Highway Stop
On March 12, 1909, the town of North Bend officially incorporated in King County's upper Snoqualmie Valley, the ancestral home of the Snoqualmie Tribe. Located midway between Seattle and Snoqualmie Pass, the townsite was platted in 1889 by William Taylor as a railroad stop for the proposed Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad. The rail line never made it as far as the pass, but it did get built into North Bend, which helped the fledgling community prosper.
A half-century before incorporation, Jeremiah Borst settled in the Snoqualmie Valley and helped build the first wagon road over Snoqualmie Pass. Borst's niece Lucinda Fares and her husband, Joseph, were the first non-Indians to settle near the future site of North Bend, and the rich farmland and nearby timber soon attracted many others. Josiah Merritt, known to everyone as Uncle Si, arrived in 1862 and filed a claim at the foot of the massive mountain which now bears his name -- Mount Si.
In 1915 the Sunset Highway opened over Snoqualmie Pass, and for many motorists traveling to Seattle, North Bend was a welcome sight after trundling their way over the mountains. By 1936 the highway was paved, and more businesses that catered to tourist began to pop up. When Interstate 90 was completed in the 1970s -- following years of controversy over its route through town, during which a downtown traffic light often snarled cross-state traffic -- the highway was routed south of North Bend, but the town continued to grow. It has also achieved worldwide fame as the setting for Twin Peaks.
Houseboats Drop
On March 13, 1914, houseboat owners on Seattle's Lake Union got that sinking feeling when a dam burst during construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Within 24 hours the lake level dropped nearly nine feet, which in turn led to the collapse of the first Fremont Bridge, the precursor of today's orange and blue span.
Live-aboard vessels had been a common sight along the Seattle's central waterfront since the city's earliest days, but beginning in the late 1880s houseboat colonies began grouping at Madison Park and Leschi Park on Lake Washington, but predominantly in Lake Union. At the time of the 1914 washout, over 200 houseboats were moored on Lake Union's eastern shore. Almost all of them suffered some kind of damage after the dam broke, but most were up and floating once the lake waters rose again.
While the houseboat community often attracted a variety of colorful characters, they also drew the ire of nearby "uplanders" concerned over property values and water quality. Over the years, many attempts were made to outlaw houseboaters, but by the end of the twentieth century -- thanks to protective zoning laws -- houseboating was preserved as an essential part of Seattle's iconography ... almost.
