Rudene, John O.

The following data is extracted from History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 1889.

JOHN O. RUDENE. - This owner of a very productive farm two miles from La Conner, Washington, on the Swinomish flat, whose name appears above, is a native of Sweden, having been born there in 1850. At the age of twenty-three he came to America, locating in Iowa, until his removal across the continent to the Pacific coast in 1876. He selected a farm near La Conner, buying one hundred and eighty-one acres, to which he has since added two hundred. This fine body of land he has reclaimed from its original wild growth, and has reduced to cultivation. The deep, fine alluvium is astonishingly prolific. Oats and barley may be depended upon for from seventy to eighty bushels per acre; and an average of ninety-five bushels for a field of eighty acres has been obtained. hay yields four tons, and is a profitable crop, usually selling for from ten to twenty dollars. Fruit, particularly the hardier kinds, such as apples, yield too heavily for the strength of the trees. Cabbages and root crops are immense. This now productive place was entirely raw when its present owner first saw it, not a claim having been taken upon the section. His success in making it productive shows something of the future lying in wait for the thousands of farms like it to be made on the coast side of the mountains.

Mrs. Rudene, Bessie J., a daughter of W. Wallace, the well-known pioneer, came with her parents to Oregon in 1845, and in 1850 located with them at Olympia, removing the next year to Whidby Island, and becoming one of the first residents of that delightful region. Her three children by a former marriage, William, Arthur and Nellie M. Cornelius, live on the farm, the first being married. Mr. Rudene was elected county commissioner in 1886, and bears a full part in all public enterprises. He has great hopes for the future of that region.

Source: History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 1889

  Go Back