The Road to Nowhere: State Engineers Concede There Is No Pass North of Mount Baker
After burning $6,000 on twenty miles of trail, state road commissioners admit the Hannegan and Austin passes are impassable—and the legislature must decide what comes next.
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.
WHATCOM, Aug. 6.—State Road Commissioners Cryderman and Dobbin returned today from a personal examination of the so-called Hannegan and Austin passes, north of Mount Baker, on the proposed route of the trans-Cascades road. Their written report to the secretary of the commission fully confirms the statements made by the Whatcom correspondent of the Post-Intelligencer on July 22, that the county and state commissioners had been grossly misled by the report of the Austin-Lyle party, which was sent out by the county commissioners previous to their appropriation of $5,000 in the spring. Assuming this report to be reliable, without taking any steps to verify it, the state commission had twenty miles of road and trail built on this side of the mountains last year up the North Fork of the Nooksack, at a cost of $6,000, which is now of absolutely no value, except as a county road in an unsettled country. The report of the commissioners says: 'Both passes lead to ... there is no pass from the Baker to the Skagit, except by following the Baker down to its mouth. The examinations carried on since June 15 have made it certain that there is no feasible route north of Mount Baker, as the law requires, and we can do no more work in extending the road eastward without further action of the legislature. Therefore we have discharged the few men we had at work clearing out the road to the twentieth mile-post. ... It is greatly to be regretted that the cruisers last year assumed they could cross on tributaries of the Skagit flowing in the above canyon, without proving their work. The road agreed upon from the east to the mouth of Ruby creek is all right, but there it must connect with the present trail down Skagit canyon. If Whatcom county is to have connection it must be via the south fork of the Nooksack to Lyman, on the Skagit. We have photographs of Hannegan and Austin passes, also the lowest pass from Baker to the Skagit, taken during the past week, which will show clearly the uselessness of any further work in this section unless the legislature acts in the matter and directs the work to be done as suggested.' The Wellman party, which has been exploring up the south fork, also returned today. Their report has not yet been filed, but it is understood that it will be favorable to the route via Lyman and Skagit canyon, as suggested by the commissioners.
“There is no pass from the Baker to the Skagit, except by following the Baker down to its mouth.”
The 1894 commissioners discovered that a road promised on paper—and built for twenty miles—led into snowfields and glaciers. Infrastructure boondoggles still begin with optimistic surveys and political deadlines; the question is who pays when the route turns out not to exist.
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