In 1908 Samuel Hill (1857-1931) bought 7,000 acres on these slopes. He planned a Quaker farming colony, surveyed a 34-block tounsite and built a church, hotel, store, offices, garage and shops. His engineers built ten miles of experimental roads; as Washington's first rural paved roads they proved Hill's zeal as a promoter of highways. Three miles to the west he began construction of an old-world chateau, which in 1940 was completed as the Maryhill Museum of Art. In 1918-1929 Hill constructed the Stonehenge replica, America's first World War I memorial, on the original site of his hotel. Fire eventually destroyed the buildings of the never-occupied townsite, leaving only Stonehenge, roads and stonework, and the Museum as monuments to the vision and energy of this public - spirit American.
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