The Struggle to Open Snoqualmie Pass

Our most powerful antidote for the uncanny alleged ten-year compact of the railway manipulators is the successful demonstration by that king of enterprising pioneers, Geo. F. Smith, of Smith Bros. & Co., of Ellensburg, that winter travel may be maintained over the long-proposed Snoqualmie pass wagon road to Seattle. No clear-headed resident acquainted with the facts has ever been found to deny that a wagon road connecting Eastern and Western Washington via the Snoqualmie pass would be a great boon, but many have declared its maintenance without territorial or national aid an utter impossibility. When Mr. Smith dispatched men, horses and supplies to the mountains last fall with the avowed intention of keeping the trail open in order that beef cattle might be driven to Seattle directly and much more cheaply than by the long, circuitous Dalles, Portland and Kalama route, many were the predictions of financial failure. His brilliant success has swept all doubts as to practicability away.