Eastside Stories
Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.
Before modern building and development most of the Eastside was covered in dense forests. Much of the Pacific Northwest was the same. The difficulties of traveling and settling in such forests was only complicated by the mountainous regions to the east, known as the Cascades.
Those bold enough to travel into the forests and mountains of our region including Snoqualmie Pass went for the sake of opening new territory, searching for resources to exploit for monetary gain, and adventure. The famous Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled across the Cascades via the Colombia river to the south of us. The motivations for their travel was much the same as many to come before and after them a search for resources and mapping of a new territory. Others would come searching for new territory and resources to the west, either for their nation or personal gain.
An example of one of these entrepreneurs is Samuel Hancock who gives one of the first written records of the area around Snoqualmie. In search of coal with Native Americans who were knowledgeable of the area as guides, Hancock learned of Snoqualmie Falls. Intrigued by what he was told about the waterfall Hancock asked to be led to the falls where he recorded the following information in 1851; “We went right alongside the cataract* in our canoe and beheld a most imposing spectacle, though the roar was almost deafening. The river has a perpendicular fall of about 170 feet, with a surface at the present stage of the water not more than 30 feet broad. The banks upon either side of the basin, where the cataract deposits itself, are perhaps 200 feet high, and so steep that it is impossible to climb them.” This imposing and impassible picture of the Snoqualmie region shows the attitudes of European colonizers moving to the area during early settlement.
This imposing view however did not keep those traveling in and to the United States from eventually making their way into the Cascades to look for resources and potential money-making opportunities. 20 men hacked out the first road through Snoqualmie Pass in the late 1800s and although Hancock visited nearly 40 years before they were the first to report seeing chunks of coal in the pass. As the road reopened after the Puget Sound War of 1855, colonizing settlers went looking for coal, finding it in Newcastle, and Issaquah. As far away as Denny Creek, A.A. Denny and Jeremiah Borst found iron ore in 1862. Tipped off by Native Americans who obtained red pigments for paint there, Denny and Borst staked their claim on indigenous land.
Many people moving into the Cascade Mountains and traveling through during the second half of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s were looking for opportunities to strike it rich like this. Even after they were settled communities did not miss a chance to enhance their opportunities to make money. When the Gold Rush proved to be profitable it encouraged the creation of the roads through the mountains that would funnel travelers with money to spend through preexisting communities in the mountains and valleys to the west. These roads are passageways through the mountains we still have today including Steven’s Pass, and of course Snoqualmie Pass.
* A cataract waterfall is created when a large amount of water moving very quickly drops off a cliff to form the falls. It is determined based on the size and power of the waterfall.
Photo (above) :The 1930s postcard shows the Snoqualmie Falls and tells us the fall is 268 feet high.
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