The Greenway encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres of land from central Washington State to Seattle, along a 100-mile stretch of Interstate 90. From glaciers 15,000 years ago that carved deep valleys and left giant rock outcroppings behind, to extensive human activity in the past 200 years, this landscape continues to see rapid change. 

Logging and Mining

Natural resource extraction fueled the development of what is now the Mountains to Sound Greenway corridor. Beginning in the 1880s, temporary logging railroads were built into the woods so that loggers could transport timber to lumber mills in Preston and Snoqualmie in the west, or to mills on the shores of Cle Elum, Kachess and Keechelus Lakes in Kittitas County in the east. Logging took place throughout the corridor, and while magnificent stands of old growth do remain, much of the Greenway contains second- and third-growth forests. A major lumber mill at the company town of Snoqualmie ran from 1917, when World War I created a great demand for timber, until its closure in 2003.

Coal mining became a major industry in Roslyn and Cle Elum east of the mountains, and in Newcastle and Issaquah west of the mountains. People came from all over the world to work in the mines, and in Roslyn, while miners worked and socialized together, they lived in their own neighborhoods and were buried in ethnically segregated cemeteries that can still be visited today. In 1897 gold was discovered in Alaska, and the gold rush that followed fueled rapid growth in Seattle, the place tens of thousands of people came to purchase supplies.

Farming

East of the mountains, members of the Yakama Tribe historically gathered camas roots, kouse and berries. White settlers’ arrival caused the displacement of native people and brought wheat, hay and cattle ranches to the area.

West of the mountains, Bellevue and nearby areas were known for berries and other crops. The fertile Snoqualmie Valley was billed as the “Largest Hop Ranch in the World” in the 1880s, and employed people from all over the world.

Transportation

Trails across the Cascade Mountains near Snoqualmie Pass have existed for centuries. Native Americans crossed the mountains on ancient foot trails to trade and socialize. Later, trappers, miners, loggers and prospectors made their way across the Pass to earn a living in Pacific Northwest forests.

In 1865 a group of surveyers from Seattle went to Snoqualmie Pass to build a new wagon road over the mountains, and settlers in wagons, herds of livestock and cartloads of produce were soon driven over the Pass.  In 1899 the road was in such disrepair that the Washington state legislature and the governments of King and Kittitas counties decided to fund work to repair it. The old Sunset Highway across the Cascades was built in 1914 and 1915 and cars started to travel across regularly, although travelers on the dirt road had to contend with mud, rocks and fallen trees. In 1934 the highway was finally paved and the first floating bridge was built over Lake Washington in 1940.

The Milwaukee Road railway built tracks in 1909 that connected Seattle to a transcontinental railroad over Snoqualmie Pass. In 1917 the route through the Cascades was electrified, which was more efficient than using steam or diesel power. Trains stopped running in 1980 and that rail bed is now the cross-state John Wayne Pioneer Trail.

Turning to Preservation

As population in Washington State grew in the 20^th Century, people started to realize that the special places they took for granted wouldn’t remain without effort. Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market in Seattle were saved from demolition in the 1970s, and the Seattle, Lake Shore and Easton rail right of way was converted to the Burke Gilman Trail around the north end of Lake Washington. In 1976 the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, between I-90 and Highway 2, was created. The Mount Si Natural Resource Conservation Area, just northeast of North Bend, was established in 1987. In the 1980s Washington State Department of Natural Resources began consolidating forestland for public benefit on Tiger Mountain, which is now a 14,000-acre expanse of working and protected forestland. Hikers Harvey Manning and Jack Hornung started talking about permanently saving the Issaquah Alps, the forested slopes of Cougar Mountain, Squak Mountain and Tiger Mountain.

With these and many more preservation projects underway, the completion of a new bridge over Lake Washington on Interstate 90 was rapidly bringing population to eastern King County. In 1990, a group of citizens led by the Issaquah Alps Trails Club staged the Mountains to Sound March, a hike from Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle, to publicize the need to save this magnificent scenic corridor just outside a major metropolitan area. And the Mountains to Sound Greenway was born.