Over the years several routes have crossed Snoqualmie Pass. Trails gave way to roads and roads were replaced with freeways but, in places, the old still remains. Between the Denny Creek exit and the Pass an old road runs up the valley just as it has for many years. Take a few minutes to slow down and enjoy what used to be the latest thing.
With automobile traffic increasing, a new two-lane highway, later labled as Primary State Highway #2, was officially opened on July 1, 1915. Govermor Ernest Lister dedicted what was called the "Sunset Highway" as the first passable route through the Cascade Mountains at Snoqualmie Pass. What had taken Territorial Governor Marshall Moore several days to travel from Olympia in 1867 when the first wagon road opened now took Governor Listor only a few hours over the new highway less than 50 years later, traveling in a new high-powered automobile.
The Sunset Highway continued east through Cle Elum, Ellensburg, Vantage, Quincy, Wenatchee, Waterville, Wilbur, Davenport and on through Spokane, although it was later rerouted over Blewett Pass from Cle Elum to Wenatchee. At Snoqualmie Pass the weather during the winter months closed the new highway just as it had the old wagon road. Several severe winters helped settle plans by the Milwaukee Road to dig a tunnel under the pass from Rockdale on the west to Hyak on the east. Cutting of the tunnel was completed in August 1914 with the first train passing through in January 1915, months before the new highway opened.
Train stations dotted the route over the pass with stops made at North Bend, Tanner, Ragnar, Garcia, Bandera, Rockdale, Whittier and Easton but eliminating the station at Laconia. Passengers could board or disembark at each stop and freight was also sent and received at each station. And since the new highway was never plowed in winter, for half the year the train was still the only way across the mountains. In 1926 the highway was relocated onto the abandoned railroad right-of-way, now the location of the east bound lanes of I-90 leading up to the pass. So in 1926 this road became the "old road".
But other groups helped to focus public attention and resources on the road through the pass. In October of 1912 a grassroots organization was formed as an advocate for good roads, the Yellowstone Trail Association. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4JTRV_the-old-yellowstone-trail Their motto was "A Good Road From Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound." The group helped push for improved public roads and printed route brochures for travelers.
The Yellowstone trail ended up being pieced together largely from existing good roads and was the first coast-to-coast route that was entirely across the northern part of the United States. Their route differed from the Sunset Highway in several places in Washington, taking travelers south from Spokane through Dayton, Walla Walla, Richland, and Yakima before joining at Cle Elum. It also separated on the west side, crossing Lake Washington from Kirkland to Madison Beach in Seattle on a ferry rather than dropping down through Renton with the Sunset Highway. A short section of this historic brick road can be seen just east of Redmond on 196th Ave NE near NE 61st Place. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5GKQ5_bricks
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