The Great Thaw: Mountain Snows Turn Every River Into a Rampage
An unusually cool spring held a winter's worth of snow until a few hot days sent it all down at once, flooding the Skagit, Cowlitz and Columbia, drowning farmland and putting Portland under water.
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.
The results of the unprecedented fall of snow in the mountains during last winter are now being realized in the greatest floods ever known in the country at this season of the year, with corresponding damage to crops and improvements. The uncommonly cool spring and first part of summer held the snows in check in a great measure until within the past ten days, when a few hot days set all the mountain streams booming. The Skagit river raised above all past recollection. Mining operations upon that river and its tributaries are indefinitely suspended; booms of logs have broken away and floated out to sea; dykes have been broken or overflowed upon the Skagit and Swinomish, and it is estimated that 2,500 acres of grain in that vicinity are wholly or partially destroyed. The principal sufferers are C. J. and J. Chilbery, James C. Laughlin, Samuel Calhoun, Nels Ju Chilling, James Powers, Kennedy estate, Cornelius estate, Inches Brothers, Burns Brewster, J. Mudder, Charles Tallant, Holrooke, Ole Paulsen and Peter Olsen. The Cowlitz river is higher than ever before known at this time of the year. The lower Columbia has overflowed thousands of acres along its banks, and the destruction of growing crops is immense. The town of Freeport, and all the flat country around it is submerged. The residents of that locality have fled to the hills for safety, driving their cattle before them. Kalama is under water and steamers connect with the Tacoma and Kalama railroad on the Cowlitz. The bottoms between the Clackamas river and Oregon City are overflowed, doing considerable damage. Sauvie's Island and Columbia slough are completely submerged, as are also the farms on the west bank of the Willamette below Portland. All the lower part of the city of Portland is under water and elevated sidewalks are erected for passengers. But very little damage has been done by the flood in this vicinity, including the bottom lands on Duwamish, White, Black and Cedar rivers. Railroad travel has not been obstructed, though the water is slightly over the rails in places.
“The Skagit river raised above all past recollection. Mining operations upon that river and its tributaries are indefinitely suspended.”
Washington still floods when warm rain falls on a deep mountain snowpack, but now the valleys are far more built out. The same rivers that drowned in 1880 — the Skagit, the Cowlitz, the Columbia — are the ones whose levees and floodplain zones dominate emergency management today, with development having multiplied the cost of every high water.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.