This is the third column of a four-part series highlighting the four Northern Pacific (N.P.) railway depots that served Kanaskat, a small outpost most commonly associated with Palmer, where the first N.P. station was established circa 1887.
This circa 1957 photo looking west shows a small gathering on the platform, most likely around 11 a.m. when the #6 passenger train from Seattle to Spokane made its daily stop in Kanaskat. This photo comes from the collection of Dave Sprau, who enjoyed a 40-year career with N.P. and their successor, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Photo colorization was undertaken by Boomer Burnham, a Tahoma photography instructor doing business as http://www.boomersphotography.com/
Kanaskat’s first passenger station was built in 1900 in the Victorian style of the day. Its need was precipitated when Northern Pacific built the Palmer Cut-off rail line that traveled west through Ravensdale on its way to Auburn. Ravensdale owes its history to that decision for in the early days without a railroad there could be no coal mine.
Ravensdale’s first coal mine was financed by the San Francisco Railway & Navigation Company which named the operation for a prominent Seattle businessman and the mine’s original developer, John Leary. For the next two years, Leary was the place name for the homes and hotels that sprung up to provide housing for coal miners. The name changed to Ravensdale in 1901, after N.P.’s coal mining subsidiary, Northwestern Improvement Company purchased the mine and improvements and operated it as a company town.
After the turn-of-the-century Victorian-style depot burned to the ground on Dec. 30, 1943, N.P. utilized an “outfit’ rail car with a round roof to be a temporary station due to material and labor shortages during World War II. In 1946, this larger brick structure measuring 56 feet deep and 40 feet wide totaling 1,176 square feet became the new station. One wing consisted of a baggage room separated by the rail agent’s office with a waiting room and bathroom on the other side. The automobiles across the tracks were those of rail workers and others dropping off or picking up passengers.
The daily passenger train that operated between Seattle and Spokane was utilized by many. Fishermen would often catch the train in Kanaskat for the seven-mile ride to Eagle Gorge, and when returning home would simply flag down the train as it passed by. In February 1959, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers began constructing an earthen-embankment dam to control the devastating Green River floods that regularly ravaged the broad valley stretching from Auburn through Kent to Renton. The planned structure was originally called the Eagle Gorge Dam but was renamed by Congress to honor Howard Hanson, a Seattle attorney and state legislator who campaigned for the project. Hanson died in 1957 before construction began.
Daily passenger service through Kanaskat was terminated in 1960 shortly after 13 miles of the Northern Pacific Railway line was relocated. That in turn caused the Army Corp of Engineers to build the fourth Kanaskat rail depot 300 feet to the north and 20 feet topographically higher. The new station was of the same design as the 1946 depot but built using a reverse blueprint. Next week we examine the 1959 Kanaskat station, the fourth over a span of 60 years.
