The Intellectual Oasis of Vashon Island
Before the ferry commutes, Vashon Island was slated to become a Chautauqua-style summer retreat for the Puget Sound literati, offering a 'pleasant retreat' for scholarly quietude.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Arrangements are being made for a summer retreat on Vashon Island, midway between the two principal cities of Puget Sound, where the expectation is that those handled thousands will find a pleasant retreat and constitute a daily congregation before which some of the best talent of Puget Sound and Oregon will deliver lectures. Rev. B. B. Dilworth, on whose land the assembly is situated, will facilitate the venture. The residents of Vashon have already cleared several acres of the underbrush and will provide all necessary watering places, etc. Persons coming to stop overnight must bring their own bedding, blankets, etc. The grounds are being cleared for the assembly, to rent for $2 per week.
“Those handled thousands will find a pleasant retreat and constitute a daily congregation before which some of the best talent of Puget Sound and Oregon will deliver lectures.”
Long before Vashon became a bedroom community and tourist haven for Seattleites, it was envisioned as a center for the 'Chautauqua' movement—a cultural phenomenon of self-improvement and mass education. The island's shift from a site of scholarly retreat to a high-priced residential enclave mirrors the broader struggle of regional space in the Pacific Northwest, where 'pleasant retreats' are increasingly replaced by suburban sprawl.
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