Enumclaw is a city surrounded by a wide expanse of rural land called the Enumclaw Plateau. The general boundaries of the plateau were formed following the Osceola mudflow about 5,600 years ago. That lahar from Mount Rainier sent millions of tons of mud that flowed like a river covering an area that stretches six miles north to south and eight miles east to west. As the centuries passed, a thick forest grew, interrupted by a few prairies maintained by ancestors of the Muckleshoot Tribe.
European settlers began homesteading the area in the 1850s. The first was Allen L. Porter, who homesteaded a prairie above White River near the intersection of S.E. 448th Street and 196th Ave. S.E. Subsequent settlers spawned small communities, the first of which were Fir Grove, Boise, and Osceola. From its earliest days, the plateau was a community of communities.
In 1885, the homestead of Frank and Mary (Fell) Stevenson was chosen as the site of the Northern Pacific Railroad depot. Locals wanted to name the town Stevensville, but Frank and Mary modestly refused the offer. That’s when Marion (Montgomery) Lee, the daughter-in-law of railroad engineer, Charley Lee, suggested Enumclaw. It was the term local Native Americans called a sawed-off, rock-faced promontory to the northeast. Loosely translated, ‘Enumclaw’ means thundering noise, from tales and legends told by the Salish people. Over the next two decades, the town of Enumclaw increasingly overshadowed its country cousins, primarily due to the railroad and the White River Lumber Company.
Here are the origins and short descriptions of the communities that comprised the Enumclaw Plateau:
Birch was originally part of the Coal Creek District as was Veazie. It was a thriving community that sold produce to nearby coal mines. As it declined, buildings were moved or salvaged. The store’s lumber was reused when building the Danish Hall in Enumclaw.
Boise was settled along the meandering Boise Creek just above where it empties into the White River, adjacent to the Northern Pacific Railroad bridge crossing. Long before Boise, ancestors of the Muckleshoot Indians fashioned fishing weirs at the creek’s mouth.
Camp Ellenson was a logging community near the site of the White River Lumber mill, later acquired by Weyerhaeuser. By 1910, the Ellenson mill was connected by a wooden flume that floated logs to the White River planning mill in downtown Enumclaw. Owned primarily by the Hanson family, White River Lumber was known as a Swede company due to the large number of Swedish men working there. Ellenson was named for Ellen Hanson, the daughter of Carl Hanson, the company’s founder and a Swedish emigrant. Ellen married Louis Olson, the company’s original teamster and president in the 1920s.
Enumclaw’s success is credited to the Stevenson family, who offered free land to the Northern Pacific Railroad for rail sidings and a depot built near the present-day site of the library. The Stevensons platted town lots in anticipation of the prosperity soon delivered by the railroad. Frank and Mary Stevenson also donated land for churches, schools, and a cemetery. Scandinavian immigrants made up the bulk of Enumclaw’s early residents. Commercial establishments, along Griffin Ave. and Cole Street, and near the rail depot, helped cement Enumclaw’s rise to prominence.
Fir Grovewas settled by French homesteaders in the 1870s, including the Courvilles, Forgets, Gauthiers, and Cotas families. A school was built around 1888 on a slight hill near 196th Ave. and 416th Street. It was the westernmost settlement and nearest to the Muckleshoot Reservation.
Flensted was dominated by the Sorensens, Rasmussens, and other Danish families. It was named for a town in Denmark, from which many of them emigrated. S.L. Sorensen began making pottery at Flensted but soon moved on to bigger things, founding the Farmers Mutual Insurance Company, which eventually became Mutual of Enumclaw.
Krainmeans “foot of the hill” as it reminded its Slovenian founders of the region called Carnolia, whose German spelling is Krain. At the time, Slovenia was part of the Austrian Empire, so most emigrants arrived with Austrian passports. Slovenian names typically end in –ic, sometimes spelled –ich or –itch, like two of the earliest families, Malneritch and Paschich.
Muckleshoot Reservationwas established in 1857. Among Puget Sound Tribes, the Muckleshoot Tribe possesses unique rights under two treaties: the Treaty of Point Elliott and the Treaty of Medicine Creek. Yakima Indians often came west over Naches Pass to trade with the Coastal Salish tribes, including Nisqually, Puyallup, and Muckleshoot.
Osceolabecame the plateau’s oldest recognized community after establishing the area’s first post office in 1875. Osceola’s first and second school buildings still stand today. Each summer Osceola hosted the annual Farmer’s Picnic, the area’s biggest celebration held across from the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion. Osceola was also the center of a hop-growing boom in the 1890s.
Veaziewas largely settled by German farmers who sold produce to the local coal mining communities. It was named for Tom Veazie, a logger with the Veazie & Russell Logging Company. Veazie’s partner, John Russell, was its first Postmaster. Newaukum Creek is a major tributary that flows through Veazie and much of the plateau before entering the Green River, about a mile west of Flaming Geyser. To the east of Veazie, Mount Enumclaw rises 1,700 feet above the valley floor.
Wabashreceived a school district in 1883 covering an area from S.E. 416th to the Green River Valley. Early settlers included the Jones, Marshall, and Newman families. The Newaukum school district was carved from North Wabash in 1914 and was the last of the plateau schools to be absorbed by the Enumclaw district.
As Enumclaw grew, its civic dominance was solidified after its school district began absorbing the smaller plateau schools. The Enumclaw School District eventually absorbed Black Diamond, Cumberland, Selleck, and even Lester, a railroad town 14 miles upstream from the Howard Hanson Dam on the Green River. Today the Enumclaw School District No. 216 stretches over 35 miles east to west, from the banks of the White River to Stampede Pass on the Kittitas County border. The school district is one of Western Washington’s largest in land area.
This map and column were adapted and updated from a 2023 flyer undertaken by Donna Hogerhuis for the Enumclaw Plateau Historical Museum. The Museum is located at 1837 Marion Street and open from 1 pm to 4 pm on Thursdays and Sundays.
