Hiking the Great Northern Rail Grade
A grueling five-day foot journey from Wenatchee to Snohomish reveals the raw, volatile life of the 'mushroom towns' springing up along the railroad's path.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A reporter returned Sunday from a trip on the line of the Great Northern railroad from the Columbia River to the Sound, made entirely on foot. The reporter left Wenatchee on September 26, carrying only a blanket. Passing through the rough settlements of Mission and Peshastin, the reporter arrived at Icicle, a town of 75 people deep in the woods. Icicle has a hard name; saloons and gambling houses run full blast day and night, and railroad laborers regularly lose their wages there. Farther on, the reporter reached the summit camp of engineers C.P. Smith and Watkins. At the west side of the switchback, Stevens City has sprung up, boasting a drug store and hotel. Martin Creek has also gained notoriety as a gambling den and a hotbed for thugs, where men are frequently robbed and even murdered in the solitude of the forest. The journey ended 31 miles east of Snohomish, where the reporter caught a construction train, having witnessed the immense, thunderous progress of the transcontinental line.
“As a gambling den and resort for thugs, [Martin Creek] has first place among the towns on the line... the rays of the sun scarcely ever penetrate to the log houses of the town, and in the gloom and solitude of the surrounding forest many a man has been relieved of his pocketbook.”
The 'mushroom towns' described here were the fleeting, violent outposts of a massive industrial project. Today, the rough-and-tumble gambling camps of Stevens Pass have been replaced by the quiet, seasonal economy of ski resorts and hiking trails, though the history of the brutal labor and rapid displacement remains etched into the landscape of the Cascades.
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