Tono HospitalTono Hospital Interior

Tono Hospital, 1913
UW Special Collections:  Washington Localities Photograph Collection



 
 
 


$.25 Scrip$.25 Scrip
$5.00 Scrip$5.00 Scrip
 
 

Washington Union Coal Co. Store Scrip



Images from UW Digital Collection
http://content.lib.washington.edu/index.html


Looking Northwest, 1909 [142kb]
Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection Reference no. 15084

Looking Southeast, 1909 [145kb]
Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection Reference no. 15083

Looking Northwest from the bunker, 1909 [134kb]
Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection Reference no. 15085

Loading Coal from the Bunker, 1909 [180kb]
Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection Reference no. 15082


 

Updated November 2, 2001