First Road From Fall City, Wa To Snoqualmie, Wa

[Road Warrior]

The First Fall City to Snoqualmie Road

 

This is the original route from 1883 built by pioneer Jeremiah Borst that went up to where the train depot would be built before the NP made it there. The road continued on to Snoqualmie Ridge and down into Snoqualmie and the Borst property.

 

This is the most feasible route to Snoqualmie from Fall City if you had to walk.

 

The depot was built there because it was the best place due to the terrain but also it was because (my opinion) it was on the new county road between Snoqualmie and Fall City. There was no need to build a road as it was already there.

 

Before that (1860s) The road was more of a cattle trail (while wagons could use it) from Fall City to the Borst Cabin over the Snoqualmie Ridge.

 

In the 1850s people traveled to Seattle from Yakama pass along the Cedar River. In 1867 the road was changed to North Bend and Fall City over the Snoqualmie River route to the Snoqualmie Pass. The Cedar River route remained a footpath. That section to the cemetery may have been started then.

 

From 1858 to 1865 Yakama Pass was referred as Snoqualmie Pass. Hence the confusion.

 

This all coincides with the incorporation of Fall City. Most of the current streets are from the 1880's. And that little strip of road up to the cemetery was an original section of the Snoqualmie road to the pass that connected to the Toll Road in 1883.

 

The Toll Road started at the Borst Cabin (about River street in Snoqualmie) then to Easton.

 

This is the reason I think it is important. As it is the very first road east out of town when the town was first settled. It stayed that way until sometime into the 1890s I am still researching that part.

 

Here are some of my findings to support my opinion.

 

I saw an advertisement that pioneer Jeremiah Borst was selling tracts of his land in the 80s. I forgot to save that one and can't find it when I looked again.

 

Borst in about 1877 had a vested interest in that section of road at the time. This is the year he have may begun the work.

 

This is a snippet from the Wagon Road Act of 1875.

SEC. 7. Whenever the sum of five thousand dollars shall have been realized, said commissioners shall meet as soon as practicable at the house of Jeremiah W. Borst, on Snoqualmie prairie, and after having been duly qualified as provided in section six, shall proceed to view and locate a road between the two points named in the first section of this act, by the nearest practicable route.

 

Said trustee shall also receive said ten per cent. of said net proceeds, and without delay pay the same to E. P. Boyles, George Taylor and S. R. Geddis of Yakima county, and Jeremiah W. Borst and Rufus Stearns of King county, who are hereby constituted a board of commissioners to superintend the expenditure of all moneys realized for the benefit of said road, under the provisions of this act.

 

He was to receive 10% of the proceeds for his work on the road. Even though the lotteries were cancelled I saw an article from 1878 that said $180 was spent on the road from the lottery proceeds.

 

He must have built it regardless, due to the fact he would become rich selling his land as the price would increase if there was a highway from Seattle that came through his property. There already was a cattle trail so it just needed improvements. That is why the maps shows a trail between Fall City and Snoqualmie in the 1873. In 1873 the map shows the road finished just past where the depot was.

 

This is why I believe that the strip is historically significant to Fall City and Snoqualmie.

 

This was the very first wagon road to link the two towns.

 

The maps show the abandoned road and the picture is from an intact part of it that leads up to the cemetery in Fall City. ( about 300 feet)

 

My Snoqualmie Road page is up but i need to rewrite the history part.

www.sunset-hwy.com/wagon.htm

 

Happy trails

Curt

 

[Keep the Show on the Road!]

Curt,

 

No one tops you in finding the old roads!!

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!!

[Road Warrior]

After more research this road was actually built in 1865. Because the Cedar River trail was too brutal to the animals and people who traveled on it. This road was abandoned in 1894 when the route was moved to the north of the river to Snoqualmie Falls.