On the Other Side
A Trip Over Snoqualmie Pass and in the Cascade Mountains
A description of the road through Snoqualmie Pass, the Swauk Mines, the Peshastin Quartz Mines, the Wenatchee Country Etc.

Seattle Post Intelligencer
October 18, 1879

From an Intelligencer Correspondent
Ellensburg, Kittitas Valley, Yakima County, W. T,
Oct. 6, 1879

Next to a railroad over the mountains, the question of perhaps the most vital importance to Seattle is a wagon road from that place over this pass to the Kittitas valley. Although this matter has been more or less agitated for years, it is a very long time since any description has appeared in print of the route or the cost of making the present cattle trail a wagon road. Therefore, in crossing, I took considerable pains to note the various features of the route and to consult with persons who had used the trail the most frequently as to the cost of making it a wagon road.

There exists a good wagon road via Renton and Cedar river to Squak valley. It is presumed that but little more will be needed, besides what is being done this fall, to make a wagon road from Squak valley to Falls City. From there to the crossing of Snoqualmie river, opposite Mrs. Lucinda Gordon's place on the prairie, is a passable wagon road; so that this wagon road may be said to be substantially completed for a distance of 42 miles from Seattle to this point.

This crossing of the Snoqualmie should be bridged. It will cost from three to live hundred dollars to bridge it here. From this crossing the road runs through a level country, with only one small hill for six miles. Here the road needs no work done, unless to ditch on each side and throw the dirt into the middle of the road in some of the lowest places. This would cost but a trifle; so that by bridging the Snoqualmie the road is substantially completed for nearly fifty miles from Seattle.

Here comes one of the most formidable obstacles on the west side of the summit. It is a mountain a thousand or fifteen hundred feet high and quite steep. The present cattle trail is too steep for a wagon road. A practicable route exists where the ascent can be made in about four miles, and the present road along the Hog's back regained on the summit. It will cost not to exceed five hundred dollars to cut out and grade this new road to the summit of this first mountain.

The Hog's-Back is about two miles long where the road runs along the top of a narrow crest, which slopes down each side of the road for hundreds of feet as steep as a railroad embankment. Fifty dollars spent in breaking up boulders with a sledge hammer and in grading would put these two miles in excellent condition. From here to the first crossing of the Snoqualmie it would cost about two hundred and fifty dollars to till up marshy places, to drain and raise the roadbed in wet places, and to break the big boulders in rocky places. This would make what is now the worst part of the road substantially a good macadamized road.

This would be completing the road half way to the main summit of the Snoqualmie Pass, including a bridge across the Snoqualmie at Gordon's for thirteen hundred dollars. Here, halfway to the summit, is quite a tract of bottom land on the Snoqualmie river, that would produce good pasturage if cleared, and might raise hay, although it is so elevated. Here the trail, in a distance of three miles, used to cross the Snoqualmie river thirteen times, now it crosses it eleven times.

A new trail is cut out around these bends three miles long that avoids all these crossings but one. This new trail can be made a wagon road for five hundred dollars, at most. From where the road leaves the river here to the main summit it is some ten miles. It runs along the western slope of these mountains for eight and a half miles, here there are a few trees in the main trail and boulders in some places, with pieces where the roadbed is mashed quite badly, but the road is on quite a good grade; many small bridges exist, and it would be but a small job to clear out what little fallen timber is on the trail.

From fifty to seventy dollars per mile would be sufficient to clear out the trail, drain the roadbed, break the boulders, fill up the mashed places, and make a practicable wagon road to the crossings of the Snoqualmie high up in the mountains, almost to the summit. Here the river is too small to need bridging. Formerly, in one mile the trail crossed the river five times; now it crosses but twice These crossings can be improved by breaking or rolling out of the way the larger boulders its the bed of the stream. One hundred dollars ought to put this part of the road in good condition.

From the last crossing of the Snoqualmie it is two and a half miles to the summit of the pass. Here are a great many boulders in the road bed and some places all the earth is washed from around them, while on the summit the road is wet and needs draining. Four hundred dollars would he ample to drain the wet places, mash the boulder and put this part of the road in good condition. That is to say, the expenditure of twenty-eight hundred to three thousand dollars would complete a good wagon road from Seattle to the summit of the Snoqualmie Pass, a distance of something like 75 miles.

On the eastern slope of the pass it would not require over fire hundred dollars to grade anew the worst portions of the road and put it in good condition to Lake Keechelus, a distance of five miles. This lake is some five miles long, in coming from the Sound the trail goes to the left of the lake. One branch of the trail goes over the top of a very high and steep mountain, while another goes under a rocky precipice not far from the edge of the lake. This is the most difficult portion of the whole route, as for a mile or so there is considerable rock blasting necessary to make a wagon road.

Various persons give different estimates on this work, some place it as two thousand dollars, others as low as one thousand. Probably men could be found who would complete five miles of road here for fifteen hundred dollars. From Lake Keechelus to Ellensburg is something over fifty miles. There is a passable wagon road for twenty-five miles, and probably two hundred dollars would make it a fair road the rest of the way, with the exception of bridging the Yakima river twice.

For late summer and fall travel no bridging is required. This could be until all the rest was completed, One thousand dollars would build these bridges; or, in other words, from twenty five hundred to three thousand dollars would build a road from the summit to Ellensburg, without bridging the Yakima, and not to exceed four thousand with bridging. Thus from six to seven thousand dollars would open a fair road, over which loaded teams could travel. It would rot require over a thousand dollars per annum to keep this road in good repair and improve it some each year. Wheat is now 30 cents a bushel here, and many articles are double what they would be now in price if the people could buy in Seattle.

The opening of this road would increase the business of Seattle one-third. It would be cheap to that place at thirty thousand dollars; yet for one-fourth of that sum a passable road could be constructed, over which for one-third of each year a four horse team could haul 3,000 pounds of freight each way. For less than two hundred dollars per month such a team could be kept on the road. It could make two trips per month to and from Ellensburg. Now freight costs some four cents per pound from salt water here. This necessarily makes home products very low and imported goods very high. With this road opened, nearly every considerable farmer would make one or more trips to Seattle each year, when he would take a big load both ways, besides most of the merchants here would get their goods in Seattle.

E. M.

(Editor note: Could E. M. stand for Ezra Meeker?)