The Unofficial Toll-Taker of Snoqualmie
A traveler recounts the frustration of navigating a mountain pass where a local rancher tried to charge for a road he didn't even maintain.
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.
To the Editor: I see in your paper a defense of Beard, the man who tried to collect toll on the Snoqualmie road. I would like to state that the road connecting Western and Eastern Washington is not as it should be. Four young men, of whom I was one, arrived at North Bend on the 28th of June and found several families waiting for the road to be opened. We hired Beard to ferry us over, but found that he was not making any effort to have the road opened himself. After we camped for a week, four wagons containing women, children, and men came through; they started from the fifteen-mile crossing after us and had worked all this time clearing the road. When Beard came over later to work a bit on a bridge, he took it upon himself to collect toll from those passing. Coming back, we paid, but felt that if anyone should have toll, it should be the poor fellows who actually cleared the road, not Beard.
“If any one should have toll it should be the poor fellows who cleared the road, and not Beard.”
The perennial struggle to maintain mountain passes like Snoqualmie has been a vital part of Washington commerce for over a century. This dispute highlights the early reliance on private citizens for critical infrastructure and the inevitable friction that created.
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