Old Military Road historian Karen Meador has chosen a Five Mile Lake County Park site along the east shore of the lake to repeat the historical landscape made picturesque by the curves of the rustic fence and rutted road. Note the telegraph pole on the right.

Fighting between the settlers and Indians, in addition to the continuing squabble with Great Britain over who owned the San Juan Islands, prompted then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to finance such a road connecting the two forts. The road, of course, also encouraged settlement. The surveyor was instructed to locate the road inland, when practical, beyond the range of Britain's naval artillery. Here at Five Mile Lake the road is both five miles from Commencement Bay and five miles north of where DeLacy began his survey at Karson's Ferry Landing on the Puyallup River. The name of the lake comes from the second five miles.

Actual construction on the section of the road between Steilacoom and Seattle began in 1857. Karen Meador first discovered a copy of this picturesque record of the lake in the files of the Historical Society of Federal Way. Meador, who has enthusiastically adopted the Old Military Road, took the "repeat" photo in Five Mile Lake County Park. She figures her contemporary prospect is near that of the unnamed historical photographer by dint of the lay of the land, the shape of the lake itself and early maps of the road which, at this point, was later relocated some distance to the east. Readers who have leads or stories connected with Old Military Road may share them with Meador through her e-mail address — kmwildrose@hotmail.com — or through me, care of The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.