Snoqualmie timeline

A brief stroll through the city's history

CALENDAR

1850s

1855: Point Elliott Treaty signed by the Snoqualmie and other tribes, cedes all the territory from Elliott Bay to Canada to the United States.

1856: Fort Alden is built and abandoned a year later; soldiers are the area's first white residents.

1858: Jeremiah Borst, "Father of the Snoqualmie Valley," homesteads in the abandoned Fort Alden.

1860s

1865: First tourist expedition to Snoqualmie Falls. 1880s

1881: Snoqualmie Hop Farm started. 1889: Original plat for the town of Snoqualmie Falls filed; railroad comes to town; railroad officials shorten the town's name to Snoqualmie, forcing what was Snoqualmie to change its name to North Bend; first Snoqualmie Falls hotel built; Snoqualmie Post Office opens.

1890s

1890: Railroad depot built.

1892: Hop-louse infestation wipes out hop industry.

1899: Power plant goes online.

1900s

Early 1900s: Snoqualmie Hop Farm becomes Meadowbrook Farm.

1903: Town of Snoqualmie incorporates on May 18; first jail built; fire takes the Snoqualmie Falls Power plant offline for 36 hours.

1908: Snoqualmie Falls Power sold to Seattle-Tacoma Power (forerunner of Puget Sound Energy).

1910s

1910: First U.S. Census of Snoqualmie reports 279 residents.

1916: Construction of the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. mill and the mill town of Snoqualmie Falls started across the river from Snoqualmie proper.

1917: Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. mill No. 1 cuts its first log; soldiers protect the mill and woods as strategic defense material during WWI.

1918: Lumber mill No. 2 begins production; first Snoqualmie Falls Community Hall opens.

1919: Snoqualmie Falls Lodge built (becomes the Salish Lodge in 1987).

1920s

1920: Snoqualmie Falls Hospital opens.

1929: Renig Road Sycamore Corridor planted.

1930s

1930: Snoqualmie Falls Community Hall and lumber mill No. 2 burn and are rebuilt; electric streetlights in downtown installed.

1934: Ten million board feet of lumber supplied for the Coulee Dam.

1936: Totem pole erected.

1940s

1942-45: WWII increases demand for lumber.

1947: Last logging camp closed.

1948: Nelems Memorial Hospital opens; Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. merges with Weyerhaeuser.

1949: Earthquake causes a wall of rock near the Snoqualmie Falls Lodge to tumble into the gorge.

1950s

1958: 90 houses moved across the river from the old mill town via a temporary bridge.

1960s

1961: Weyerhaeuser mill No. 2 closed.

1968: Observation deck at the falls built.

1970s

1971: Snoqualmie Falls Community Hall closes.

1974: Rail service to Snoqualmie ceases.

1980s

1989: Weyerhaeuser mill No. 1 closed; Snoqualmie Centennial Log Pavilion built.

1990s

1990: Flood forces City Hall to move.

1997: First Snoqualmie Ridge houses completed.

1999: Federal government formally recognizes the Snoqualmie tribe.

21st century

2003: Last log processed at Weyerhaeuser plant; centennial celebrated.

Compiled by Nyssa Rogers. Sources include:

"A History of the Snoqualmie Valley" by Ada S. Hill; Weyerhaeuser Snoqualmie: Seventy-fifth Anniversary Timeline; www.historylink.org;

"A Hidden Past: An Exploration of Eastside History"; U.S. Census; "Snoqualmie: Centennial 1903-2003" by Dave Battey; www.wsdot.wa.gov/hq/library/History/chron.pdf