The Dairy Boom on the Horizon
An 1878 vision for the Snohomish and Skagit river valleys predicted a massive transformation of the region’s landscape into a world-class center for cheese production.
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.
A few days ago, M. W. Packard, the enterprising publisher of the St. Lawrence County Republican, a large weekly paper published at Ogdensburg, New York, paid a visit to Snohomish. Although Ogdensburg is the chief business center of that county, Snohomish presents a marked contrast in many ways. It is impossible that the time should ever come when, within five miles of Snohomish, a dozen cheese factories could be counted that would have a patronage of over 5,000 cows, yet it is not only possible, but entirely feasible and could be accomplished within 20 years by less than one dozen men who each had $10,000 capital. There is here better soil, better climate, and a better market. To be sure, it will take a few years to clear up and improve some of the huge marshes, to get a stock of good cows and train a good class of milkers. Should farmers turn their attention that way, and leave for fruit and vegetables all the land best fitted for those crops, and only take that land on which the dairy business would pay best, there would be enough land better suited for dairy farming than anything else in Snohomish and King counties to support at least 200,000 cows in connection with cheese factories.
“It is not only possible, but entirely feasible and could be accomplished within 20 years by less than one dozen men who each had $10,000 capital.”
This 1878 article captures the exact moment settlers began viewing the Snohomish and Stillaguamish river floodplains as an industrial agricultural resource rather than wild bottomland. Today, the struggle to balance dairy farming, land development, and environmental restoration in these same valleys remains a central tension in Snohomish County politics.
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