Maple Valley was home to a railroad depot for 107 years. The first depot arrived around 1885 when the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad laid track on its way to serve new coal mines in Black Diamond and Franklin.
A second depot, was built at a new location in 1892 after the Columbia & Puget Sound extended a branch line to Taylor.
A third depot replaced this one in 1953 and served the community until it was razed in 1982. Within the decade, tracks were removed and in time the old rail bed found new life as a regional trail. This station was located just north of Foley’s Market and Maple Valley Food Bank next to SR 169. An old concrete foundation for the 1953 station is still visible next to the Cedar River Trail and across from the old Nazarene Church, now a store owned by David and Renee Gleason called A Matter of Style. The vehicle below the Maple Valley sign was a speeder, used for track inspection and maintenance work.
To the left of the depot, beyond a 1940s car, lies a barely visible Standard Oil gas station and grocery store. It was constructed in 1929 by Chester Gibbon and leased to his father, William D. Gibbon who operated the store.
Chester started Maple Valley’s first newspaper, while William was one of the town’s founding fathers and earliest merchants. Two years after W.D. Gibbon’s death in 1944, Chester and Rosetta Gibbon contracted the gas station and store to Bill Mitchell and Ralph Glidewell who operated as Bill & Ralph’s. Mitchell eventually purchased the property. The old building was torn down in 1986. In 1962, Glidewell opened the popular grocery store, Ralph’s Thriftway at Wilderness Village. A hardware store next door was later added by the Johnson family who now operate Johnson’s Home & Garden at Four Corners.
This photo of the depot dates to the late 1940s and come courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura with historical information provided by Dick Peacock, President of the Maple Valley Historical Society, and Gary Gibbon, son of Chester and Rosetta.
