The 1895 Plan to Straighten the Sammamish River
A petition from H. K. Kelsey and forty others asked King County to drain, deepen and straighten Squak Slough, reclaiming 3,000 acres of overflowed land.
The petition of H. K. Kelsey and forty others for the formation of a drainage district, comprising the Sammamish river valley, sometimes known as the Squak slough, which connects Lake Washington and Sammamish, was filed with the board of county commissioners and referred to the prosecuting attorney for advice as to mode of procedure. The petition is made in conformity with the law passed by the last legislature, all former laws having been declared unconstitutional by the supreme court.
The petitioners ask that the Squak slough, which is a sluggish, crooked stream, be widened, deepened and straightened. If done according to the petition, the length of it would be reduced from twenty-five to fifteen miles, and about three thousand acres of valuable alluvial soil, at present overflowed, would be reclaimed. The county has already made extensive surveys, which can no doubt be used under the new law, and a considerable expense saved thereby.
“About three thousand acres of valuable alluvial soil, at present overflowed, would be reclaimed.”
The same Sammamish River that was straightened and diked for farms in the 1890s is now the focus of salmon-habitat and floodplain restoration. The petition captures a familiar Northwest argument: whether to engineer a river for development or let it behave like a river.
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