The News Tribune from Tacoma, Washington • 106

The News Tribune 3 Him A CELEBRATION OF MOUNT RAINIER STORY PARK: Concerns about conservation surface Indian Hemy -1895 Enterprising native opened mountain to white pioneers ByRosCmson The News Trisune News Tfmune Aflowes Cars jam the parking lot at Paradise in a Rainier National Park Co photo probably made in the early 1920s The structure in the background is the Tatoosh Club erected in the late teens as a dormitory for female employees of the Paradise Inn the hotel at the site The Tatoosh Club was torn down in the '50s -'V -r Continued from Page 2 ly the alliance between preservationists and tourism developers was an easy one Few foresaw the conflict that would eventually arise Preservation and public use were not seen as conflicting interests but ones that could peacefully coexist The park legislation reflected that sense of harmony The purpose of the new park the law said was not only to-preserve but also provide for public Along with language about preserving injury or destruction the scenic and other natural beauties of Mount the congressional committee that recommended the park in 1888 added of necessary tramways or railroads hotel accommodations etc is proposed so that this park may be preserved as a pleasure ground for tourists and health Preservation and tourism The issue that gradually arose to divide the two interests was one of degree: At what point does providing access and amenities for tourists infringe too much mi aesthetics and the environment? Soon after Rainier became a park local interests began applying pressure to build roads groups and automobile clubs from Tacoma and Seattle lobbied officials to open the park to automobiles a step no other national park had taken Up to then visitors walked or rode on horseback or in horse-drawn wagons Mount first manager Grenville Allen reluctantly agreed to let cars through the Nisqually gate on a trial basis in 1907 even though he said he personally thought the machines were dangerous and great Within months local business groups had drawn up plans for a system of highways throughout the park Proposals included a road completely around the mountain with stops at each of the glaciers Another ran all the way to the summit The crater basins near the top of the mountain developers suggested would be ideal for parking lots and perhaps a hotel When federal appropriations failed to materialize in desired amounts Seattle and Tacoma chambers of commerce and Rotary clubs put together the Seattle-Tacoma Rainier National Park Advisory Board which in 1912 unabashedly dedicated itself to the and exploitation of Mount Rainier National The first order of business was to hire a lobbyist to work for congressional appropriations for park roads Next on its agenda was a tramway that was to Btart in the Paradise Valley a mile above sea level where visitors center stands and climb 1400 feet higher to a sweeping overlook at Panorama Point Congress at Paradise? Commercial development had an enthusiastic supporter in US Rep Albert Johnson of Tacoma He was so eager to see the mountain developed that he suggested in 1913 that the capital be moved to Paradise in the summertime Congress could escape the sweltering heat of the East Coast Johnson said and do its business in air by glacial peaks of solid At first the park service supported the idea of attracting more visitors The concept that isolated Western parks could become too crowded seemed impossible But the park enthusiasm marketing efforts to entice crowds to Mount Rainier by the Rainier National Park Co a group of wealthy Tacoma and Seattle investors granted exclusive rights to operate park concessions Among its many promotional ideas the Tacoma-based company hired Yakama Indians to dress in feathered headdresses and perform romanticized rituals for tourists The shows ended shortly after they began in 1925 and according to Cecelia Carpenter a Tacoma historian who has written several books on Northwest tribes and their spiritual beliefs not difficult to understand why The attitudes of the two cultures toward the mountain could hardly have been more different In the days when pioneers first settled around 1 Mount Rainier Indian Henry was one of the only American Indians to eagerly adopt ways and bridge the cultural gap with whites His guidance and openness changed Rainier history Indian Henry became a Christian a former and a businessman all of which made him remarkable among early native inhabitants The reticence wasn't surprising since during the of 1855-56 white mercenaries hired to exterminate hostile Indians swept across the Mashel Prairie west of present-day Eatonville and killed an unknown number of fleeing women and children Indian Henry settled on the prairie after the war living there until his death in 1895 Along with Hs three wives he established a successful farm with fenced fields a log house and a bam and he built a community of relatives and friends around him He spike some English in addition to at least three Indian dialects He knew the forested slopes south of the mountain and was sought out as a guide by early climbers Indian Henry was a friend of the pioneer James Longmire and guided climbing party as for as Paradise in 1883 for a fee of $2 a day Tfen 1 years later he rounded up Indian laborers fin: Long-mire to help dear the first wagon road to the park Indian Henry was a labor contractor only declining to take part in the physical labor himself He apparently was a willing host and Puget Sound travelers on their way to the mountain routinely Bpent a night on the hay in his bam John Muir stayed there in 1888 and in his journal described Indian Henry as mild-looking smallish man with three wives three fields and horses oats wheat and Also in 1888 Indian Hemy is said to have guided Tbm Van Eaton to his homestead at what is now downtown Eatonville Indian Henry is mentioned in dozens of other pioneer reminiscences but invariably as eui aside and with few telling details Beyond those sketchy accounts little is known fat certain about the man Stories differ even on what tribe he was with whether Klickitat Cowlitz or Nisqually The most often repeated story was that he had been exiled from his tribe for having killed a medicine man The medicine man had supposedly prescribed a treatment that killed Indian Henryk father and Indian Henry killed him in retribution Even Indian real name Sotolick is uncertain As the story goes Longmire and fellow pioneers James Packwood and Henry Winsor first encountered Indian Henry near Mount Rainier in 1862 When they asked him his name he came out with a tongue-twister that the pioneers remembered as Winsor told him that the name was too hard to pronounce and that he should take his name -Henry Others theorized later that Indian Henry had misunderstood the question and had actually said having had earlier contact with Jesuit missionaries Indian Henry was relatively well off and white settlers did a great deal of speculating about how he got that way Some said that he had salvaged gold from a wrecked Spanish ship and that he had packed his fortune off to a secret cache on Mount 1 Rainier Others said that he had a gold mine on the mountain or that he had found gold that once belonged to Chief Leschi the great leader of the Nisqually Tribe Some believed it was only Indian Henryk natural shrewdness that made him wealthy noting that he altered the sign pointing the way to Mount Rainier to divert visitors mi an unnecessary detour to his form where he would charge them for supplies and lodging Indian white neighbors were curious enough about his wealth to follow him to his secret summer goat-hunting area on the slopes of Mount Rainier They found no gold there but a luxurious flower-filled valley that rivaled Paradise for beauty The place in the southwest comer of what is now the national park is known as Indian Hunting Ground Wuhmgton Sure Hstoncn Sooety A total of 112 mountaineers from the Sierra Club the Mazamas and the Appalachian Mountain Club climbed Rainier in 1905 and this is an Asahel Curtis photo probably made of some of the climbers Long before the invention of sunscreen these climbers wore theatrical grease paint to ward off sunburn To Indians a place of spirits Archaeological evidence indicates that indigenous tribes had been living in the area of the mountain since at least 3000 BC about the time-cities were developing along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Southwest Asia The native people had developed their own complex relationship with the mountain and it had nothing to do with profit or pretense Natives who lived within sight of the mountain regarded it as a gathering place of powerful spirits Carpenter said and they treated it with the utmost respect Indians did not worship the mountain according to Carpenter but they saw it as spectacular evidence of the power of Sagale Tee the highest of all spirit powers Other Rainier National Park Co ideas had only slightly better success than the Indian shows Promoters built a nine-hole golf course at Paradise the location today of the Henry Jackson Visitor Center They organized a motorcycle hill climb cm the fragile meadows They sponsored ski races and built a toboggan run And they imported an Eskimo sled driver and his huskies to give rides Mather wrote I was astounded to see the number of automobiles on their way out of the reservation In lees than 40 miles I passed over 400 Two years later Mather's successor reported that on weekends and holidays congestion was so bad that percent of the people could not be comfortably But to those in pursuit of tourist dollars crowding inside the park had a simple solution: more roads more hotels more parking lots In the spring of 1923 a big dump truck lumbered down Tacoma's Pacific Avenue close on the heels of a marching band from Fort Lewis The truck was heaped with snow fresh from Mount Rainier On top of the load a group of young women shivering in bathing suits tossed snowballs at people on the sidewalks National Park is Open said a sign on top of the truck The parade was one of dozens of for tourism waned as the number of automobiles increased In 1899 when McKinley signed the legislation creating the park there were only 8000 cars in the entire country Tten years later there were 500000 By 1920 there were 145000 cars in Washington state alone and on clear summer weekends it sometimes seemed that most of them were in the park Steven Mather the first director of the park service and a millionaire who made his fortune with 20 Mule Tfeam Borax was initially a strong backer of park roads and commercial development But the growing crowds at Rainier gave him second thoughts Mather visited Mount Rainier in 1919 and reported to the secretary of the Interior Labor Day the largest crowds in the history of the park thronged its hotels and public automobile grounds had occasion to enter the park on two Sunday afternoons in In its first five years of business 1916-21 the Rainier National Park PhwPskfti( ATHII GUIDE HOOK MQPT TSeoftft reacE oouwrv mmmmqmh vj the north side They reach the summit on the third try 1888: Naturalist John Muir visits Mount Rainier and climbs to the summit with Mqj Edward Ingraham not mean to climb Muir wrote in a letter to his wife got excited and soon was on top The Tacoma City Council asks the Territorial Legislature to petition Congress to set aside Mount Rainier as a national park I 11889: Longmire family completes two bathhouses ahd some guest cabins at the mineral springs and begins advertising Med-! leal in Tacoma newspapers i Now 11 1889: Washington be-! comes the 42nd state Aug 10 1890: Fay Fuller a teacher from Yelm Is the first woman to reach the summit Age 20 and single her climb alone with four men scandalized Tacoma society So did her climbing costume a long skirt with ankle-length bloomers boys shoes and a straw hat 1890: US Board of Geographic Names decides must remain on all government maps and publications 189001: With help of Indian laborers the Longmires clear a crude wagon road from Ashford to the springs They build the mountain's first hotel Mineral Springs Resort 1891: First dog climbs the mountain a deerhound belonging to Dr Warren Riley who accompanied Van Trump 1893: Land that is now Mount Rainier National Park is set aside as a federal forest re- serve the precursor to what are now called national forests The Forest was roughly a square 35 miles on a side with Mount Rainier on its western edge A map at the Chicago World's Fair shows the name of the peak as Tacoma or Rainier' The map causes such a controversy that it is banished to a back room Dec 1893: Washington Sen Watson Squire Introduces a bill in Congress to establish National Park It was the first of six bills introduced In consecutive sessions of Congress before the park was finally established in 1899 1894: Last known eruption a minor emission of smoke and ash confirmed by a climbing party led by Ma Ingraham Seattle-brewed Rainier beer makes its debut Carbon River to the Carbon Galcier Willis writes of enormous trees awesome silence and oppressive solitude He calls the mountain awful power clad in beauty 1883: Northern Pacific Railroad first suggests Mount Rainier and its glaciers be established as a national park and sends a party of influential writers to the area James Longmire searching for lost horses discovers natural mineral springs at what Is now Longmire Tacomans make their first serious attempt to change the name of the mountain to Mount Tacoma 1884: Longmires construct first trail to mineral springs 1885: James wife Virlnda or Martha the wife of his son Elcalne visits Paradise Valley for the first time and names it Paradise because of the beauty of the wildflowers The Rev Warner Fbhes Richard 0 Wells and George James of Snohomish attempt the first ascent via Aug 17 1870: First documented summit climb Hazard Stevens (who called the mountain and Philemon tfen Trump were led part way up by Indian guide Sluiskin They spent the night on the summit surviving the cold by warming themselves at a steam vent Sluiskin who believed the climb impossible thought they were ghosts when they returned the next day Oct 1870: Second successful ascent: Samuel Emmons and AD Wilson 1881-82: Bailey Willis a Northern Pacific Railroad geologist cuts a horse trail VSn Trump from Wilkeson up the WM MTOMMTKM MGMWMOM UMMJMS to aomram rauntr hk ooun nwnw vuoesmo ureureoMn or tttnwoii kic Despite a ruling by the US Board of namos throo yoara oariloi this 1893 gulda ttnuoe to rofar to tha arountaln as.