Truitt Kendall Robe (1869-1949)

From the 1915 Washington legislative composite.

   A pioneer businessman and lumber dealer in the Granite Falls, Washington area, Truitt Kendall Robe was a native Missourian who first removed to the Washington Territory in 1886.  Earning a place here on the site due to his two terms in the Washington house of representatives, Robe is also one of the few odd name political figures to have a settlement named after him, the unincorporated community of Robe, Washington. Born in Cass County, Missouri on January 16, 1869, Truitt Kendall Robe was the son of William Restine and Mary Jessimah Robe.

  Removing to Adams County, Ohio with his family at an early age, Robe attended school in that state, being a student at the North Liberty Academy. He began a brief career as a school teacher in Manchester at age 17 before moving with his family once again, this time to Auburn in the Washington Territory. Following their settlement, young Truitt took employment as a clerk in a local store and later resigned to help his family run a hop farm they'd rented. 

  Beginning in 1889, Truitt Robe and his brother Campbell partnered with E.A. Stevens to form a shingle manufacturing business in Marysville, Washington, continuing in that business for nearly a year. Following a brief flirtation with railroad contracting, Robe joined the mercantile firm operated by Mark Swinnerton in Marysville, and by 1891 had been given the green light by Swinnerton to establish a branch of his store in the settlement of Granite Falls.

  The life of Truitt Robe is intertwined with the early history and success of Granite Falls, and following his settlement there operated Swinnerton's store, the first of its kind in the settlement. Robe would further aid the still young settlement by purchasing forty acres of land and "platting the original townsite of Granite Falls", which by the fall of 1891 consisted of 18 blocks, a two-story hotel, a grocery store, and a nearby railroad-tie mill. Truitt Robe married in Granite Falls in November 1891 to Ella Daisy Turner, then just seventeen years old. The couple's fifty-eight-year marriage saw the births of two daughters, Mildred Mary (1895-1975) and Doris Martha (1897-1977). 

  After leaving the employ of Mark Swinnerton, Robe made his first entrance into the lumber industry, erecting a sawmill with two partners, C.P. Last and W.H. Harding. After selling his interest to his partners, Robe went into business for himself, and after establishing his own mill along the Everett and Monte Cristo Railroad saw it develop into a major manufacturer of lumber and shingles. This flurry of activity also saw the town of Robe spring up around his mill, and by the turn of the 19th century was home to nearly 200 residents, as well as a post office. This area still exists today as an unincorporated community in Snohomish County.

  Following the dissolution of the sawmill operated by Last and Harding, Robe purchased that mill's machinery and received a work-related injury that necessitated a year-long recuperation. After regaining his health, Robe joined with Henry Menzel to form the Robe-Menzel Lumber Co., which would eventually consist of a sawmill, planing mill, and "30,000,000 feet of lumber." The business also added a railway for logging and transportation purposes. This firm would continue until 1910, and after Henry Menzel left the business, Robe followed him into a new business endeavor, the Coast Ice and Storage Company, a dealer in ice, ice cream, and dairy products. Robe would serve that business as its vice president, his full dates of employment being unknown at this time.

From the History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties, 1906.

   A longtime Republican, Truitt Robe entered politics in Washington as a member of the Snohomish County Republican Central Committee and was a delegate to various Republican conventions in the state. In 1912 he announced his candidacy for the Washington House of Representatives on the Progressive Party ticket and that November was elected. The 1913-15 session saw Truitt named to the committees on the Miscellaneous; Municipal Corporations Other than the First Class; the State School for Defective Youth, Reform School and Reformatory; and Township Organization. Robe won a second term in November 1914, polling 2, 861 votes and at the start of the 1915-17 term was named to several new committees, those being Counties and County Boundaries, Dairy and Livestock, Engrossed Bills, Federal Relations and Immigration, Internal Improvements and Indian Affairs, and Mines and Mining.

  After leaving the legislature Truitt Robe was a resident of San Juan Island, Washington, where he raised sheep for a number of years. His final weeks were spent battling rectal cancer and he died in Seattle on November 29, 1949, at age 80. His wife Ella survived her husband by well over a decade, and following her death in 1966 at age 92 was interred at the Wenatchee City Cemetery alongside her husband.