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Local Life

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

A collage in which a sepia photograph of a row of company houses and a two-story schoolhouse is torn back to reveal an older hand-colored scene of a Japanese family among cedar stumps and hand-built cabins.

Local Life/September 28, 2026

Selleck, Washington: a town that outlived its company

Pacific States Lumber built Selleck in 1909. The mill is gone, the houses stand, and the Japanese families it says came in 1923 were there a decade before.

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

Enumclaw railroad history: the main line that left in 1900

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

Naches Pass wagon train, 1853: the first over the Cascades

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 Police Department: its own jail and 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

Enumclaw property tax: 22 lines, and the city wrote one

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

Enumclaw Fire Department: the truck 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

White River Lumber Company: the mill that built Enumclaw

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 wind: the town below the region's lowest pass

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 in 1913, on the second try

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 Aquatic Center: a 1968 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.

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