An Explorer's Curious Discovery in the Puyallup Valley
In 1878, a local explorer ventured into the uncharted territory of the Puyallup Valley, reporting back with observations that bordered on the absurd.
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.
Col. Morse, the intrepid explorer, has abandoned his open boat, and now takes to the unexplored wilderness in true tramp fashion. Returning, ever and anon, he crams his readers chock full with descriptions of the wonders he has seen and the lands discovered during his absence. After his discovery of Mukilteo, he shoved his explorations southward to a country which he named Puyallup. Here, to his astonishment, he found a race of people closely resembling the Caucasian, engaged in the cultivation of hops, hoop-poles, and onions.
“He found a race of people closely resembling the Caucasian, engaged in the cultivation of hops, hoop-poles and onions.”
Col. Morse's 'discovery' of the Puyallup Valley captures a moment of frontier myth-making, where established agricultural communities were framed as exotic 'wonders' to be mapped. Today, the rapid growth and transformation of the Puyallup Valley mirror the same tensions between historical landscape and modern development that observers in 1878 were trying to reconcile.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.