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Mike Collins
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Mike Collins
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PostSun Dec 15, 2002 9:01 am 
The lazy days of winter have me cooped up inside listening the patter of rain on the skylights. Leafing through a photo album I came across a photo of historical significance. Overlooking Gold Creek, on the lowpoint of the ridge connecting Chikamin Peak with Four Brothers, can be found a fascinating rock. The rock is about 6 feet tall and is cleaved looking like a miniature Half Dome. On the flat surface is inscribed: "R. Denny L. Lindsley USA 1899". Most likely the R. Denny represents Rolland Hershel Denny, the son of Arthur Denny and Mary Ann Denny (nee Boren). He came to the landing at Alki Point on Nov 13, 1851 at the age of 8 weeks. His parents having taken the Oregon Trail west to Portland decided to then board a schooner named "Exact" for the final leg of the journey to Puget Sound. One can speculate that Rolland climbed to that highpoint partly in response to grief as the patriarch of the family, Arthur, had died in January, 1899 at the age of 77. All of us have benefited from Rolland's legacy as his estate was donated to the city of Seattle to form Washington Park. Land from that park was leased to the University of Washington in 1934 to establish the Washington Arboretum. Rolland, along with Dexter Horton, was also instrumental in creating a YMCA for Seattle in 1876 at the request of Catherine Maynard. And what of L. Lindsley? I can only find reference to an L. Lindsley in an modern article on mountain caribou. It seems that he liked to hunt as he killed twenty-plus of the now endangered animals in NE Washington where they still cling to a precarious life at the southern extreme of their range. If we ever have a get together I could bring a photo of the rock in for y'all. Have any of you seen it? Of further interest is that Beckey states that Chikamin was probably first climbed in 1913. It is a relaxed 30-45 minute hike from the inscripted rock to the summit of Chikamin.

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Sawyer
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PostSun Dec 15, 2002 10:59 am 
Ah, the pitter patter of rain gives us time to do some armchair travelling through time and through the mountains. Some info from Discovering Washington's Historic Mines, Vol 1: By 1889 there were 10 gold placer claims in the Gold Creek area. The early miners evidently used seasonal runoff from the snow to work the properties. David Denny, brother of Arthur Denny, started building a wagon road up the east side of Lake Keechelus. It had two bridges and considerable puncheon road over Gold Creek's swampy lowlands. It would be fascinating to see that rock, Mr. Collins.

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Mike Collins
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Mike Collins
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PostSun Dec 15, 2002 11:34 am 
Lake Keechelus Road
Lake Keechelus (means "few fish") was clearly an obstacle to early traffic over Snoqulamie Pass. The earliest map I have of that area is from 1900 and it clearly shows a marked road on the eastern shore where the road exists today. If one visits the website www.NAHA.stolaf.edu/publications it contains many volumes online of Norwegian American history. In Vol. 30,page 196 begins oral history recounted by a young traveller over Snoqualmie Pass in 1881. She relates how her father had to stop at Lake Keechelus and make a raft to travel the length of the lake (then two miles) and then offload the possessions to continue on a narrow path to Issaquah. She states the trip from Snoqualmie Pass to Issaquah took 2 weeks. Of interest is that Native Americans preferred to use Yakima Pass if they had pack animals as that trail did not have as much deadfall as Snoqualmie. The foot route to Puget Sound was via Snoqualmie Pass.

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Copperhead Kid
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PostMon Dec 16, 2002 9:43 pm 
Mike Collins wrote:
Overlooking Gold Creek, on the lowpoint of the ridge connecting Chikamin Peak with Four Brothers, can be found a fascinating rock. The rock is about 6 feet tall and is cleaved looking like a miniature Half Dome. On the flat surface is inscribed: "R. Denny C. Lindsey USA 1899."
Very interesting! Looking at this topo, does this look like the location?
denny rock
denny rock

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Mike Collins
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Mike Collins
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PostMon Dec 16, 2002 9:57 pm 
Copperhead...That is exactly where the inscripted rock is.

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MCaver
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PostMon Dec 16, 2002 10:15 pm 
Mike Collins wrote:
She states the trip from Snoqualmie Pass to Issaquah took 2 weeks.
Wow. How times change. Thanks for the history lesson, Mike. up.gif

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salish
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PostTue Dec 17, 2002 9:29 am 
Mike, this is really interesting stuff. I've often wondered if the old Yakima Pass is the same one the train tracks run across on top of Snoqualmie. I recall taking the train to Yakima in 1976 and enjoying the pass from up there. Here's another site with similar information that you've probably already seen: http://www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/book/prater-1981.html Thanks, Cliff

My short-term memory is not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my short-term memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
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Mike Collins
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PostTue Dec 17, 2002 10:09 am 
Salish...The Milwaukee Road went bankrupt in 1967 but I am not sure when the railroad actually shut down. I think they stumbled along as an employee owned railroad for a while. King County Library System has a great video you can borrow on the history of the Milwaukee Road. They pulled up the tracks in the early 80's. There is no railroad over Yakima Pass. There is a tunnel beneath Stampede Pass. Before that there was a switchback for trains to get the cars toward the whistlestop town of Lester.

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salish
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PostTue Dec 17, 2002 10:18 am 
Mike, thanks for the info. My family has camped and picked huckleberries on the side of Stampede Pass, at the site of an old CCC camp (now gone) since 1956. This was less than a mile from the tunnel. we used to go to a little creek with buckets for our water, that was just above and a little south of the tunnel. I grew up playing in and around that tunnel and Lizard Lake in the late 1950's into the mid 1960's. It's a mass of scarred clearcuts to this day, but it always holds special memories for me. After the war, when my mom & dad were dating, they hiked up there in the dead of winter and froze their butts off in those flimsy old WWII mummy sleeping bags. Thanks for posting this.... Cliff

My short-term memory is not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my short-term memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
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polarbear
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PostWed Dec 18, 2002 8:38 pm 
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Tom
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PostTue Oct 07, 2003 1:20 pm 
Mike Collins wrote:
Overlooking Gold Creek, on the lowpoint of the ridge connecting Chikamin Peak with Four Brothers, can be found a fascinating rock. The rock is about 6 feet tall and is cleaved looking like a miniature Half Dome. On the flat surface is inscribed: "R. Denny C. Lindsey USA 1899".
Mike, we saw the rock on our last trip. It looks like the years have taken a toll on it - we could barely make out the inscriptions. I can see the USA below the "Linds" in Lindsley (also note Lindsley has an "l") but the 1899 is either really faint or not captured by my picture.

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kiliki
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PostTue Oct 07, 2003 3:20 pm 
Mike, if you really want to know who C. Lindsley is you might try looking in the UW's archives (in the basement of Allen Library). They have Seattle city directories on the shelf, which includes every resident's name, address and occupation, or you can look in the NW regional index, a card catalog index of newspaper and magazine articles that goes back into the 19th century. I've found some articles about fairly obscure northwesterners in there. I go down there fairly regularly, if you want send me an PM reminder and I'll take a look next time I'm there.

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lopper
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PostThu Nov 13, 2003 3:22 pm 
Here is a picture and caption that fills in some info about the Dennys and their doings around Snoqualmie Pass: "During the summer of 1899, Seattle pioneer David Denny supervised the improvement of 27 miles of wagon road through Snoqualmie Pass, from North Bend, Washington, to the south end of Lake Keechelus. Between the beginning of June and the end of September, workers blasted and moved rocks, built bridges, resurfaced parts of the old road with logs and relocated the road completely where necessary. This 1899 photo shows David Denny sitting outside his cabin near Lake Keechelus. He lived at the cabin during the summer he worked on the Snoqualmie Pass wagon road. The cabin was near some of the Denny family's mining claims."

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kiliki
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PostFri Dec 05, 2003 7:09 pm 
Okay, Mike, I looked and the only C. Lindsey I could find in the Seattle Directory or the NW regional index was Charles Asa Lindsey, who moved to the city in 1899. He ended up being quite active in Seattle civic and social life after he achieved success with his real estate business around 1916, but as his beginnings were pretty humble I don't know if this is your guy or not. He moved from Michigan in 1899, where he worked in various jobs in the logging industry, and became a barber in Seattle, Coupeville, and Okanogan before getting into real estate in Spokane, and then Seattle. He isn't listed as a member of the Mountaineers (during the years I have rosters). Next time I look at Mazamas' rosters I'll look for his name.

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Tom
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PostFri Dec 05, 2003 7:33 pm 
Was he Lindsey or Lindsley?

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