North Cascades

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE NORTH CASCADES

EARLY SETTLEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE: EAST SLOPE

The east side of the North Cascades displayed similar settlement trends. Pioneers traveled beyond the familiar banks of the Columbia River to explore outlying areas like the Chelan country. Following the shores of Lake Chelan to the west, these pioneers penetrated the mountainous country and established their homestead claims at the head of the lake, along the Stehekin River.

Settlement on the east slope of the North Cascades, however, occurred at a much slower pace. This was due, in large part, to the existence of the Chief Moses Indian Reservation which included all the lands between the Methow and Chelan Rivers, and west to the mountain divide. This was land the territorial government reserved for Indian settlement. As on the west side of the Cascades, settlement tended to follow lines of transportation, and the Chelan country was north of major routes such as the Columbia River. [9] In addition, the available timber resource, though abundant, was less accessible and therefore less marketable than timber on the west slope. All of these factors left the region east of the North Cascades sparsely populated into the late nineteenth century.

Prospects of gold along the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers in 1856-7 attracted some miners to the area, but the population increase was inconsequential and had little impact on developing settlements. [10] Substantial numbers of immigrants did not arrive until after the Indian Reservation was re-organized and opened to white settlement. It was the original intention of the government that the reservation become a home for all relocated Indians from around the territory. For various reasons, however, it attracted few Indians as permanent residents and was opened to white settlement by the federal government in 1886. Two years later, this land became Okanogan County. [11]

Slow but steady growth continued through the 1880s and 1890s. A few early settlers established homes in the new townsite of Chelan, at the lower end of Lake Chelan. At least ten others are known to have chosen the shores of the glacier-fed lake by 1888. [12] In 1899 Chelan County was carved out of the immense Okanogan County. The 1900 census for Chelan County shows a population of several thousand; by 1910 that number had swollen to more than fifteen thousand. [13] During this decade of rapid growth in Chelan County, Whatcom and Skagit County populations also increased significantly. However, few of these settlers located in the interior portions of the North Cascades.