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Address

Afterglow Drive
Friday Harbor , WA 98250

Hours

Every day Dusk - Dawn

Review

Roche Harbor's Afterglow Mausoleum stands as a tribute to John S. McMillin and his family. McMillan is the founder of Roche Harbor, located on San Juan Island.
It’s safe to say that John S. McMillin wanted to be remembered as family man. A late 19th and early 20th century industrialist, McMillin founded the Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Company on land that later became the site of today’s Roche Harbor resort. He and his wife, Louelle, had five children, and in the woods north of Roche Harbor, there stands a mausoleum that McMillin had built to honor his family.

Afterglow Vista, as it’s called, is not your run-of-the-mill mausoleum. As you approach the forested monument, you’ll think you stumbled on a misplaced bit of Rome. A circle of pillars rises high over a limestone table around which sit seven stone chairs. Everything at Afterglow is symbolic from the winding stairs leading to the table—that represents the winding path of one’s life--to the broken column on the memorial’s west side. That’s an ode to the "unfinished state of man’s work when the string of life is broken." A proud Methodist, Republican and Mason, McMillin turned to the Masonic Order when he designed the mausoleum. One chair is conspicuously missing-—the one in front of the broken pillar--and local rumor has is that that’s symbolic of one of McMillin’s sons who married out of the Methodist religion.

Getting to Afterglow Vista requires a half-mile walk through forest, which is interesting in its own right. The trail snakes through a wooded graveyard in which several graves are surrounded by wrought iron or picket fences. It’s an easy trail to follow with plenty of signs pointing the way to the mausoleum.
Written By: Mike McQuaide
On: 10/21/2000

Directions

From Friday Harbor, head 6 miles toward the northwest tip of the island via Roche Harbor Road. Turn right at the intersection with West Valley Road and continue about another mile to the intersection with Afterglow Drive. Turn right and park just ahead on the right. Find the trail about 100 yard further on Afterglow Drive on the right.

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