Although it’s located in the heart of fast-growing Southeast King County, the alignment of the 11-mile Green Valley Road has barely changed since the 1880s. And surprisingly, some of the historic buildings and farms along the road would still look familiar to the original travelers of the road.
After more than a year of on-the-road and in-the-archives research, the King County Road Services Division has compiled the roadway’s history as part of an easily accessible Web site www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/Roads/HistoryAndArchaeology/HistoricScenicCorridorsProject.aspx with maps, photos, facts, and a mile-by-mile guide of the corridor’s unique character. It is part of the county’s just-completed Historic and Scenic Corridors Project.
“Our county roads are everyone’s roads, so we want to make this wonderful historical information available to as many people as possible – especially students and researchers,” said Linda Dougherty, director of the Road Services Division. “County roads have always been important links to regional and community history, and this project resulted in a wealth of material that helps explain not only our transportation history, but also our human history here in King County.”
The project was a partnership between the King County Department of Transportation’s Road Services Division, the King County Historic Preservation Program, and 4Culture – the cultural services agency for King County.
The grant-funded project documented the story of more than 100 years of transportation development in the region and identified the most significant historic transportation corridors remaining in unincorporated King County. Overall, nine corridors are included in the final report recently published by the county.
Public road building in King County dates back more than 150 years to 1854, when the Territorial Legislature first authorized county commissioners to collect a tax for the construction of wagon roads and bridges. Many of the oldest roads in King County are now unrecognizable, due to multiple road improvement projects and decades of surrounding growth and urban development.
Flo Lentz, preservation lead for 4Culture, said working on the Heritage Corridors project put her agency in close day-to-day contact with the landscapes, buildings and people that give local roadways their character.
“King County has changed so radically in recent years, but on these corridors there is still a palpable feeling of an earlier time in the Pacific Northwest,” said Lentz. “You experience these roads with all the senses, no matter what the weather or the season. It can be the cool of the deep fir forest and rush of streams along Old Cascade Highway, or the smell of salt water and warmth of morning sun across fields along Vashon’s Westside Highway – it’s a feast.
“But these aren’t just wilderness landscapes,” added Lentz. “They’ve been shaped by people over time. What remains with every one of these historic, scenic corridors is a remarkable sense of place.”
The nine Heritage Corridors are:
• Southeast Issaquah-Fall City Road, the older section between Duthie Hill on the Sammamish Plateau and Fall City
• Osceola Loop (Southeast 448th Street/Southeast 456th Way) west of Enumclaw
• Southeast Green Valley Road east of Auburn
• Dockton Road Southwest from Tramp Harbor on Vashon Island to Quartermaster Harbor on Maury Island
• Westside Highway Southwest/Southwest Cedarhurst Road on Vashon Island
• West Snoqualmie River Road from northeast of Fall City to Carnation
• West Snoqualmie Valley Road Northeast/Northeast Carnation Farm Road north of Carnation
• Old Cascade Scenic Highway (Stevens Pass)
• Old Sunset Highway (Snoqualmie Pass).
Last year, the King County Landmarks Commission chose the first eight corridors on the list as community landmarks – an honorary designation bestowed on special places in the county. There are plans to work with the U.S. Forest Service to honor the Old Sunset Highway at a later date.
They are honorary recognitions that do not have any associated land use regulation. It will not limit the county’s ability to make any necessary road improvements in the future. Instead, future road maintenance activities or road improvement projects along Heritage Corridors will get extra attention to ensure they are as sensitive as possible to the character and history of the area.
“Recognition of these significant corridors by the King County Department of Transportation is a significant milestone in the county’s stewardship of historic properties – I know of no other such local program in the United States,” said Lauren McCroskey, chair of the King County Landmarks Commission.
