Road History of the Pacific Northwest

Copyright 2003, Conrad Drum, dba  Shelter Rock Resources, Inc.

Photo credit: Washington State Department of Transportation.

Since before the 1900’s, the growth of any frontier area was measured, in large part, by the road building activity in that area. Expansion requires the support of good roads for the movement of people and goods in an are and the economical transport of products out to the marketplace.

The northwest territory, and more specifically the Olympic Northwest, was one of the last areas to be explored and developed in the “lower 48”.

As the area immediately around Sequim continues to develop at a steady pace, and as the number of pioneer family members continues to dwindle, information about the area’s roads is being lost. There is, however, still a good deal of first-hand knowledge about our roads… there are still folks around who traveled these roads everyday as farmers, tradesmen, and even school children.

SEQUIM-DUNGENESS WAY
The development of Dungeness, and later Sequim, began with the landing of ships from England, somewhere inside the Dungeness Spit. The landing site was selected, presumably, because it offered a measure of protection and it’s shallow beach area would make loading easier. What brought the ships was the abundance of tall straight timber for use in planking and poles.
There were two towns named Dungeness. The first was named New Dungeness, after the town in England where some or most of the sailors were from (www.dungeness.org.uk), and was on the more elevated area on the west side of the river, around the current location of the oyster farm and Twinview Drive. Two remaining features of that first Dungeness are the McAlmond House, which is on the National Historical Register, and Clark Road, which served as the original “main street” of Dungeness. Some current maps of the area still show a reference to “Old Town”.
The second Dungeness is the one most people are familiar with today. It was developed to a far greater extent. Several of the original homes and some commercial buildings are still standing, at least in part. Plenty of photos still exist of the town and the various social activities of the times.
The main street of Dungeness was then, and still is, Dungeness Way. Since the main focus of the town was the loading, unloading, and distribution of goods from sailing and steam ships, the main street was essentially an extension of the long wooden dock where the ships tied up. You can still see some of the pilings from that dock when you look northeast over the water from the Three Crabs Restaurant. The dock went nearly a mile out into Dungeness Bay, owing to the extreme shallowness of the bay at that point.
After Dungeness, the next town to be built was Sequim. Sequim’s focus was more on farming, and as such it grew to have the various businesses associated with a farming community. There was the mercantile, the livery stable, the hotel, the bank, and later, the railroad depot.
So, it seems that the first real road in the area, currently named Sequim-Dungeness Way, went from the dock in Dungeness to the town of Sequim. It probably went along its present route. The first point where this north-south road intersected an east-west road was when the present-day Anderson Road met it , coming from the west.
From Dungeness, heading south, the road intersected another important road that was passing through the area, the Olympic Highway.
The road heading south from Dungeness met the Olympic Highway at the present intersection, then continued into Sequim, where its name was changed to Sequim Avenue. It crossed what is now Washington Street, and then continued south to, among other things, the railroad station. This route created a direct link from ship to train… from ”sail to rail”.

THE OLYMPIC HIGHWAY
The first major east-west road in the area appears to have been the Olympic Highway. From what information I’ve been able to gather so far, the Olympic Highway was the local name for the road that moved through the area, east to west, and keeping fairly close to the coast line of the Strait of Juan De Fuca, Sequim Bay, and Discovery Bay. It connected the local towns of Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Williams, Blynn, Gardiner, and Discovery Bay.
The road we recognize as the Old Olympic Highway runs from it’s connecting point at Highway 101, near the State Patrol office, to it’s intersection with Sequim-Dungeness Way, just north of the center of Sequim.
Originally known as the Olympic Highway, it’s generally assumed to have picked up the extra name of “Old” after the present Highway 101 was built in an effort to “straighten out” the Olympic Highway’s route.
The Olympic Highway certainly went from Port Angeles, east at least as far as Gardiner. It’s likely it went further to the west than Port Angeles, and it probably went well beyond Gardiner and on south along the Hood Canal. There are short sections of road identified as Old Olympic Highway that can be found today just north of Olympia, running parallel to US 101.
As the road went through each town, the highway took each town’s name.
In the Sequim area, this road was the Olympic Highway. It followed roughly the same route as it does today as the “Old” Olympic Highway. Moving east, the same road was known as the Blynn Highway, and further on, the Gardiner Highway.
When the current-day Highway 101 was built, it took it’s own route for the greatest portion of its length, but in areas where it got pinched between more rugged hills and the water’s edge, it used existing portions of the Olympic highway. There are still several areas where the old highway runs parallel to Highway 101.
Sections of the Old Blynn Highway still run along the north side of Highway 101, although a short portion around Jimmy Come Lately Creek was “decommissioned” this past summer (2004) and severed when it’s bridge was removed to aid in the freer flow of the creek. The Old Gardiner Highway still runs alongside Highway 101, on the north side, intersecting it and then veering off again at a couple of places. It finally meets up with Highway 101 for the last time near the bottom of Discovery Bay.
I believe that the current 101 and the Olympic Highway share common pathway in several areas. Working it’s way east around the base of Discovery Bay, the road may have started to head south along what is now Uncas Road, eventually meeting the current Highway 101 to continue on to Olympia. It may have just continued on its present route, and Uncas Road may have served as little more than a “short cut” of sorts. In either case, I think the primary destination was to the south, along the Hood Canal… at least in the early days.
Most traffic these days splits off to take Highway 104 in order to take the Hood Canal Bridge and travel on to points east. At the turn of the 20th century, there was certainly no bridge, and I’ve not heard of a ferry crossing in the area, except Southpoint-Lofall, which probably didn’t exist until the 1940’s or so.

Some perspective on the development of the Olympic Highway and SR101.
As someone who came to the Olympic Peninsula in the late 1970’s, I didn’t give much thought to how the area developed. If I had been asked, I would have presumed that the local economic development was a result of a westward expansion from the Seattle area, probably driven by the need for raw timber. I certainly saw all the logging trucks on the highway, and I would have figured that, in one form or another, those logs were headed to ships in Seattle or on across the country to waiting American markets. After some research, however, it appears that the Olympic Peninsula, and its main highway, developed from the south, and then on towards the east.
Looking back to the late 1800s, the biggest city in the coastal northwest was likely Aberdeen. It was a bustling shipping point for timber cut from the area forest lands. Frankly, there was little reason to venture any further north. For a long time, if you went anywhere overland from Aberdeen, you were likely headed towards Olympia.
There was some slow development of the areas north of Aberdeen, principally for timber harvesting, but also as a result of some folks taking “the cure” at places like Quinault Lodge and along Lake Crescent. Towns like Forks and smaller pockets of civilization like Sapho, Beaver, and Pysht began to appear, possibly at first as logging camps.
Eastward movement of the Olympic Highway progressed as far as Port Angeles, and pretty well halted for a while. Port Angeles’ wonderful deep and protected harbor was hard to beat as a point for loading and unloading cargo, and it was well-served by railroad lines to the east. Making a connection from Port Angeles to the small farming town of Sequim, or further on to even smaller towns like Blynn and Gardiner, was just not a priority.