History of 20th Street East and the Indian Ferry - Stuck Valley Road
By Curt Cunningham

The Stuck River

The Stuck river was a 9 mile long distributary of the White river, and it's journey to the Sound began near the Game Farm park in Auburn. The river was the smaller of the 2 distributaries. The White river was the larger and traveled north to Elliott bay near Seattle. The Stuck river traveled south through the Stuck valley and emptied into the Puyallup river at the western edge of the city of Sumner. The area between Auburn and Sumner was once known as "Stuck Valley."

The word "Stuck" is an English variation of the Lushootseed word "stəx,̣" which translates to "plowed through." The word may also have originated from "stéq," which translates to "log jam." Both of these words correctly describe the Stuck river. The river has plowed through the gravel deposits of the valley over a long period of time, and the many log jams over the years have changed the course of the river.

The valley floor which stretches from Seattle to Tacoma is covered in glacial deposits. At one point in time during the Ice Age a large glacial lake called Lake Tacoma had formed in the Puyallup valley from Tacoma to Orting. This is when the Puget Sound glacier had retreated far enough to uncover the paths of the Green and White rivers. These rivers along with the Puyallup and Carbon rivers flowed into this lake. The northern shores extended as far as Auburn and about a mile east of the town between the 2 rivers a large delta formed. This is called the Auburn delta, and over time had reached about the same height as the South Tacoma channel, which was the outlet of Lake Tacoma. The quarry east of Auburn has exposed the gravel from this delta.

On July 9, 1899 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed a story about the explosion of the White river dam which had caused a shifting of the river. This is a story all by itself, but to make this short, in the article they had said that; "The year during which the Stuck river carried all the waters of White river worked a great change in its channel, which has been so deepened that at the point where the two rivers separate the bed of Stuck river is fully fifteen feet lower than the bed of the White." The Stuck river was now the larger of the 2 streams.

In 1916 Mabel Abbott of the Tacoma Times wrote about the Inter-County River Improvement project which straightened out the channels of the White, Stuck and Puyallup rivers. This project attracted the attention of engineers from all over the United States, and would take about 30 years to complete. The project finally settled an old feud that for years had kept armed men on guard in the White and Stuck valleys. The project also ended a long fear that had haunted the days and made restless the nights of the farmers who lived along those rivers. The inter-county river improvement project is nearly 20 miles long, and is measured from the Indian school bridge on the Puyallup river, along the straightened channels of the Puyallup, Stuck and White, to the drift barrier between Auburn and Buckley.

These rivers had always changed their channels as readily as a snake changes its skin. A drifting log, hesitating on a sandbar and throwing the current against the soft bank, was enough to cut a new course and leave the old one dry, and within a few hours, the White river had made itself two beds, from a point a little above the King-Pierce county boundary, one flowing northward through the Duwamish river into Elliot bay at Seattle, and the other southward through Stuck and Puyallup into Commencement bay at Tacoma.

Sometimes most of the water went north and sometimes it went south; and when the snow on the northern slopes of the mountain began to melt, or there was a heavy rainfall, the roaring White, with its burden of uprooted trees and accumulated drift, swelled whichever stream it flowed through, to a devastating torrent.

Naturally, whenever a few logs jammed in the north branch of the White and sent the river southward into the Stuck, King county farmers breathed easier; and when a bigger jam formed in the south branch and the north jam gave way. Pierce county farmers rejoiced as their drowned farms came to the surface again. And it is not strange that from the first there were suspicions on both sides of the boundary, that the shifting of the river was often assisted.

In 1888 a jam in the north branch was openly blasted out by Pierce county residents, and the river went north. A little later, a big bank of earth fell into the river and it went south again. Pierce county said King county blasted the bank down. King county said it didn't. Pierce county said it did. Farmers in both counties armed themselves and guarded the strategic, points night and day; but still the river shifted. King county began an embankment in 1900. Pierce county placed an injunction and the embankment was stopped. 

Then the flood of 1906 jammed the north channel and sent the whole river south again, this time for good. The situation had become intolerable. Lawsuits were as numerous and as complicated as the river channels. The two counties were literally at war; and farms all along the fertile valleys were being abandoned because their owners could no longer face the constant menace of the floods.

The completion of the improvement project had done its job and kept the rivers and the farmers from creating anymore problems. Years later the name "Stuck" would no longer be used and the old stream became the last 9 miles of the White river.

Indian Ferry & Stuck Valley Road

In the mid 1860's a ferry began operations across the Puyallup river just east of the Old Puyallup Indian cemetery where E. Grandview Ave. meets E. Bay Street. Back then 20th Street East was the main road across the bottom and had originally extended west to the river bank. The crossing was known as Indian ferry and was operated by members of the Puyallup tribe. The place most likely had been used as a crossing of the river for hundreds if not thousands of years.

On August 20, 1879 the Pierce County Commissioners appointed J. W. McCarty, B. M. Spinning and Willis Boatman as viewers and J. V. Meeker as surveyor. They were to locate a new road beginning at Indian ferry and running in a southeast direction to Sumner, then north along the western side of the Stuck Valley to the King County line. this was to connect with the road recently laid out by King County from Seattle. They met on August 25, 1879 to begin their survey. The road would be completed sometime after 1880 and was was a crude path at best. The first improvement to the road was on November 5, 1885, when $200 was appropriated for the improvement of the road between Puyallup and Stuck valley.

The next improvement to the road was to commence in the spring of 1886, but the standing water in the swamp prevented them from beginning work. Conditions would improve by summer and on August 25, 1886, R. B. Mullen and his gang of 18 workers who had just completed the county road between Puyallup and Alderton, moved their camp to the road leading from Indian ferry to the Stuck river at Sumner. They expected to complete the work in 2 weeks. On August 28, 1886 County Commissioner M. J. Cogswell sent several teams up Stuck river to help grade the new Indian ferry & Stuck valley road. 

In 1886 the Skokomish tribe contributed funds to make a good ferry boat, and for purchase of wire rope and all the conveniences for a ferry, which was badly needed. Later that year the Puyallup tribe had raised $1,000 for the construction of a good bridge across the Puyallup river at Indian ferry. The arraignment was that the Puyallups would contribute $1,000, the settlers in the area would pay $500 and Pierce county would chip in $1,500. This proposed bridge was to be 600 feet long. By the end of 1886 the increased travel over the river had made the ferry obsolete. The Puyallup tribe had constituted the bulk of the traffic over the river taking their produce to market.

On June 10, 1887 the Pierce county commissioners called for sealed bids for the construction of a bridge across the Puyallup river at Indian ferry. The county was hoping to keep the cost of the bridge below $3,500. On July 1, 1887 the commissioners let a contract to the California Bridge Co of Oakland, for the construction of the bridge across the Puyallup river at Indian ferry for $2,470. Construction was to begin immediately, and the bridge was completed by end of the year.

State-Aid Road #70

From 1909 to 1913 the highway between Seattle and Olympia was a State-Aid road. This is where the state bore one-half the cost of engineering and construction, and the county in which the road ran through would pay the other half. The maintenance was left wholly in the hands of the county. In 1908 the Indian Ferry & Stuck Valley road became State-Aid Road #70. From North Puyallup to the county line 5.32 miles of new right-of-way was obtained for the new road.

On August 11, 1908 Pierce county appropriated $12,703.73 toward the construction of their portion of the Seattle-Tacoma State-Aid road. After considerable delay, on July 30, 1909, the county was able to secure a rock crusher from the Milwaukee railroad at Kapowsin. The county was to mix the crushed rock with asphaltic oil to be used as a binding agent on 3.92 miles of the road.

This contract was completed with the exception of the oiling in the fall of 1909. The macadam was finished after the contractors had been ordered to stop work, some of the stone being laid in the mud. They were obliged to resurface a portion of the road in the summer of 1910, and the road was then oiled. The stone used for macadam proved very unsatisfactory, being very soft and grinding to a dirty grit. This entirely destroyed the binding action of the asphaltic oil and left the road in poor condition.

The oil was applied from an English machine supplied by the Taroads Syndicate, Ltd., of London. It was found that this machine was designed to handle a much lighter oil than was used on this road, and it was almost impossible to obtain a uniform flow over the surface. It was necessary to use the steam roller to heat the oil, which caused much delay. The road was subjected to very heavy traffic, which did not help in getting the road properly bound.

Only about 600 lineal feet of this road was oiled, and the rest was waterbound macadam. The stone from the Pierce county quarry at Kapowsin was the same as that used on Road No. 29, and had proved to be of a very poor quality. The same difficulty was experienced in spraying the oil on the surface, and the experiment was not a success. About 20% of the work was finished on September 30, 1910.

The Pacific Highway

In 1913 the Indian Ferry & Stuck valley road aka State-Aid Road #70 officially became a part of the Pacific Highway. 

On August 20, 1913 the paving work on the highway between the Indian Ferry bridge and the King county line was completed and opened for traffic. The road was paved with concrete 4.5 miles east of the bridge, and the remaining 8 miles was paved using granatoid for a total cost of $172,000. Granatoid pavement is a type of brick paving.

In 1914 the road between the Indian Ferry bridge and Jovita Blvd. which is now 20th Street E. and Milton Way, became Milton Avenue. Jovita Blvd. and Stewart Ave. E. which runs across the valley to the East Valley Highway, became the Indian Ferry & Stuck Valley Road Extension. Between Fife and Sumner, the highway was known as Valley Avenue. The West Valley highway was known as the Pacific Highway.

The Booze Bus

On April 24, 1916 the Tacoma Times ran an article about 2 people who were arrested when they were caught transporting whiskey and other liquors between Seattle and Tacoma, which they said had been going on for a couple of months. It all ended early that morning at 4:30am when county officers seized an auto on 24th St. in Tacoma which was filled with bonded whiskey. There were 10 cases in the car. R. Olymer who was a machinist and only 19 years old along with E. Cline who was a waiter, both from Seattle, were transporting the contraband when they were arrested and thrown into the Pierce county jail.

For the past several weeks there had been rumors that large quantities of booze were being brought into Tacoma on the auto stage line. On April 14th, Sheriff Longmire was given the license plate number of the car carrying the spirits, and he set his deputies to begin the search. On the evening of the 23rd County Detective Fred Shaw with officers Chilberg and Jacobs, took a position on the Pacific Highway at the Puyallup river bridge, where they stretched a rope with red lanterns across the highway and stopped every car coming into Tacoma from the north and east.

At about 3am in the morning of the 24th, the officers became weary of stopping angry motorists and decided to quit the search. They had stopped and inspected more than 100 cars. As the officers were walking up Puyallup Ave., and incoming car with a load on the rear seats attracted their attention, and the officers stopped it. As they approached the car they knew they had found the "Booze Bus." The occupants of the car denied that they knew anything about a liquor shipment, saying that they had been ordered to deliver some boxes to a Tacoma address, and they did not know the contents.

The reason the officers may have abandoned the road block may have been because of one of the autos which was stopped that night contained a Russian minister. On approaching the roadblock the minister thought he was going to be attacked by bandits, and put the pedal to the metal and crashed through the rope and its swinging lanterns. After crossing the bridge at a high speed, his car veered off to one side and crashed into the Indian cemetery near the old Cushman school, flipping the car on its side. The minister was able to roll the car back on its wheels and he quickly drove directly to the police station to report the presence of hold-up men on the Puyallup river bridge.

On May 6, 1916 the Tacoma Times reported that Justice Graham had declared that the 120 quarts of whiskey which was seized by county officers at the historic Puyallup bridge on April 24th, was to be sold at an auction. 

The New Highway

In 1924 the Pacific Highway through the Puyallup and the Kent/Auburn valleys was bypassed by a new road which ran through; Federal Way, Des Moines, and Seatac. This road which was known as the "Highline." This new route was chosen by the State Highway Department to eliminate the dangerous railroad crossings, and it was about 10 miles shorter. This is when Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent, Tukwila and Allentown were bypassed.

In 1928 a new 4-lane highway was opened between Tacoma and Seattle. This included a new bridge over the Puyallup river downstream from the old bridge. This new highway followed the trolley line to Fife where it turned north toward Seattle. 

The old Indian Ferry bridge was be repaired most likely for the last time on August 5, 1926, when $3,000 was spent on the structure, and by 1940, the bridge had been removed.