Snoqualmie

 First off, it's Sno-qualmie'  not Sno-qual-A-mee. How often have we said it incorrectly?

While my family has lived in Spokane since 1955, and over those years have made hundreds of trips over Snoqualmie Pass, we never got to experience it as it was in those first early days. (Thank goodness.) But in all the years since 1955, I cannot recall one trip where there was NOT road construction. Can you???

In the beginning, the only way the first Oregon Trail wagons could get through the Cascades was via the Columbia River. The clamor for a road across the Cascades became increasingly persistent. Washington's first governor, Isaac Stevens, back in 1853 was convinced that an old Indian trail over Snoqualmie Pass was the most feasible route. But nothing was immediately done due to Indian hostilities and lack of funds. In 1861, Congress voted $75,000 for a road but then the Civil War broke out and the funds were diverted. 

Tillman Houser was the first to get a wagon over the narrow winding trail through stands of giant Douglas Fir. In 1868 he left Tacoma in a wagon loaded with cargo, wife and 3 children and headed east. "After much exasperating toil....." the family reached Snoqualmie summit. Once over the summit they built a raft, loaded the wagon onto it, and poled the 3 mile long Lake Keechelus "to more favorable slopes at its outlet." The Houser family reached Ellensburg "only" after 3 weeks of travel, staked a homestead and stayed put. (Small wonder.)

The 1909 Seattle-Pacific-Yukon Exposition in Seattle created a big demand for road improvements as tourists flocked west. Finally in May 1915, a real road over the summit became a reality. It still took nearly a day to travel the short distance between Ellensburg and Seattle. But the primitive condition of both the road bed and the vehicles barely slowed the progress of east-west or west-east travel. 

If you'd care to read more, I recommend The Pacific Northwesterner, Vol. 21, Summer 1977, article by John Prentiss Thomson. 

We are now so blessed to have the WDOT live camera on the pass so we know to the minute what conditions are............ on the multi-lane paved highway. The only rocks being in sight are uphill!