The Struggle for the Snoqualmie Road
Citizens push to finish a vital mountain artery before winter, citing the need for local growth and migration.
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.
Renewed interest is reported with reference to the Snoqualmie wagon road upon the part of our most enterprising citizens. Last spring when the project was set on foot, the railroad outlook was blue and the wagon road was in high favor. Later in the season, when the early advent of the locomotive was confidently expected, public interest lagged. The burden of building devolved upon the projectors of the enterprise who pushed the work with vigor. A number of teams and horsemen, together with droves of live stock, have passed over the route during the season, but managers have been unable to open the road by October 1st as intended. A country without direct means of ingress and egress cannot gain the growth to which its advantages entitle it; by failure to open the road, both Oregon and Idaho have received large acquisitions to their population that belonged to Washington Territory. Even now, the wagon road people are making strenuous efforts to complete the rock work around Lake Keechelus to keep the road open for sleigh and horse travel during the winter. To do this under present weather conditions is a heavy drain upon the few purses that have been freely opened in behalf of this undertaking.
“A country without direct means of ingress and egress can never gain the rate of growth to which its other advantages entitle it.”
Long before I-90 connected Seattle to the Eastside, the dream of a reliable crossing over the Cascades was the primary obsession of Seattle boosters. The desperate plea for a mountain road to keep local markets 'enlivened' mirrors the modern, eternal struggle to manage regional transit and the flow of people across the mountain barrier.
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