The Muddy Road to Progress

We heard from one of the farmers of Green River, who came down here yesterday, that the settlers in that section propose to cut a road through from that place to White River. The farmers on Green River and the upper White River anticipate the building up of a thriving little town at the Puyallup coal mines and expect there to find a market for most of their produce. According to his theory, most of the trade from that country will soon find its way to Tacoma by reason of the railroad.

He says the farmers of that section have no means of reaching Seattle during most of the year over land. If there were a good wagon road, he says it would benefit them much. Our informant came down with his team and reports the road in a tolerably fair condition until he reached the head of the Bay, but from that point down to Main Street the road is a literal mire through which the horses waded more than knee-deep in the mud, and several times were actually mired. And the worst feature of this is the most impassable portion of this beach road is actually within the city limits. We cannot, however, attribute this to real negligence on the part of our citizens; they have contributed liberally toward the improvement of this road, and there has been money enough thrown away on its improvement, had it been expended wisely, to secure one of the finest pieces of road in the Territory.