King of Iron Mountain: A Trip Inside the Fred Sanford Fiefdom of a Vigilante Ex-Cop

A sign recently appeared outside Chuck Pillon's house that's raised the eyebrows of his neighbors. It reads: For Sale.

"I don't think it's for real," says Julie Hardebeck, who runs the Coalfield Boarding stables next to Pillon's property. "I think it's just to throw the county off."

Julie and her husband, Jack, have a right to be incredulous. Pillon's been their neighbor since 1977 in the Coalfield section of May Valley, an unincorporated area of King County east of Renton. So far, all of Pillon's movements have indicated a process of entrenchment, not a wait-for-the-sweet-development-deal-and-cash-out maneuver. After he moved in, for instance, Pillon flattened his hilly property with dirt and various refuse materials.

Julie thinks Pillon's landscaping job opened up an underground stream, because her stables promptly flooded. "The horses were standing in water in their stalls," she says. "Every year since then, it's been a problem."

Then the rubbish haulers started coming. Broken-down automobiles would appear at the base of Pillon's driveway—then vanish. Lawn workers would chug up the hill with loads of debris and come away smiling with empty truck beds. A friend of Julie's who visited Pillon's place gave her an insider's view: "He said there was a guy sitting there in the middle of the driveway with a chair and a table, taking money from people," she recounts.

That guy turned out to be a Vietnam vet named Skippy, one of several homeless people who had taken to living on Pillon's land.

As time passed, the Hardebecks were alarmed to see an advancing wall of commercial washing machines, semis, and sailing vessels—patrolled by barking dogs—threatening to crest onto their own land. Beyond, the verdant rural pasture had died. In its place came twisted construction material subbing for shrubbery, truck hulks for boulders, sandblasting material for grass, and horse poop for dirt.

The locals began referring to Pillon's project as Iron Mountain. It was not a slope for beginners. Bonfires flared up on its face, sending smoke columns miles into the sky and firefighters into their engines. A nasty lavalike liquid flowed through, too. Susan Clarke, a water-quality compliance manager for King County, tested one of the ponds Pillon built in his junkyard and came up with nearly 500 times the fecal coliform count present in average storm water. She believes the contamination was a result of Pillon's composting efforts.

"His feeling was by mixing this barn waste and taking these cars he's wrecking and putting them in this pile," Clark recalls, "the metals and bacteria are all going to work together and take care of each other."

County inspectors gave Pillon his first fine—a lien of $16,000 for the hill flattening—in the early '90s. At that point, Pillon took the opportunity to tell The Seattle Times: "If the county wants a war with Charlie Pillon, they've got a war with Charlie Pillon." Nowadays, the war tab's up to about $120,000 in fines and two criminal charges, with at least seven county and state agencies breathing down Pillon's neck. "One time, they brought seven code-enforcement officers up my driveway," says the 66-year-old Pillon. "It was like a field trip, a training day."

For all its threats, the government's impelled the junkman to pay just $13,623. Pillon continues to accept solid waste and vehicles against legal decree, and has also humiliated area bureaucrats by tackling public-safety projects that he claims certain agencies are too lazy or stupid to do themselves. These include dredging flooding wetlands, destroying salmon-conservation projects, and building a new highway turn lane from scratch. He hasn't been jailed for any of these alleged malfeasances.

If indeed there is a war on, all signs point to Pillon winning. Except for that For Sale sign on Pillon's property: Jack Hardebeck reports that the real-estate company listed on it is legit. Could it be that the King of Iron Mountain is poised to wave his white flag after all?

On a January afternoon, Pillon conducts a tour of Iron Mountain. Using a road fortified with old carpet and ground-up roofing material, the brawny, bearded ex-cop stomps through crusted waves of mud, his work gloves flopping in his butt pocket.

He points out a truckload of asbestos-tainted roofing material, which he plans to dispose of "as soon as I can afford the dumping fees." Beyond that is his million cubic feet of compost, which is enriched with a bucket, a boat, and a bulldozer. Farther off is a triple-drum yarder. Pillon towed the big rig home himself, navigating the narrow streets in a less-than-professional fashion. "We took off every mailbox from May Valley Road to my house," he boasts.

Pillon finally arrives at his most treasured possession: a 1941 Mack fire truck. About 20 years ago, one of Pillon's many tipsters—a guy named Snodgrass—called him up and said, simply, "I got a fire truck for your ass." Pillon and his younger brother, Kenny, a lieutenant with the Renton Fire Department, planned to restore it and ride it in local parades.

"We used to laugh about who was going to get to drive the goddamn thing," says Pillon. "I told him I'd drive, and he could run the hoses."