There is no place as gorgeous as the Green River Gorge. And no place so deadly. This year the Green River has claimed more victims to drowning than usual. Three young adults drown in the Gorge’s cold rapids all in the space of nine days in mid-May 2020. An 18-year-old male fell in the rapids and expired. A 20-year-old woman plunged from slippery rocks, was carried downstream and perished. Her friend jumped in to rescue and almost drowned herself before being saved. Then a 24-year-old male attempted to swim across the river with a friend. His body was recovered one-half mile downstream. Every year it seems one or more youthful adventurers make the same mistake, typically during the first warm days of late spring. The area that claims so many lives is just below the single-lane Green River Gorge Bridge located halfway between Black Diamond and Cumberland.
This 1921 image of the Green River Gorge on a lazy day in late summer was taken by a photographer who signed his initials, G.X.S. below the © symbol. We know it was late summer as the water is so low and calm. Not so on hot days in May and June when most drowning deaths occur at an average of one per year. This photo appeared in the Nov. 7, 1921 issue of the Pacific Coast “Bulletin” as did other mining photographs taken by the mysterious G.X.S. At the time Pacific Coast was just closing their underground coal mine in nearby Franklin as they began selling lots in the area they recently renamed Pacosco. This post card image #426 comes courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian.
