Just Passin' Through
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 LEE PICKETT/U.W. LIBRARIES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS THEN: Photographer Lee Pickett's 1926 record of Stevens Pass and its gas station looks toward Cowboy Mountain, now a popular ski run.
CHESTER MARLER NOW: Chester Marler of Stevens Pass, the business name also of the ski operators at the pass, took the "now" scene on a sunny morning last winter. It is printed in full color in Jean Sherrard's and my new book, "Washington Then and Now." |
Last week we looked down the center of Skykomish's "main street." With the Great Northern's track crowding one side it was predictably named "Railroad Avenue," for rails were the primary concern of that company town. With the July 11, 1925, opening of Highway 2 over the Cascade Mountains through Stevens Pass, Skykomish and every small town in the valley got increasing attention from motorists.
Like last week's Skykomish subject, this one about a dozen miles east at Stevens Pass was recorded by Lee Pickett, who was probably the hardest-working photographer to have ever served that sublime valley. Pickett made this record of the summit in 1926, the highway's second summer. The gas station at the pass was a favorite subject, and among Pickett's many recordings of it are winter scenes in which the station is up to its tall pumps in drifting snow.
The Forest Service sign on the right marks the summit and so also the line between Chelan and King counties. On his negative, Pickett has marked the sign's post with the pass elevation — 4,061 feet — about 1,000 feet higher than Snoqualmie Pass. And nailed to the post itself is a smaller sign that reads, "This is God's Country. Don't set it on fire and Make it Look Like Hell."
Cowboy Mountain makes the horizon. For skiers it got its first T-bar lift in 1947. A 1960 chairlift, fittingly named "Seventh Heaven," nearly reaches the top.
Lee Pickett lived in Index, and Seattle Times readers may wish to visit his museum there next summer. The Pickett Index Interpretive Museum is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The telephone number is 360-793-1534.
"Washington Then and Now," the new book by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard, can be purchased through www.washingtonthenandnow.com ($45) or through Tartu Publications at P.O. Box 85208, Seattle, WA 98145.
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