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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 11, 2024
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 14, 2024

A drowned ghost town reemerges in times of intensified drought

By Jean Sherrard

“A new-world Venice.”

That’s how The Seattle Times described a “little village” seven miles south of North Bend and 35 miles southeast of Seattle. Photos accompanying the May 14, 1915, front-page article provided dramatic evidence. Most of the burg’s 200 houses were half submerged by slowly rising flood waters.

A company town, Moncton, was established in 1906 by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad while carving its transcontinental line through Snoqualmie Pass. It thrived on the picturesque Rattlesnake Prairie within the Cedar River watershed.

Rail workers soon were joined by utilities employees from nearby Seattle water and hydroelectric dams. By 1909, the town boasted a grocery, hotel, saloon and 30-student school. The town, less than 3 miles from Cedar Lake, Seattle’s primary water reservoir, was euphoniously renamed Cedar Falls. It must have seemed an idyllic spot to plant roots.

In 1912, City Light began building an imposing masonry dam intended to further harness Cedar River waters to supplement Seattle’s increasing electrical needs.

Cue ominous music.

Consulting geologists cautioned that surrounding valleys were comprised of porous glacial moraine unsuitable for water containment. But their warnings were overruled by J.D. Ross, Seattle’s superintendent of lighting.

Cedar Falls paid the piper. Soon after completion of the masonry dam in early 1915, springs erupted from surrounding hills and seeped up from the formerly dry prairie. By summer, all but two families had departed their flooded homes and were living in boxcars or makeshift houses above the rising waterline.

Initially, Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill denied responsibility, blaming the flooding on natural causes. After months of dithering, wiser heads prevailed. The town was condemned and its dispossessed residents compensated for their losses.

Amy LaBarge, Seattle’s current Watershed Management Division director, has watched Rattlesnake Lake rise and fall for decades. In December, after months of drought, the lake’s water levels dropped to the lowest she’s seen. “Our summers are definitely getting longer and warmer, and therefore drier,” she says.

A trained forest ecologist, LaBarge notes that volatile and extreme weather patterns are associated with increasing frailty of the forest ecosystem. “Over the last few years, we’re seeing alarming waves of tree mortality,” she says. “Multiple species have become highly susceptible to things that wouldn’t normally kill them.”

How, then, to manage future water supply in a climate changing world?

“Humans will have to learn to be very, very careful with how we use non-renewable resources like water,” LaBarge says. “We must conserve — not just for people, but for salmon and wildlife and all the other beings that call this place home.”

WEB EXTRAS

To see Jean Sherrard‘s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Jean, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Also, a few more photos.

 

Throughout the dry lake, evidence of the abandoned town can be seen in old growth stumps and structural remains (click for full size).