The City of Pacific
The First 100 Years
Agricultural Roots
The City of Pacific's roots are linked to the rivers that flow through the fertile valley of south King County and northern Pierce County.
The first pioneers arrived in the White River Valley around the mid-1800s. By 1878, hops had become a major crop in the City of Pacific and throughout King and Pierce Counties. This was short-lived, however. A disastrous epidemic of hop lice, augmented by the depression of the 1890s and the American Panic of 1893, brought an end to hop farming. Farmers turned to dairies, berries, vegetables, and bulbs.
Railroads Bring Change
With the advent of the railroad, a huge migration of immigrants brought an economic boom. Swiss, Dutch, German, Swedish, and Japanese people came to the valley to work on the farms and the growing factories.
The railroad was a key factor in the early growth of Pacific. Construction began on the Interurban Railway running from Seattle to Tacoma. In 1902, still under construction, it was sold to another company becoming the Seattle Electric Company and later the Puget Sound Electric Railway.
The Railway opened September 25, 1902. It ran from Georgetown in south Seattle to downtown Tacoma--passing through the White River Valley and the towns of Renton, Kent, Auburn, and Pacific. The extremely successful system operated on a one-way fare of 60 cents, one dollar for round trip. Eighty percent of the income came from passenger fares and twenty percent from freight fees. Five years after opening, the railway showed a profit of $184, 000. However, by 1920, hard-surfaced roads were developed. Auto, truck and bus service took off, and the Interurban made its last run in 1928.
Tough Times
Yearly flooding threatened the piece of early valley inhabitants. The White River flowed north through Auburn while the Stuck River flowed south and joined the Puyallup River at Sumner. Worry over crop loss plagued farmers in the valley. Farmers often directed water from the White River into the Stuck River by creating logjams, which created conflict between the two valleys' residents. In 1906, the conflict came to a head.
That year, as the White River was diverted into the Stuck River, the flooding in Puyallup and Sumner was disastrous. A concrete division dam built on the site of the more natural logjam in the White River was constructed in 1913. However, the annual threat of floods did not disappear completely. Two major floods in the 1930s threatened to overpower the dam and invade the valley.
