Old Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company Mill Traditional Geocache

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Hidden : 12/8/2009
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

The cache location is located at the entrance road to the old Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. powerhouse and mill site. Peak-a-boo views can be found here and up and down 396th Dr NE.

The cache is 35mm film canister. You'll need you're own writing instrument.


Now




Then









Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. Powerhouse And Brick Stack by King County Historic Preservation

The Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. Powerhouse and Brick Stack are key surviving components of an innovative, early 20th century milling operation that was the most expansive of its kind ever to operate in King County. The brick powerhouse and 211-foot brick stack functioned as the heart of the all-electric plant. According to the Weyerhaeuser Co., the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. (SFLCo) mill was only the second such all-electric mill operation in the nation, and the first of its kind to employ electrical powered cutting operations in the woods. Today, the mill complex itself has all but disappeared. A large open space remains on the level valley floor previously crowded with buildings and structures containing machinery and operations for log cutting, planing, processing, and lumber sorting. Today the power plant serves as the last tangible symbol of the community of Snoqualmie Falls and its social and economic legacy. The Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company Powerhouse was designated a King County Landmark in 2005.


Preserving The Pieces Of The Past by Sonia Krishnan, Seattle Times Eastside bureau Friday, April 15, 2000

Ward Keller walks near the powerhouse built in 1914 to provide electricity to the giant Weyerhaeuser mill near Snoqualmie. Snoqualmie city officials say they can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary for restoration of the aging structure.

In his mind, a company town with 5,000 people springs to life. He sees a dozen homes where laundry hangs, black soot from the power plant clinging to its fibers. Children scurry to school as the 8 a.m. mill whistle pierces the air.

"This town was everything to everyone. Nobody left. Nobody had to. It was self-contained. It's a lifestyle unknown today," said Keller, 74, who grew up in the mill town.

Now, a decrepit powerhouse and a crumbling brick smokestack are all that remains of the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. Keller and other local residents rallied to save the structures from demolition last summer and rejoiced when the King County Landmarks Commission declared the site a historical landmark last month. But the celebration was short-lived.

Winning historical status, they learned, is just a first step. As with many endangered properties scattered across the region, the real challenge is finding the money to keep these pieces of the past protected into the future.

"Landmark status is big, but it can't save the buildings forever," said Dave Battey, secretary of the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Society. "We're a small group out here. This is going to be a toughie."

Lumber mills were once the heart of the Pacific Northwest, generating more than 80,000 jobs in Washington in the 1930s. Dry kilns and log-storage houses were the office parks of the day, workplaces where men heaved timber and cut trees with 120-pound saws. At its peak, the Snoqualmie mill — which later became Weyerhaeuser — employed 1,200 people. Not much remains today. At the Weyerhaeuser site, the 211-foot brick chimney and powerhouse illustrate "the rise and fall of the timber industry," according to a King County Landmarks Commission report. They are the oldest remaining relics in the county to represent logging's transition from steam to electric power.

But if no one comes forward to save the icons, Weyerhaeuser could ask the county for permission to demolish the 1.4-acre site. Snoqualmie city officials say they can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary for restoration.

"It all depends on who's passionate about saving this building," said Julie Koler, the county's historic-preservation officer.

Historical societies or nonprofits often take over management of rescued buildings, she said. Other groups keen on preservation — generally called "Friends of" particular properties — work to raise money and community support.

In the case of the Snoqualmie mill, Federal Way-based Weyerhaeuser, a billion-dollar global forestry company, said it's not in the business of historic restoration.

"Historically, it's a significant structure," said spokesman Frank Mendizabal. "But there are safety issues. The stack is in danger of falling down."

The company has no firm plans for the land, he said. In August, Weyerhaeuser was set to demolish the stack and powerhouse and prepare the other 600 acres for redevelopment, he said.

But after Weyerhaeuser last August knocked down one smokestack — a concrete column built in 1944 — residents intervened and lobbied for landmark recognition of the remaining chimney and powerhouse. Keller was there when the first smokestack fell. In an instant, another remnant vanished, "like the place where you grew up never even existed," he said.

It haunts Keller now, these disappearing icons of his childhood. His father, Harold Keller, was Weyerhaeuser's photographer and director of the mill town's YMCA. He left more than 10,000 negatives to his son after he died in 1969. Keller plans to publish a book with the photographs.

Chasing these ghosts keeps him up most nights. He works until 3 a.m. scanning photos of loggers, YMCA swim teams and Halloween parties into the computer.

He comes across pictures of boys and girls he went to school with. Some of their expressions are solemn, others mischievous. He will spot a familiar face which triggers one memory, and then another. He marvels at how his father moved about the town almost imperceptibly, catching these moments.

Fighting to keep the chimney and the powerhouse is vital, he said.

"What do we have without it? Nothing." Keller said. "People should know that there was once a town like this. People should know."

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

thneqvat gur ebnq

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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