History of King County, Washington
By Clarence B. Bagley in 1929. Now in Public Domain
From Chapter 47: Issaquah, Pages 765-768
Issaquah: Early History
In early days the little valley at the head of Lake Sammamish through which the Snoqualmie branch of the Northern Pacific Railway now runs was known as Squak Valley. Squak, or Squawk, as it is sometimes spelled, is a corruption of the Indian name Squowh, pronounced by the natives as if spelled Isquowh. The white settlers were drawn to the valley by the rich bottom land and the absence of floods. In the '50s about 200 Indians of the Simump tribe lived in the vicinity of Squak or Sammamish Lake.
L.B. Andrews was the first to take a claim in the valley, going there in 1862 to develop a coal mine. The following year a number of settlers came, including John P. Adams, William Casto and his wife Abbie, John Halstead, William Jepson, H. Beatey, John Stevens, Ned Jacob Ohm, known as "Dutch Ned;" James W. Bush and his wife Martha, William Dennis, Frederick Johnston, David Maurer, William E. Walsh, H. E. Holmes, and Rob Mellas. Later comers were a certain Sherwood, George Davis, and Ned Welch. In the spring of 1865 Thomas Jefferson Cherry preempted 160 acres near the Lake. Governor Pickering, who had previously perfected his title to an entire section at Snoqualmie Falls, acquired the Casto farm upon the death of the owner, and his son, William Pickering, Jr., settled there in 1866. In 1867 Ingebright A. Wold and his brothers, Peter and Lars A., with R. J. Jones, bought Welch's farm of 160 acres, paying him $500 for it. John Reard was a tenant on the Pickering place later. George Washington Tibbetts, subsequently known for the stores he built at Renton, Gilman, Snoqualmie, and North Bend, settled at Squak in 1874, renting from Pickering until in 1882 he bought the Ohm homestead of 160 acres. Peter J. Smith came to the valley in March, 1876, and purchased eighty acres from Thomas J. Cherry. In 1879 in company with John Anderson he bought a farm of 170 acres two miles north of the present townsite and started dairying.
The first settlers found a stubborn growth of forest, except for about one clear acre on the Bush place, another patch on the Adams farm, and about forty acres on the Pickering place. When the soil had been placed under cultivation, potatoes were raised for human food and turnips and rutabagas for feed. The original stock of cows, hogs, horses, and chickens, was augmented as time went on, and, soon the farmers were making small shipments of produce to Seattle.
The present trip of one hour by automobile from Seattle required an entire day to go and two to return in the '60s and '70s. Casto, before his death, had done a small business in hoop poles, made from the hazel of which there was a dense growth in the valley. He shipped these to San Francisco merchants, frequently receiving as much as $1,500 for a single shipment. At first the settlers used as a short cut to Seattle a rough footpath which started from Coal Creek on the east shore of Lake Washington, as well as the longer water route through Lake Sammamish and the slough.
The first produce shipments of any size were made about 1867 or 1868. Farmers with oxen carried their stuff by team to the Lake Landing and then proceeded by canoe or small boat through the slough to Lake Washington. One of the Wolds is said to have built the first scow used on the Lake. This craft was towed on the larger body of water and pushed through the slough with poles, ten days being required to make the trip to Seattle and return, a distance of twenty miles. The landing on the Seattle side was made at Leschi Park, then known as "Fleaburg" because of the insects which infested the small Indian settlement there. Early in the '70s Bush constructed a bateau about thirty-six feet long. His daughter, Samantha, told the writer of steering her father's boat on many of these early trips to the metropolis, carrying cargoes of hoop poles, potatoes, oats, butter, eggs, or butchered hogs. Steamboat travel to the valley began in the '90s. J. C. O'Connor built a steam scow which he called.' the Laura-Maud and Captain James Fairburn a small iron boat, the Avril. Fairburn and Charles Poole for a while carried passengers across Lake Washington for seventy-five cents each way, landing at the O'Connor place, at about the site of Houghton.
For a time hop growing promised to be the leading industry of the valley. Indeed, the first hops grown in the county were raised by the Wold brothers. In 1868 they planted half an acre in hops after purchasing the required 2,000 plants from Ezra Meeker of Puyallup. The first shipment was sold to Schmieg's brewery in Seattle for a keg of beer. In 1891 the Wolds built a hop-house and by 1893 they had increased their acreage until they had fifty acres in these malt producing vines. Lars Andrew Wold acquired title by preemption to 160 acres adjoining the original holdings of himself and his partners and subsequently bought them all out. Tibbetts also became a large hop grower on his 1,000-acre farm. Although Tibbetts had held only a sergeant's rank in the Civil war, he was styled "General" in his latter years on account of his election in 1881 to a generalship in the Washington State militia. General Tibbetts served as chairman of the Republican county central committee at one time, was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1876, served as member of the convention that framed the state constitution in 1889, and in November, 1902, was elected to the House of Representatives of the State Legislature. He also served as notary public and as justice of the peace at Squak.
The building of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway and the consequent tapping of the Squak coal fields, especially the rich Gilman mines, augmented the population of the valley sufficiently to warrant platting a townsite. On June 7, 1869, only seven ballots were cast at Squak in the general biennial county elections. In 1885 the population was only 100, but the completion of the railroad in 1888 and the first shipment of coal in the following year brought such numbers to the region that 200 ballots were cast for sheriff in the election of 1890. Accordingly Ingebright Wold platted forty acres as the Town of Englewood on May 7, 1888, laying out the site on either side of the railroad. This plat should not be confused with that of Inglewood, a townsite laid out on the east shore of Lake Sammamish, just north of Monohon, on July 30, 1889, by Paul Hutchinson and others. The mines had been named in honor of Daniel Hunt Gilman, a prominent resident of Seattle who promoted the railroad, and by general consent the town was soon known by the same name. The post office, which had been Squak, was given the name Olney to avoid confusion with another in Washington called Gilman, until the town was named Issaquah.
Gilman was incorporated as a town on April 29, 1892, with F. W. Harrell as mayor and I. A. Wold, treasurer. The following were councilmen: Isaac Cooper, S. A. Bushman, Richard Chambers, German Borcoldi, and August Donant. On September 2, 1893, A. L. Valentine, town surveyor, fixed the town limits.
By the late '90s. the change of name to Issaquah, an adaptation of the Indian name, had been growing in favor and the name Gilman was discontinued.
The first plat in which occurs the designation Issaquah was that of W. C. Noyle and his wife Elizabeth, filed with the county auditor on March 5, 1900, as Issaquah Park. On April 13, 1905, Herbert S. Upper platted an addition to Issaquah. He laid out two subsequent additions on April 1,1913 and on February 28, 1914. Raymond D. Ogden, Seattle attorney, in company with Peter McCloskey and his wife Elizabeth, platted an addition on October 8, 1913. The limits of Issaquah were extended by annexation of adjacent territory on February 7, 1913, during the mayoralty of Peter J. Donlaw.
Issaquah first appears on the United States census rolls as Gilman precinct in 1900, when the population, including Gilman town, was 1,060. In 1910 the precinct had 556 persons and in 1920, 1,026. The population today is estimated at 1,000. In 1900 the vote for sheriff in Gilman precinct was 214; by the election of November 4, 1902, Issaquah had become a separate precinct in which 127 votes were cast. In 1910 there were ninety-five votes and in 1920, 225. During the presidential election of 1928, 264 votes were cast.
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By Clarence B. Bagley in 1929. Now in Public Domain