Originally published in The Seattle Times, January 27, 1957
By Lucile McDonald
An almost forgotten structure on the White River is shown in part in the Page 1 color illustration of today’s Magazine Section. It is a drift barrier of concrete piers and cables, built some 40 years ago in an effort to prevent driftwood jams and control floods. The barrier is in the Muckleshoot Reservation, southeast of Auburn. It is reached by way of a road between Newaukum and the Academy District.
Washington has a river which nobody wanted … the White.
Today the White River’s waters pour into Puget Sound through a channel 20 miles shorter than the one it followed for untold centuries.
Until 1906 the stream flowed northward into the Green River, thence to the Duwamish and the “salt chuck.” Today it empties into the Puyallup, at Sumner, by way of the Stuck—a river which, technically speaking, has disappeared, although its name still is used by Auburn residents and appears on a state-highway bridge.
All of these rivers were once parts of the same great basin, its fingers extending into the mountain valleys. The land, built up by glacial action, eroded easily and the stream channels, made when the area was emerging from the sea, were unstable and sinuous. In flood seasons they sprawled out of banks.
The White River, with its deep mountain canyon and drift jams, was especially menacing and farmers had no love for it. (more…)
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