A Short History of the Upper Snoqualmie Valley
Written by Dave
Battey of the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Society and released for public use
Pre-Contact
About 5,000 years ago, soon
after the glaciers receded, humans first came to our Valley. The glaciers left a
fertile plain and a magnificent 300 foot waterfall. The river had been moved from
its ancient bed by the glacier and could not seek its natural level because of the
bedrock encountered at the lip of what we now call Snoqualmie Falls. Mountain goat
were plentiful on the crags; deer, edible bulbs, bracken fern roots and berries
were abundant on the prairie. Without salmon there was little to draw a permanent
year-round population above the falls, but as trade between the Native Americans
on the coast and those inland increased, the prairie of the Upper Snoqualmie became
a traditional seasonal rendezvous area. To preserve the prairie productivity the
Snoqualmie's periodically burned off competition, keeping the valley floor clear.
It was these cleared and fertile prairies that first drew white settlers to the
area.
Early Exploration
Samuel Hancock was looking
for coal when he hired a party of Snoqualmies to bring him up-river on a canoe trip
in 1851. Several others had preceded him, but they did not commit their impressions
to the pen. Just above the site of the current Meadowbrook Bridge, Hancock asked
his guides what they called the area. They answered, in Chinook Jargon, Hyas Kloshe
Illahee, which means a good (or productive) land. Samuel immediately recognized
the agricultural and timber value of the area, and took this information back to
his neighbors near what later became Tacoma.
The Indian Wars
Friction around Puget Sound
increased as white settlers claimed the cleared land which had been used for centuries
by the Native Americans for their naturalized bulb, berry and root crops. In 1856,
Puget Sound settlers feared that Indians east of the Cascades would become allies
of the coast tribes to annihilate the whites, so a series of crude wooden forts
were built, including Fort Alden at Meadowbrook (about where the current trailer
court is). No Indians ventured west and the forts were quickly abandoned.
Jeremiah Borst
In the spring of 1858, Jeremiah
Borst, a twenty-eight year old man on his way to Eastern Washington over the Cedar
River trail, decided that the Valley was too good to pass up. He settled down in
what was left of Fort Alden to become the legendary "Father of the Snoqualmie Valley."
(He owned land in what is now Snoqualmie and North Bend, and platted Fall City)
Jeremiah raised hogs and apples for sale in Seattle, and slowly bought up land from
less successful pioneers. In 1863, the steep trail on the south side of Snoqualmie
Falls was improved into a road and the transportation of goods to and from the Valley
became easier.
Early Logging
As Borst and others farmed,
a few tough pioneers began logging and milling operations. The first local mill,
run by water power, was opened at the mouth of Tokul Creek about 1872 by Watson
Allen. By 1877 there were twelve logging operations on the Snoqualmie River. Some
logs were floated over the falls and down- river to Everett and the Sound. By 1886,
logging camps on the river employed 140 men and sent millions of board feet of logs
down stream.
Hop Farming
Three Puget Sound partners
formed the Hop Growers Association in 1882. They purchased land from Jeremiah Borst
in the Meadowbrook area, and soon expanded to over 1500 acres, about 900 of them
in hops. The Snoqualmie Hop Farm was billed as "The largest
Hop Ranch In the World," and was head-quartered at Meadowbrook. Hop growing flourished
for about a dozen years, and then world market conditions and aphid attacks brought
an abrupt decline into the late 1890's.
The Railroad
By 1889, Puget Sound entrepreneurs, tired of railroad barons bypassing Seattle and environs, had funded and built their
own railroad, the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, into the Upper Valley in a
premature attempt to cross the Cascade mountains. This opened up our agricultural
and timber resources to the markets of the world, and began the influx of tourists
who still flock here to enjoy our beautiful scenery. In 1890 the railroad completed
the still attractive Snoqualmie Depot.
North Bend & Snoqualmie Platted
With the railroad came a
feverish speculation in Upper Valley land. North Bend was platted by Will Taylor
in February of 1889 (as 'Snoqualmie'), and Snoqualmie was platted in August of 1889
as 'Snoqualmie Falls' by Seattle interests. Tradition states that the first lots
in Snoqualmie were purchased by Edmund and Louisa Kinsey. With their six children
they built the first hotel, livery stable, general store, dance hall, post office
and meat market. Edmund helped build the first church in Snoqualmie - the Methodist
Church building that is now the American Legion hall, and his name is engraved on
the church bell. Two sons, Darius and Clarke earned lasting fame for their photographic
legacy of pioneer Northwest timber operations.
Power Plant at the Falls
In the late 1890's a Civil
Engineer named Charles Baker (who platted Snoqualmie in 1889) engineered and built
the underground power plant at Snoqualmie Falls - which produced both electricity
and local jobs. Baker's original generators are still spinning today. A small company
town, including a railroad depot, grew at the Falls to house workers. Expansion
in 1911 added a second power house around the corner below the Falls.
Snoqualmie's Incorporation
Snoqualmie voted for incorporation
in 1903. A series of recessions and obstinate developers had created a challenging
environment for the new town council, which met above Harding's store. Lots were
still $300 each, as they had been in 1889. In defiance of these high prices, citizens
had built on street rights-of-way and on vacant lots. Dozens of buildings were in
fact "squatting" on unpurchased land. The lot price was lowered and a long abatement
procedure began to move barns, mills, stores and domiciles out of the public right-of-way.
The result was a town much as we know it today.
Meadowbrook Farm
As hop ranching slowed,
other types of agriculture flourished on the fertile land of the Upper Valley. About
1904, the farm was sold to A. W. Pratt, who, with Angus J. Moffat, managed Meadowbrook
Farm, mainly as a dairy, into the 1950's. As agriculture rapidly declined in the
mid-1960's, a group of local investors purchased the farm. In late 1993 the bulk
of the remaining property was purchased by Snoqualmie and North Bend as passive
open space, using funds from King County Conservation Futures bonds. This purchase
creates a permanent buffer, wildlife habitat and flood storage area on the Valley
floor between Snoqualmie and North Bend.
Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company
In 1917 the second all-electric
lumber mill in the nation opened at the new company town of Snoqualmie Falls, built
across the river from Snoqualmie. The economy of the Valley was given a significant
and stable employment base. As World War I funneled mill workers away, they were
replaced by soldiers to keep essential wood products, which included spruce for
airplanes, in production. By 1923, A. W. Pratt was
platting the Meadowbrook addition to Snoqualmie, and the Snoqualmie area was growing,
including the construction of a brick hotel, movie theater and new bank building
(now City Hall).>
Post Great Depression
The building boom in Snoqualmie,
which included the erection of the brick-fronted buildings now housing the drug
store, lasted until the Great Depression, which hit bottom in the Upper Valley in
1932. Salaries and wages fell, but the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company mill (now
Weyerhaeuser) still continued to produce throughout the hard times.
World War II and the post-war
boom increased the lumber requirements of the nation but also increased personal
mobility. The building of US10 (Now I-90) bypassed the towns of Snoqualmie and Fall
City and curtailed economic opportunity. Fortunately, the highway continued through
the center of downtown North Bend for some years before the current bypass was built.
The Upper Valley increasingly lost her sons and daughters to the urban centers,
but was encouraged by the opening of a new Weyerhaeuser plywood plant in 1959.
By 1958 the bulk of the
homes at the mill town of Snoqualmie Falls were moved to other places in the Valley,
including a group that moved across a temporary bridge to the William's addition.
Snoqualmie had stabilized by 1960 to a population of 1,216, which grew slowly to
1,546 over the next thirty years, an average growth increase of just eleven persons
per year.
Historical Attractions Are
numerous and close between; you can do a scenic back road driving tour with 16 interpretive
signs that tell of the land and people of Snoqualmie Valley. Travel through the
Valley's past and present visiting the following
- The Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum with displays of historical photos and artifacts
- The Snoqualmie Log Pavilion in the downtown historical railroad depot and log milling display.
- Meadowbrook
Farm, a native American Village site which became the worlds largest hop ranch.
- Reinig Road Sycamore Corridor. This is tree-lined Main Street of the former company town of
Snoqualmie Falls.
- Mill Pond: Snoqualmie Mill's former log holding pond now home to a variety of fish
and wildlife.
- Tobul Creek Site of a Native American fishing camp and Valley's
first sawmill.
- Snoqualmie Depot and Rail Way Museum: Its mission is to develop and operate
an outstanding railway museum where the public can see and understand the role of
railroads in the development of the Pacific Northwest, and experience the excitement
of a working railroad.
- Fall City Waterfront: The final upstream landing for early
steamboats on the Snoqualmie River.
