Local Life

Civic odds and ends, neighborhood stories, local color, public safety, schools, and daily Boise life.

A screen-print poster of a black steam locomotive emerging from a stone tunnel portal in a mountainside, smoke curling up, firs on the slope, in charcoal, slate blue and cream inks.

Local Life/September 25, 2026

For thirteen years the Northern Pacific's main line ran through Enumclaw. Then it built a cutoff and left.

The Northern Pacific reached Enumclaw in 1885, opened the Stampede Tunnel in 1888 and rerouted through Auburn in 1900. The branch is now the Foothills Trail.

A screen-print poster of a covered wagon being lowered backward down a steep forested slope on a rope wrapped around a tree, men leaning back on the line, in forest green, ochre and rust inks.

Local Life/September 25, 2026

The first wagons over the Cascades came down the White River in 1853, and the road crew had already gone home

In 1853 the first wagons over the Cascades were roped down a cliff and came down the White River past Enumclaw. Four eyewitnesses, one hill, no agreement.

A screen-print poster of a small police station at night with one lit window, a patrol car at the curb, and a faint mountain behind, in navy, amber and cream inks.

Local Life/September 25, 2026

Enumclaw is one of the last small cities around that runs its own police, its own jail and its own 911 room

Enumclaw runs its own patrol, a 25-bed jail under the station and a 911 desk that covers Mount Rainier after hours. Who runs it, what it costs, what it earns.

A screen-print poster of a small house whose walls are divided into flat bands of color, the largest a schoolhouse yellow, a smaller red band, a thin green one, under a paper-cut Mount Rainier.

Local Life/September 25, 2026

Your Enumclaw tax rate has 22 lines in it, and the city wrote one of them

Enumclaw's 2026 rate is $9.58 per $1,000. Half goes to schools, a sixth to the fire district, 11 percent to the city. Every line, who set it, and what changes.

A 1960s brick fire station at dusk with a red engine pulling out of a lit bay onto a wet street.

Local Life/September 24, 2026

Call 911 in Enumclaw and the truck that comes is not the city's

Enumclaw's fire department is a separate county district with its own levy and one staffed station, built in 1968. Who answers 911, what it costs, what is next.

A cut-paper diorama of a large sawmill with a log pond, a flume on trestles and a small locomotive, with forest and a mountain behind.

Local Life/September 24, 2026

The mill that built Enumclaw burned twice, changed hands twice, and closed in the spring of 2003

Elijah Goss started Enumclaw's mill in 1889. The Hansons rebuilt it after two fires, Weyerhaeuser bought it in 1949 and closed it in 2003. What is there now.

A cut-paper diorama of wind pouring through a notch in paper mountains onto a small plateau town while a paper city sits calm in the distance.

Local Life/September 24, 2026

Enumclaw is what stands on the other side of the lowest pass in the region

Enumclaw sits below the lowest pass in the region, Seattle's planners say. Cold air comes through at up to 120 mph. The 1983 storm, the 2024 cyclone, and why.

The white pillars and red brick of Enumclaw's 1922 Municipal Building on Griffin Avenue

Local Life/September 23, 2026

Enumclaw became a city on the second try, by a close vote, in the middle of winter

Enumclaw's first incorporation vote failed in 1912 over boundaries. In January 1913 a town of a thousand said yes and John Blake became mayor.

A cartoon of a 1970s indoor pool building being held up by voters, a golfer, a city accountant and a county official.

Local Life/September 23, 2026

Enumclaw's pool is a 1968 King County vote that never went away

Enumclaw's pool was built with Forward Thrust money in the early 1970s and handed to the city in 2003. How the town has paid for it since.

A cartoon of a pickle factory on a highway corner with a cloud of dill drifting across a small town toward a swimming pool.

Local Life/September 23, 2026

For 44 years, Enumclaw smelled like dill

Two brothers started Farman's Pickles in an Enumclaw basement in 1944. King Pickle reached 13 states before the plant closed in 1988. The road kept the name.

A cartoon of a football game being played in a swimming pool under stadium lights, with a cheering grandstand and a mountain behind.

Local Life/September 22, 2026

There is no pool at Pete's Pool

Enumclaw's football stadium is named for a spring kids dug out in 1935 on coal miner Pete Chorak's land. The pool is gone. The WPA grandstand is not.

A cartoon of Enumclaw's one newspaper reporter working at a kitchen table while the whole town happens outside the window.

Local Life/September 22, 2026

The paper that outlived a fire, a rival and six sales just lost its front door

The Courier-Herald has covered Enumclaw since 1900. Its last downtown office closed in 2026, its archive went to the museum, and one reporter works from home.

Local Life

For thirteen years the Northern Pacific's main line ran through Enumclaw. Then it built a cutoff and left.

The first wagons over the Cascades came down the White River in 1853, and the road crew had already gone home

Enumclaw is one of the last small cities around that runs its own police, its own jail and its own 911 room

Your Enumclaw tax rate has 22 lines in it, and the city wrote one of them

Call 911 in Enumclaw and the truck that comes is not the city's

The mill that built Enumclaw burned twice, changed hands twice, and closed in the spring of 2003

Enumclaw is what stands on the other side of the lowest pass in the region

Enumclaw became a city on the second try, by a close vote, in the middle of winter

Enumclaw's pool is a 1968 King County vote that never went away

For 44 years, Enumclaw smelled like dill

There is no pool at Pete's Pool

The paper that outlived a fire, a rival and six sales just lost its front door

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