The Battle for the Puyallup Road
After a heated argument between commissioners and local boosters, the new state aid road will bypass Milton-Edgewood for a more direct route through Puyallup and Sumner.
The new state aid road, to be built from Tacoma to the King county line, will go via Puyallup and Sumner instead of by the Milton-Edgewood route, as threatened by the commissioners. Such was the decision arrived at late Saturday afternoon after a lengthy argument between the commissioners, representatives of the Commercial club, and citizens of Sumner and Puyallup.
“Such was the decision arrived at late Saturday afternoon after a lengthy argument.”
Infrastructure routing has always been a point of contention in Pierce County, where decisions about where roads go often dictate which towns thrive and which struggle. The 1909 debate over the Puyallup-Sumner corridor echoes contemporary debates about transit expansion and highway bypasses in the Puget Sound region.
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