Cultural Heritage
The Cedar River Watershed has a rich cultural history. Archaeologists have documented Native American presence in the upper basin as early as 7,400 B.C.
Euro-Americans brought new economic pursuits to the Cedar River valley in the late 19th and early 20th century. From the 1840s through the mid-1850s, feasible routes over the Cascades were sought for fur trade, wagon and rail routes. Strategic maneuvers occurred in this area during the Indian wars. These explorations left few lasting impacts.
During the 1880s, vast coal and clay deposits brought railroads and company towns into the Watershed. One of these towns, Taylor, was established in 1895 at the lower end of the watershed. Taylor prospered both as a mining center and as a major producer and supplier of bricks, tile, conduit, and other clay building products.
Homesteading in the Cedar River Municipal Watershed occurred with increasing frequency beginning in the 1890s. Homesteaders modified the landscape in modest ways by clearing small pastures, planting orchards, and constructing rudimentary buildings.
Logging activity flourished in the Watershed from the mid-1890s into the 1940s. In contrast to homesteading, logging greatly altered the landscape of the watershed. Two substantial company towns, Barneston and Selleck, and eighteen logging camps were situated throughout the watershed. Typically the camps consisted of bunkhouses, cookhouses, equipment sheds, and other wooden outbuildings.
The development of the Cedar River Watershed by the City of Seattle began at the turn of the 20th century. The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 led to the establishment of the Cedar as water source for the City, with the first water diverted at Landsburg in 1901. In 1904, the Cedar also began providing hydropower from the first municipally owned hydroelectric project in the country. By the mid-1900s, most of the settlements in the Watershed moved out as the City of Seattle acquired land to protect it for the municipal water supply. Ownership of the upper basin was nearly consolidated by 1996.
For more information about Cedar River Watershed history, check out these links from History Link:
Cedar Falls -- Thumbnail History. Cedar Falls, originally a City Light company town, is located in the upper Cedar River Watershed. A diverse collection of families lived there for much of the twentieth century, but by the 1960s, the town began fading away. Now the town-site is a center of operations for Seattle Public Utilities and the home of the Cedar River Watershed Education Center.
Thomson, Reginald Heber (1856-1949) was instrumental in creating the Cedar River Municipal Watershed, City Light, the Port of Seattle, and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. In fact, virtually all of Seattle's infrastructure can be attributed to R. H. Thomson.
Municipal Ownership Movement Beginning with the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1889, Seattle became a national leader in establishing municipal ownership and management of water, electricity, transit, and harbor assets.
