Just east of Seattle, across Lake Washington, nestled in the hills next to Cougar Mountain, south of Bellevue, west of Issaquah, and north of Renton, is the small City of Newcastle, Washington. It’s truly a beautiful area and one of my favorite neighborhoods.

Newcastle incorporated in 1994, but its history goes back 140 years. In the 1870’s it was a thriving coal mining community and soon boasted a population larger than Seattle for a time. My family has roots here. 

My grandparents were immigrants. My grandfather George Fabre arrived here in 1912 from France, and Pauline Longville, my grandmother came with her widowed mother and brother Emile from Belgium in 1906. They met in Black Diamond, another coal town about 30 miles due south in the newly formed King County.

One of my favorite family stories about George and Pauline was how they met. Great Grandmother Celine Boulanger (Longville) came to Black Diamond and setup a boarding house for the miners. Celine, true to her namesake was also a fabulous baker. She built a huge adobe oven and became a local legend, known for her baked breads and pastries. Pauline helped her mom run the place (and I can testify to the fact that she too, was an absolutely fantastic cook and baker in her own right). Besides being very attractive, I have no doubt why George fell for Pauline! 

As newly weds they moved to Newcastle and lived in the company owned town. My Uncle George was born there in 1919 and later my dad in 1921, in the company owned town. I confess that my knowledge of our family history is somewhat weak. My Grandparents I think wanted to forget the hard life of coal mining and never talked about it, so I don’t know very much about this time.

I got on Ancestory.com and found the 1920 census. There you’ll find George Sr., Pauline, and George Jr. Dad wasn’t there yet, but there are a lot of relatives and names of people I knew growing up; the Baima’s, Delauranti’s, Thirion’s, Rubattino’s, and the Banchero’s to name a few.

I also found the 1930 census and the Fabre’s and family have all moved to Renton. I thought it was interesting that all the relatives and almost all of the neighbors had stayed so close together through the years and the whole clan in Newcastle picked up and moved to Renton, many of them within the same neighborhood. My Grandpa George became a contractor, and so did my Grandmothers older brother Emil (whom we always knew as Nono). Both of them, as independents, built an amazing number of nice homes in Renton through the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Newcastle has grown, like most rural areas around here with a close proximity to Seattle. Yet it still maintains a rural flavor with a population of about 10,000 residents. Because of the Cougar Mountain Reserve, several huge ravines, a few rural corridors, trail parks, and a lot of hills, much of it still seems (almost) like the country I remember as a kid.

Some of the areas most stunning views are looking west over Lake Washington and Mercer Island right into downtown Seattle with the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop. You won’t find any humble immigrant coal miner’s anymore. Newcastle, especially the east half in zip code 98059 is now mostly very high end homes, with a lot of very well to doers in residence.

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