Silliman's Papers
The documents page for danielsilliman.blogpsot.com.Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Town remembered for unusual name
BY DANIEL SILLIMAN
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SAPPHO — Halfway between San Francisco, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska, this little town with a Greek name died in 1972 when Rayonier Inc. moved its last offices.
The former logging railway headquarters and camp was left with three homes, a cafe and tavern.
The town was established in 1889 by Martin Van Buren Lamorex, the town’s justice of the peace and the one who named the town.
Initially the was town was a community of farmers, not loggers, with homesteaders moving in and working the land.
Sappho was too far from water to be useful to most smaller logging operations and the timber industry of the area didn’t develope until larger comapnies moved in.
Bloedel-Donovan Logging, the money and equipment to work a backcountry operation, moved into the area and logged the trees around the town.
Later, Rayonier made the area home and slowly the community’s industry shifted away from farming and became dependant on the company.
By 1972 the location was no longer important to the Peninsula’s logging industry and the company moved its last offices out of the town.
The town became nothing more than a stop for passing truckers and a strange name on the map.
Today, only a gas station and some derelict buildings remain of the town site at the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 113.
The unusual name had its roots in classical education — the study of Greek and Latin history, literature and languages.
Though far from Greece, Rome or the comforts of the “educated world,” the town in the middle of the forest was founded and named by a man with a classical.
Lamorex, an attorney and a justice of the peace, was a dedicated classical scholar. He named the town for his favorite Greek poet, Sappho.
Sappho, one of the few female poets of the ancient world, lived on the isle of Lesbos in 600 B.C.
Her poetry is known for emotion expressed in everyday language. She wrote songs of love and yearning, most often for other women, to be accompanied by the lyre.
BY DANIEL SILLIMAN
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
SAPPHO — Halfway between San Francisco, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska, this little town with a Greek name died in 1972 when Rayonier Inc. moved its last offices.
The former logging railway headquarters and camp was left with three homes, a cafe and tavern.
The town was established in 1889 by Martin Van Buren Lamorex, the town’s justice of the peace and the one who named the town.
Initially the was town was a community of farmers, not loggers, with homesteaders moving in and working the land.
Sappho was too far from water to be useful to most smaller logging operations and the timber industry of the area didn’t develope until larger comapnies moved in.
Bloedel-Donovan Logging, the money and equipment to work a backcountry operation, moved into the area and logged the trees around the town.
Later, Rayonier made the area home and slowly the community’s industry shifted away from farming and became dependant on the company.
By 1972 the location was no longer important to the Peninsula’s logging industry and the company moved its last offices out of the town.
The town became nothing more than a stop for passing truckers and a strange name on the map.
Today, only a gas station and some derelict buildings remain of the town site at the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 113.
The unusual name had its roots in classical education — the study of Greek and Latin history, literature and languages.
Though far from Greece, Rome or the comforts of the “educated world,” the town in the middle of the forest was founded and named by a man with a classical.
Lamorex, an attorney and a justice of the peace, was a dedicated classical scholar. He named the town for his favorite Greek poet, Sappho.
Sappho, one of the few female poets of the ancient world, lived on the isle of Lesbos in 600 B.C.
Her poetry is known for emotion expressed in everyday language. She wrote songs of love and yearning, most often for other women, to be accompanied by the lyre.
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