Our paper’s 100 Years Ago Today had this: “Several autos made it over Snoqualmie Pass ‘under their own power,’ marking the opening of the rocky, treacherous highway for the summer. One auto driver said that he made the drive from Seattle to Yakima in seven hours.”
What intrepid travelers they were in 1918! This image is from HistoryLink.org, the website for Washington State History.
I recently found a set of letters that my grandfather, Boyd Thompson (Tommie), wrote to my grandmother Katherine Stevens (Steve) before they were married. I discovered my grandpa worked in Kennewick, WA with his brother one summer in 1927. He traveled over Snoqualmie Pass and stayed in Port Townsend.
Toppenish, Wash
July 18, 1927
Dear Steve,
Wish I had you here last Friday when I arrived home – rather to Kennewick. I would have reenacted the kitchen scene from Flat # 2 – and believe me! You better do better by next Sunday or I will entirely cease to scratch to you. Now – are you properly frightened? Don and I made the round trip in six days- one day less than we had planned. We crossed the Cascades by way of a pass that sounds like Sno – kol – mie and had a pretty trip. The trees were the largest I had seen. We saw a waterfall 272 feet high in a good sized stream, stopped at a fish hatchery and saw some trout that almost made me wild – etc. etc. There we crossed the desert to Spokane and spent half a day in Northern Idaho. Very pretty there. But it is too hot Dear to do anything but quarrel here so I’ll tell the story. I am visiting an uncle here and will go back to Kennewick Sunday.
With Love,
Tommie
My ancestor’s cousin (Nathan W. Preston) and two other men from Ellensburg formed a toll road company over Snoqualmie Pass back in the 1880’s. See “Seattle and Walla Walla Trail and Wagon Road Company” at http://www.historylink.org/File/10383