The Battle for the Cascade Pass
Skagit County residents argue that the state’s proposed route for a cross-Cascade wagon road is a geographic absurdity designed only for political patronage.
Since the passage of the bill providing for the building of a road across the Cascade mountains from Whatcom to Okanogan county, the people of the upper Skagit valley have been wondering how it happens that the proposed road is laid out to go north of Mount Baker. It is a well-known fact that there is no pass north of Mount Baker, while on the other hand the Skagit valley offers at once a natural road to the heart of the Cascade range. The bill seems to have been rushed through without the knowledge of the Skagit county members in the legislature, and the people now blame Senator Edens. Residents of Lyman, Hamilton, and the prospectors of the upper river are interested in the proposed road, and a committee has been selected to go to Whatcom to confer with the state road commissioners.
“Unless this is done the $20,000 will go but a few miles in the difficult work of putting a road north of Mount Baker, and the result will be no road at all.”
The struggle for infrastructure across the Cascades has defined Washington politics since the 19th century. Just as in 1893, local control over mountain pass routing remains a primary point of friction for rural communities and the state government.
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