F.A. Martin House: A Reminder of Centralia’s Glory

The home at 729 N. Washington Ave., commonly known as the F. A. Martin House, will be the first residential home to be nominated to the newly created Centralia Historic Register when official applications are released on Sept. 4th.

The Centralia Historic Register has just recently been passed by the City Council.

The home was the residence of former Centralia City councilman, county commissioner, Republican state representatives, Elks and Masonic fraternity member, and prominent do-good citizen Frank A. Martin and his wife, Mellie Hubbard. The couple and their only daughter frequently graced the society pages of local publications.

Now the home is owned by Phillip Brooke, a former Pierce County Landmarks Commissioner and newcomer to Centralia. He purchased the home in April, and has been working on getting the house landmark-ready for when it will be put on the historic register.

“Centralia is such a remarkable, beautiful place,” says Brooke. “It needs to be reminded of that.”

In many ways, the work of Frank Martin is still visible in Centralia, so many years after his death. Martin headed up the initiative for paved roads and sewers, most of which have remained intact. At the time, Tower Avenue and Pearl Street were the central part of the city, and Martin played a key role in shaping them.

“One of the really cool things about Frank Martin is that when he was on the city council from about 1905-1910, he was one of the councilmen responsible for getting the sidewalks and sewers created,” Brooke says. “He’s responsible for a lot of the infrastructure out here. So you look at a lot of the old curbs and sidewalks, and those were all his doing at the time. He really played a huge role in the development of the city in the early century.”

“He was very civic-minded,” Brooke said. “Thats why he rebuilt his factory after its fire; to preserve the jobs in Lewis County. Parts of the mill he owned are in the Lewis County Historical Museum with a little plaque that says ‘H. H. Martin Lumber Co.’”

In its heyday, the F. A. Martin home was often referred to as the ‘Wedding Cake House’, due to its three-tiered design and white exterior. This is fitting, considering that it was a wedding gift from F. B. Hubbard to his only daughter (Mellie) and son-in-law (Frank). Built in approximately 1906, the home was erected specifically for Frank and Mellie by her father, who owned the Eastern Railway and Lumber Co. (where the materials for the house were purchased), and whose house sits adjacent even today.

There is also a concrete “milk run,” still intact, that divides the two houses, where horses and their buggies would be tied up when the grocer delivered his wares. The hitching post looks much as it did when Frank and Mellie were the ones having their milk delivered.

“Every house has its folklore,” Brooke said. “It’s cool to be a steward of his home.”

The house’s past hasn’t always been so peaceful; in one of the large front windows, there is a bullet hole that was supposedly inflicted by a Wobbly supporter during Centralia’s Armistice Day Massacre in 1919. The hole was never repaired, due to Martin’s stubborn attitude, as legend has it.

“It’s been like an oral history for the home owners.” says Brooke. “Everyone always talks about how stubborn Frank Martin was in not fixing it, but I think the interesting part of the house’s history is the romantic aspect.”

Frank and Mellie died within three months of each other, and are buried under the most prominent headstone in Washington Cemetery, right next to George Washington, the founder of Centralia.

Fitting for a lumberman and his wife, two trees were planted at the head of their gravestones that still stand today and are almost the exact same height, though they now tower over every other plant in the cemetery as a reminder that the history of Centralia is still influencing today’s world.