Snohomish: Small Town, Big History

In 1855, Washington Territory started work on a military road to connect the 135 miles between Fort Steilacoom and Fort Bellingham. Army surveyors hacked through the dense Pacific Northwest forests, building a road as far north as Seattle. Beyond that construction stalled, as federal funds dwindled.

So early settlers took up their own tools and carved a crude muddy trail through the remote wilderness, along a path near to today’s Highway 9.

Emory C. Ferguson, a New York native transplanted to Steilacoom and searching for work as a carpenter, took interest in the new road. He studied maps of the proposed route with the hope of finding the perfect site for a lucrative ferry crossing.

In the summer of 1859, he located a spot along a dark and heavily forested river and sent three of his friends to survey and stake homestead claims. Some storefronts were quickly built and a hand-operated cable ferry strung across the river. It was “a very weird place,” he said. “Trees along the banks with long branches extending out over the river… with long strings of moss hanging from the branches, which nearly shut out the sunlight.”

Coast Salish people known as the Sdoh-doh-hohbsh were Ferguson’s first neighbors. They had lived in the area for thousands of years, with seasonal encampments stretching from the Everett waterfront to today’s Monroe. For the Coast Salish and upper Snoqualmie tribes, the river provided a vital link for trade and transportation.

Though the military road never fully materialized, a trading and shipping hub did. The outpost was nicknamed Cadyville and comprised a store, tavern, and a handful of rough log homes at the site of today’s Cady Park. It was named after Ferguson’s friend Edson T. Cady, who freighted supplies on his steamboat to logging camps up and down the river. Within a few years, a wharf and hotel had been built at the water’s edge, quickly followed by multiple mills busily processing the area's vast logging supply.

In 1871, Ferguson officially formed the town and gave it a name inspired by the native population: “Snohomish City.”