[LakeCleElum]

Stevens Pass - The Gateway to Seattle - by JoAnn Roe

For you history and railroad buffs:

Stevens Pass has always had an aura of mystery about it. Even while Seattle boomed during the great gold rush of the 1800's, there remained no way to cross the formidable North Cascades. Inspired by the Orient trade, railroaders spent years looking for a suitable route over the mountain until surveyor John F. Stevens discovered a pass in 1890.
The Great northern Railroad lent romance to the crossing of Stevens Pass. But its real saga consisted of the nearly superhuman feats of construction crews, ghastly design mistakes, unpredictable acts of nature, and the determination of magnates, despite countless unforeseen obstacles, to connect communities by rail.
The other half of the saga consists of individuals who traversed the mountains, built crude homes, and schooled their children at home or in drafty log schoolhouses with few books. Nefarious pioneers took advantage of the isolation to work scams, fight, steal, and even murder.
More than a regional history, this story tells of the Wellington disaster, a killer avalanche; the period when ski jumping events grew crowds of thousands; the growing efforts of the United States Forest Service to serve recreational seekers; and the scoundrels and heroes of the new frontier.
I enjoyed this book immensely, and learned a lot about an area in history that at one time was sitting in my own backyard, so to speak.