A Mysterious Cyclone Tears Through the Cascade Mountains
An eye-witness report describes a straight, 40-rod-wide path of destruction cut through the forest near North Bend, leveling timber and blocking mountain roads.
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. H. Jose, of North Bend, brings further particulars of the storm in Cedar valley last Saturday night. 'At North Bend,' said he, 'a couple of barns and the lake shore depot were blown down and some small buildings and a few fences prostrated on Lake prairie. A broad path forty rods wide was cut through the forest, extending from Cedar lake at the head of Cedar river northward in a nearly straight line as far as the eye can see. Everything was laid flat in the path of the wind. It was undoubtedly a cyclone, as the trees are lying cross-cross in every position and not an upright one. The cyclone then went over the mountain and struck Grouse range in Snoqualmie pass, prostrating all the timber in its course and utterly ruining three or four claims. Several cabins were demolished there and a number of large trees were uprooted and blown about. Seven or eight trees were piled upon Fred J. Anthony's house, and the Snoqualmie toll road was so blockaded that a man coming over it lost his way in the woods trying to go around the debris.'
“A broad path forty rods wide was cut through the forest... Everything was laid flat in the path of the wind.”
While Seattleites today are more accustomed to atmospheric rivers and windstorms, the 1893 report of a 'cyclone' in the Cascades highlights the extreme vulnerability of early infrastructure. The 'straight-line wind' or tornado event remains a rare but documented phenomenon in the Pacific Northwest, reminding us that even the deepest mountain forests are subject to violent, sudden shifts in weather.
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