Let me tell you about 9811 17th SW where this colorful mural is taking shape. I used to own that building. It was my home away from home as the White Center News office for nearly 25 years...

When we bought the paper it was on Roxbury in a building which now houses a restaurant and the offices for the Velling
Family Dentistry.

The old building started out as a Chinese restaurant on 16th S.W. and 98th S.W. and which caught fire when the owner was using gasoline to clean the hood on the oven.

Bud Atwood and Oren Artlip owned the Ranch Market across street on 16th S.W. and bought the burned out hulk and then traded it to me for advertising . I had the damaged hulk dragged down to 17th S.W. where it became the White Center News after a lot of remodeling.
The sign was refurbished and placed on top.

The building next door which now houses Malo Auto Rebuild was the original White Center Feed Store, moved from quarters on 16th S.W.
For awhile, we had customers coming in the front door of our newspaper office trying to buy oats and hay. We offered them an annual subscription instead.

On our north side, our neighbor on the top floor was Dr. Roy Velling.

One summer day I was walking from my car to the front steps. Suddenly I was doused with water. It was a cloudburst and came from the sky. Or so I thought. Peeking out of his second story office I spotted a grinning Roy Velling and he was waving a huge turkey baster. He got this turkey splat on the side of my head. I should have retaliated but the office hose would not shoot water far enough up hill. I decided to postpone revenge.

Our remodeled office served us for about ten years till we grew out it and built a two-story concrete block building on 14th S.W. and installed a big new offset press and a second building for an office and newsprint storage on 13th S.W.

Pete Desimone owned a huge steel Quonset hut down the street from us which much later became the White Center branch of Seattle First bank.

The first month I arrived in town, in 1952, I was invited to attend a girlie show put on by one of the service clubs at Pete's Nightclub. I never had been to one so I took my camera and was going to take some pictures. I was a babe in the woods. First they turned down the lights and then the scantly glad girlies put on their show. The devil made me do it. It was dark so I popped a flash bulb picture and held the camera against the wall behind me so when the ladies of the night ordered the lights back on I was safe.

After the show I went home.

I later learned Sheriff Callahan raided the place and grabbed a bunch of slot machines.They tried to grab a reel of French movies but several fleet-footed local businessmen got the film out the back door.

Those businessmen all are history now but would have skinned me alive if they knew I had a camera. I never did develop that film.