History's bookmark: Snoqualmie Point

Once, when pressed to come up with the 10 best things about the Eastside, the top of my list was the vista from the old winery at Snoqualmie Point, off Interstate 90, roughly at the little town of Snoqualmie.

I listed the Kirkland waterfront among the top 10, and the Bellevue park system, as well as the revitalization of downtown Renton. But nothing matches Snoqualmie Point, and next Saturday morning it goes into the history books. During its languid years, the shelf of rock that overlooks the vistas of the Snoqualmie Valley — on a clear day, from British Columbia to Mount Si and Snoqualmie Pass — you could access the place only by walking around an old swinging chain across the dirt road and striding the slight incline 100 yards or so to the viewing spot. I admit to walking where I shouldn't have past the chain barrier and taking out-of-town friends there for the breathtaking view, something like looking at the land time forgot.

In the old days, the winery offered a chance to sit on the picnic benches and mooch a view with a glass of wine. Then, the winery was vacated, the building burned down.

A Kirkland developer liked the location for an office tower; some people thought it should be a highway rest stop. After eight years of negotiation, Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust will dedicate the ledge at the tip of the world to you and me, the public.

The modern saga of Snoqualmie Point is much like the path of the region from horse trails to I-90. I can't imagine how this property dodged the urban bullet but it did, and that is a remarkable achievement.

In 1997, I attended what became the seminal moment for the Point when then-Sen. Slade Gorton, Greenway founder Jim Ellis and notable Democrats, including then-Gov. Gary Locke and members of the Clinton administration, stood there to mark the bureaucratic beginnings of saving this ledge in time. The spiritual beginnings were eons ago.

Reporting in the Urban Land Institute journal (UrbanLand, April 2007) captures the dilemma in "Nature Over Traffic." That piece remarks on the early significance of Seattle's Freeway Park and lidding over Interstate 5 to retain some greenery in the trough that has become the modern freeway. Mercer Island's lidding now holds some pretty big trees and is often cited as a useful way for a city to connect itself over a freeway.

Snoqualmie Point echoes that but is aloof from it because of its position high above the freeway, some days in the clouds. Go see for yourself.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: seattletimes.com">jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com