The $500 Road That Would Save Snoqualmie Farmers a 60-Mile Detour
King County farmers petition for a short road and lake barges, arguing that a tiny appropriation would end a punishing haul to market—and noting that Pierce County is spending far more.
Strong petitions have been presented to the County Commissioners for a road from Snoqualmie to Lake Washington. The distance is about twenty miles, whereas by the present route of travel the distance is four times as great—by way of the Snoqualmie and Snohomish rivers and the Sound. The citizens of our own county living in the Snoqualmie region are compelled to take their goods in by the long route and bring their farm truck out the same way. They can either do this or come and go by the Renton road, traveling two miles of road for every one of actual distance, and over the roughest imaginable route. They ask $500 from the county, and say that if given this money, barges will be put on the lake, which will enable farmers to cross with their teams and wagons and drive into town. If what they say is true, and we believe it is, $500 cannot be better expended than as they ask. The county of Pierce alongside of us will probably appropriate $15,000 or $20,000 for roads this month, and Pierce County hasn't got on her roll one-half the property King has.
“If what they say is true, and we believe it is, $500 cannot be better expended than as they ask.”
In 1884, the argument was a $500 road and barges on Lake Washington; today, rural and exurban communities still bargain with county government over the small public investments that decide whether farms and small towns can reach markets. The comparison to Pierce County's road budget is an early entry in a long ledger of regional inequality.
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