Here Came the Rain
November is here, and in Washington that usually has meant inclement weather. A large gale destroyed a few buildings in Western Washington on November 16, 1875. On November 16, 1897, massive flooding in Snohomish County began destroying access to the town of Monte Cristo, putting an end to the community's mining boom. And on November 17, 2015, a windstorm in Spokane and other parts of Eastern Washington left 180,000 homes without power.
On November 14, 1906, heavy rains -- combined with some farmers' amateur river engineering -- changed the course of the White River. White River Valley farmers were frequently vexed by seasonal floods, and in 1914 a small diversion dam was built near Auburn to control some of the flooding. But it wasn't until Mud Mountain Dam opened in 1948 that the waters began to subside. The completion of the Howard A. Hanson Dam in 1962 effectively ended major flooding in the valley, but not before the last big deluge in 1959.
This week also marks the anniversary of a massive flood on the Cedar River that had far-reaching effects. On November 19, 1911, heavy rains and melting snow caused a dam to burst three miles above Cedar Falls, sending floodwater 28 miles downstream and drowning the city of Renton. The raging river also destroyed part of the pipeline that supplied most of Seattle's water and carried water to the Cedar Falls power plant. For days most of the city was without drinking water and electricity, and concerns over pollution in Lake Washington led to the first use of chlorination to purify Seattle water.
Farewell, C. Mark Smith
We at HistoryLink were saddened this week by the death of C. Mark Smith, who recently began writing for us. Mark served as a senior official in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and had written several books about Washington history. We invite you to read the essays he wrote here about "Mr Tri-cities" Sam Volpentest, the vital roles played by federal convicts and Italian prisoners of war in supporting the U.S. war effort at Hanford, and how atomic-bomb development was kept secret. He also wrote three articles about Tacoma mayor and U.S. senator Harry Cain – a biography and essays about Cain's clean-up of Tacoma vice and his appointment to the federal Subversive Activities Control Board.
Also, please note that author bylines on HistoryLink are now hyperlinked to a search-results page with all of that author's articles. This means you can click on a byline and be taken to a listing of all the other articles written by that author.
.jpg)
