Stuck Valley Farmers Demand Action Against Annual Flooding
Decades before modern flood control, Stuck Valley farmers sought relief from log jams and the rival interests of King and Pierce county commissioners.
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 committee of farmers from the Stuck Valley country called upon the county commissioners this morning in relation to the division of the excess of water coming down the White and Stuck rivers. The division of the water of these two rivers has been a matter of contention between farmers in King and Pierce counties, whose lands are inundated yearly by the freshets caused by the rains and melting snow. A breakwater was put in some time ago, at a cost of several thousand dollars, but it did not accomplish the results desired, for log jams would form and the water, according to the location of the jam, was sent into one or the other of the streams, to the detriment of the property lying along the banks. The farmers are now making a new proposition: they will ask the commissioners to appoint two men to keep the White river at the forks clear of log jams, so that the water will take its natural course. It is not unusual in the spring to see families living in the valley compelled to live on the second floor of their houses or be driven out altogether for days at a time by the high water.
“The farmers have grown so sick at heart at seeing their property destroyed... that they are now making a new proposition.”
The struggle to manage the White and Stuck Rivers defined the landscape of the Puyallup and Stuck Valleys for generations. Today, while massive engineering projects have tamed much of the flooding, the vulnerability of these lowlands remains a critical topic for regional environmental planners and agricultural preservationists.
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