Rasar State Park History

Rasar State Park lies midway along the Skagit River’s winding path between the rugged North Cascade Mountains and the Salish Sea. The Skagit River, part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, is the second largest river on the west coast of the contiguous United States, after the Columbia. Like much of the Skagit River Valley, the park land is naturally terraced as the river has cut into glacial deposits from the ice age.

Indigenous Land and Homestead

The park lies within the traditional territory of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. A long-established tribal village was located a short distance upriver from today’s park.

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US government in the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the Skagit River watershed.

After government land surveys were completed, some of the land that makes up today’s Rasar State Park was granted to the State of Washington to support public institutions; the remainder passed into private ownership in 1888 with a Homestead Entry patent to August and Barbara Kemmerick, immigrants from Germany. They developed the 157 acres of their homestead with an orchard, hay fields and a dairy herd of seven cows. Tragically, Barbara lost her life with the birth of their ninth child in 1903. Her mother, Marian Hommerding, visiting from Chicago for the birth, stayed for the rest of her life to help August raise the children. In later years, August moved to Oregon; some of his children maintained the farm for a time, but eventually the land was sold.

Making a State Park

Dan Rasar, himself a grandson of Skagit County immigrant settlers, purchased the property in the 1970s, planning to subdivide, sell some parcels and build a retirement home on the remainder. In time, he decided to preserve the natural beauty of the land, donating 128 acres to The Nature Conservancy, a private land protection organization that held the land for transfer to Washington State Parks in 1986. Forty acres of additional land for the park’s group camp area was transferred from the Washington Department of Natural Resources through the Trust Land Transfer Program in 1992. The development of the park carefully respects the natural terracing and preserves a hayfield begun in the Kemmerick homestead.

The park was dedicated on July 12, 1997. The opening remarks at the dedication were given by Vi Hilbert, a language historian of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, who thanked the Rasar family for their generosity in returning the area to the people. She recounted stories passed to her from her grandfather about his childhood in a traditional longhouse nearby. At the conclusion of the ceremony, a rehabilitated bald eagle was released into the park.