Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail History

The 287-mile Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail weaves together a diverse parade of landscapes filled with stories of land and people. The trail stretches much of the way across today’s Washington, from shrub-steppe and farmlands of the Palouse country on the eastern edge of the state, across the Columbia River, and up and through the Cascade Mountains to the lowlands surrounding Puget Sound.

The Forces of Plate Tectonics

370 million years ago, the west coast of North America was found near the eastern terminus of today’s trail, near the Idaho border. Around that time, a convergence of dense oceanic crust with the continent’s edge resulted in the denser slab sinking beneath the continent, a process called subduction, driven by heat current convection from the Earth’s depths. In the heat of the planet’s interior, the old cold slab melted, and rising fluids created an arc of volcanoes on the surface above.

Over the span of geologic time, four distinct waves of subduction have expanded the landmass of Washington westward, as a succession of volcanic islands and ocean-floor rocks that geologists call accreted terranes have been added to existing coastlines by the process of subduction.

About 17 million years ago, lava began oozing up through cracks in the earth near the present-day Washington-Oregon-Idaho border. This happened repeatedly, often with thousands of years passing between flows. In total, the lava flows—more than 300 of them—produced layers of basalt almost two miles thick that cover about 40% of present-day Washington, creating the distinctive layered bluffs and canyons that the Palouse to Cascades Trail traverses through eastern Washington.

Steepening subduction beneath today’s Washington began to push up the arc of the modern Cascade Mountains around seven million years ago, producing the modern volcanic peaks of Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Glacier Peak and Mount Baker, some of which can be seen from various points along the Palouse to Cascades Trail.

Ice Age Remnants became building materials for the railroads

In the final stages of the most recent ice age, masses of glacial ice repeatedly blocked meltwater drainage to the north of the route of the Palouse to Cascades Trail, creating huge bodies of impounded water in northern Washington, Idaho and Montana. When the ice dams melted or were breached by the sheer weight of water behind them, gigantic ice age floods swept over the landscape of today’s eastern Washington. Dozens of times over thousands of years, ice dams formed and gave way, sending floods racing toward the Pacific Ocean. The floods scoured the land, carving cliffs and river channels deep into thick layers of basalt across the Columbia Plateau.

The massive lobe of ice which filled the trough of today’s Puget Sound also created giant moraines, piles of rock and gravel at the ice margins. Some of those moraines blocked drainage from the major rivers of the western Cascades, impounding temporary lakes in the valleys. Today’s trail passes through the remains of the glacial landscape on the western slopes of the Cascades.

The sand and gravel deposited by glacial action during the ice age would eventually become the raw material for railroad construction.

Indigenous Lands

The Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail meanders through the traditional territories of many of the region’s Indigenous people. Generally, the route east of the Cascade Mountains lies within the territories of Sahaptian and Interior Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Wanapum Tribe, Spokane Tribe of Indians, and Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

West of the Cascades the trail passes through the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe and Tulalip Tribes.

Ancestors of today’s tribal members traditionally followed a seasonal round throughout areas of central and eastern Washington, maximizing access to necessary resources by spending time in each area at the optimal time for harvesting the foods and materials featured in each ecosystem.

All tribes utilized parts of the route traversed by today’s trail to reach important resources and connect with other people for trade and social gatherings.

Dispossession and Land Disposal

Representatives of numerous Indigenous people with traditional territories in what is now central and eastern Washington negotiated and signed treaties with Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens at Walla Walla on June 9, 1855. The treaties were not ratified by the US Senate until 1859, and in the interim, the benefits promised by the treaties were not available to the tribes that had signed.

The discovery of gold in the Colville area resulted in numerous Euro-American prospectors entering onto unceded Indigenous land, sometimes coming into conflict with residents. A government agent sent to investigate the incidents, Andrew Bolon, was killed by a party of Indigenous warriors.

In response, the US Army unsuccessfully sent soldiers into the area to apprehend those involved, initiating what came to be known as the Yakama War. After several skirmishes and a widening of the conflict into the Puget Sound area, Colonel George Wright was ordered to “attack All the hostile Indians you meet, with vigor; make their punishment severe and persevere until the submission of all is complete.”

Armed with new, highly accurate rifles, Colonel Wright’s forces decisively defeated the allied tribes at the Battle of Spokane Plains on September 5, 1858.

In the days following the battle, Colonel Wright ordered the destruction of the Indigenous people’s food stores, nearly 1,000 horses, and their dwellings. The atrocities culminated in the summary execution of some Indigenous leaders later the same month.

The lands taken from Indigenous residents became federal public domain lands. The lands were surveyed by government surveyors over the next few decades following the pattern established by the Land Ordinance of 1785, with the land divided into one-square-mile (640 acres) units called “sections” grouped into 36-square-mile units called “townships.”

The land in the townships was distributed by the US General Land Office to people that qualified to receive it under terms of land disposal laws passed by the US Congress.

• About 20% of the land was sold directly to individuals with the means to buy it at a cost of $1.25 per acre under terms of the Land Act of 1820. A small portion was granted to military veterans with service before 1855.
• About 30% of the land was “proved up” under terms of the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave title to up to 160 acres of land to anyone who cultivated some of their claim, built a residence and lived on the site for at least five years. Another 10% of the land was claimed, in larger allotments, by persons who developed irrigated agriculture on their properties.
• About 5% of the land was granted to the State of Washington at statehood in 1889 for the support of public institutions such as schools and universities.
• Nearly 35% of the land was granted to the Northern Pacific Railway, part of a grant of millions of acres to subsidize construction of rail lines into the western states.

The Northern Pacific Railway (NP) was completed through Washington in 1886, providing an economic stimulus to further settlement and development, while producing enormous profits for its owners and investors.

Other capitalists sought to benefit from the expanding population and production from Washington by financing and developing competing railroads. The Great Northern Railway (GN) was completed in the early 1890s, and the Chicago, St Paul & Milwaukee Railroad, often referred to as the “Milwaukee Road,” decided to extend its line from South Dakota to Washington beginning in 1905.

Building a Railroad

The Milwaukee Road began in 1847 as a local freight hauler in Wisconsin and gradually extended its lines through the midwestern US states. By 1905, the line’s managers realized that an extension to Washington could reap large profits, as the costs of promoting widespread interest in shipping, travel, and relocation to Washington had already been borne by the NP and GN.

Careful surveying developed a route for the Milwaukee Road that covered the distance in about 100 fewer miles than its competitors, with significantly easier grades, potentially reducing freight and passenger costs while shortening travel times.

Construction of the line featured much greater mechanization than was used on the earlier building of the NP and GN railroads. Construction crews used temporary narrow-gauge railroads to transport building materials such as sand and gravel mined from ice age glacial deposits along the route to construction sites. Labor requirements, including the provisioning of construction camps, were far less for the Milwaukee Road than for the previous railway construction projects and the work proceeded much faster. Service on the line began in May 1909, utilizing a temporary route over Snoqualmie Pass until completion of the 2.2-mile-long Snoqualmie Tunnel in 1915.

Survey work for the tunnel began in 1908 before more than 700 workers, known as “tunnel stiffs,” began work that included detonating 340 tons of dynamite, 100 rounds at a time. They had removed 180,000 cubic yards of rock (enough to fill 55 Olympic-size swimming pools) by the time the boring was completed in August 1914. The first train chugged through the tunnel in January 1915.

The South Cle Elum train yard was built in 1909 to provide a variety of necessary services. Trains were serviced in an eight-stall roundhouse by a crew of mechanics, machinists, oilers, blacksmiths and pipe fitters. Passengers boarded and disembarked, freight was handled, crews were housed, ice was made and stored to keep refrigerated freight cool, oil and water were kept in large volumes for use by the trains, and electricity was transformed from AC to DC current. At one point, as many as 15 parallel sets of yard tracks filled the yard.

During construction of the yard, the Milwaukee Road brought in gravel fill mined from nearby glacial deposits to level the site. Numerous oil spills over the years resulted in a somewhat sticky gravel and sand subsoil extending down about two feet below the surface. Today, Palouse to Cascades trail users can explore the former rail yard on a short interpretive trail.

Olympian, Columbian, Hiawatha

Though freight hauling was the primary source of revenue for the railroad, the Milwaukee Road strived to provide a unique passenger rail service as well. The Olympian and Columbian began service on May 28, 1911, scheduled to run from Chicago to Seattle in 72 hours.

Air-conditioning was added in 1934 and upgraded service with the Olympian Hiawatha in 1947 cut the journey to 43 hours and 30 minutes. In 1952 the first full-length dome cars were added.

New Rail Power—Electrification

The Milwaukee Road distinguished itself from the other two transcontinental railways that traversed Washington with its technological innovations.

Electrification of rail sections through the Rocky Mountains (440 miles) and Cascades (208 miles—Othello to Tacoma, inaugurated on March 5, 1920) provided several benefits. Electrified engines were capable of as much as three times greater pulling capacity, created no smoke or fumes (a significant advantage in the confines of long tunnels), required far less maintenance that steam locomotives, and relied on plentiful, inexpensive hydropower for energy. Engines were designed with regenerative braking capability to generate power and slow the train on downhill grades.

The smokeless trains were a selling point for the glass-top observation cars that allowed appreciation of the mountainous scenery on the Cascades section.

100,000-volt transmission lines from hydroelectric dams were extended to substations every 30 miles along the track. In the substations, transformers reduced the voltage to 2,300 volts to power direct current (DC) generators that provided 3,000 volts of DC current into the trolley wires strung 24 feet above the tracks to power the locomotives.

At the time, the Milwaukee Road operated the longest electrified railway in the world.

Decline of the Railway

The one disadvantage of electrification was its initial cost. The total cost of electrification exploded from initial estimates. The Milwaukee Road expected revenue from its freight and passenger services to quickly amortize the expense, but the expected increase in traffic did not materialize.

Declining population and development growth in the Pacific Northwest and significant freight competition from the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914, limited the railroad’s traffic. Financial stability eroded further after World War I as improved highways led to stiff competition from long-haul trucks, intercity buses, and automobiles. After World War II, rail service declined even further, as airplanes began to take the largest share of transcontinental passenger travel.

On May 22, 1961, the Milwaukee Road discontinued passenger service in Washington. Lack of maintenance forced the line to stop the use of electrified trains on the Cascades section in November 1972. Bankruptcy proceedings began in 1977, and in 1980 the last freight train ran on the tracks of the Milwaukee Road in the state.

Making a Park

As early as 1978, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) became aware of potential abandonment of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul Railroad and began discussing the possibility of using the right-of-way to create a continuous recreation trail across Washington. The John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders Association led efforts to lobby the legislature to purchase and convert the railway to trail use, organizing annual horse and wagon rides along the route.

On May 14, 1981, Governor John Spellman approved a state capital budget that included an appropriation of 3.5 million dollars to “acquire the Milwaukee Railroad right-of-way and existing bridges from Easton in Kittitas County to Tekoa in Whitman County.” The purchase was completed on December 23, 1981.

Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill #4329, approved by Governor Spellman on March 8, 1984, authorized the transfer of about 24 miles of the right-of-way to the WSPRC, stretching from Easton to Tunnel # 47 near Thorp. The transfer was completed on July 20, 1989. The seemingly arbitrary end point at the tunnel was a concession to the often-contentious lobbying of Seattle restauranteur Stuart Anderson, who didn’t want to see recreational use of the route adjacent to his “Black Angus Ranch” property. The remainder of the route was assigned to the Department of Natural Resources for management, with the stipulation that recreational use would require a permit and notification of adjacent landowners.

The route from Easton to the Snoqualmie Tunnel was acquired by the WSPRC on December 14, 1989, with the purchase price paid by AT&T in exchange for the right to install telecom cabling within the right-of-way.

The route from Snoqualmie Tunnel to the western trailhead near North Bend was purchased by the WSPRC from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad on December 13, 1989. Stabilization of the trail surface, development of trailheads and campsites, and interpretive exhibits were added to enhance the trail experience. The Snoqualmie Tunnel opened to the public on September 24, 1994.

The South Cle Elum Railyard was purchased from the Milwaukee Road by WSPRC on April 17, 1998; the accompanying substation and depot buildings were purchased from private owners in 1999.

On March 20, 2006, Governor Christine Gregoire approved Substitute Senate Bill 6527, transferring ownership of the route from Lind to Tekoa to the WSPRC. An attempt in 2015 to give control of that section of trail to adjacent landowners spurred the appointment of an advisory committee to aid in planning the development of the trail and addressing perceived issues of trespass, vandalism and weed control.

After chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling of the Snoqualmie Tunnel in 2009, the tunnel was closed for repairs. A new four-inch layer of concrete was sprayed onto a wire fabric lining the tunnel’s walls and ceiling, and a smooth surface for walking and riding was added. The tunnel reopened for recreational use on July 5, 2011.

What’s in a Name

On March 15, 1985, the WSPRC voted to adopt the name “Iron Horse Trail State Park” to honor the railroad history of the route, "iron horse” being a term for a steam locomotive that originated in the early 1800s.

The trail within the park was named the “John Wayne Pioneer Trail,” recognizing the influence of the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders Association in establishing the trail.

On May 23, 2018, the WSPRC voted unanimously to change the name of the trail to “Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail.” Commission Chair Ken Bounds noted that “Palouse to Cascades is unique to Washington State. There is no evidence that John Wayne was associated with the trail, and there are several other Iron Horse trails throughout the country. The new name connects eastern and western Washington and honors two beautiful regions of our state.” The new name also provides consistency with the WSPRC naming policy, which gives preference to geographic locations, culturally significant events and places, geologic features, or botanical or biological references.

On April 8, 2022, Governor Jay Inslee delivered a keynote address at the opening of the Palouse to Cascades Trail’s revitalized Beverly Bridge crossing the Columbia River, saying “There is no Western Washington. There is no Eastern Washington. With the Beverly Bridge, there’s one Washington.”