History of Redmond
The City of Redmond sits in a fertile basin created by ancient glaciers that once covered much of King County. Thousands of years before the first fur trappers entered the area's dense forests, the rich bottomland of the Sammamish Valley provided shelter and food for the local Indians. These Native Americans gave assistance and friendship to the newcomers who were largely of European descent. For fifty years after the first settlers arrived, the abundance of dog salmon in the Squak Slough, or Sammamish River, was so great that men were said to rake the fish from the water, and thus, the frontier settlement that eventually came to be called Redmond was first known as Salmonberg.
In 1871, Warren Wentworth Perrigo and the town's namesake, Captain Luke McRedmond, were the first pioneers to stake land claims not far from the river's head on the north end of Lake Sammamish. The early homesteaders' greatest challenge was clearing the towering trees that were of such enormous girth, since the available equipment was inadequate. While the immediate solution was a method of felling the giants by burning their trunks above the roots, the challenge itself soon led to Redmond's first economic boom. Loggers poured into the valley in the 1880s, and in 1890 John Peterson built the Eastside's first sawmill near Pine Lake. Campbell Mills was built in 1905 at Campton, followed by other prosperous lumber and shingle operations whose substantial payrolls created a demand for products and services.
Steamboats were the only practical transportation during Redmond's early years of few roads and thick forests. Chugging up and down the Sammamish River and crisscrossing the lake that fed it, the flat-bottomed boats carried goods and passengers to and from Seattle and points in between, until 1916 when the system of lakes and waterways was lowered nine feet to accommodate the Chittenden Locks. In 1889, the year Washington became a state, the Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad came to the wilderness community of Redmond, and with it, the marketability of the valley's timber was ensured. In 1909 the first local passenger train offered a new ease of mobility, and many children along the line even rode it to school until 1916.
During its logging heydays, Redmond was a rollicking town of saloons and hotels, blacksmiths, merchandise stores and eateries. Like the Odd Fellows Hall which was originally the community center, many of the wooden buildings in the Leary Way corridor were built during the early 1900s. The Redmond Trading Company was the town's first brick building in 1908, and a few other brick structures were erected in the following years, notably: Bill Brown's Garage, the Old Redmond Schoolhouse, the Brown Building, and the Redmond State Bank whose largest customers in 1911 when it opened were the lumber mills. But as in most Western towns of the era, homes, businesses, schools and churches were usually wooden, and when ablaze, were especially vulnerable to complete devastation in areas lacking a public waterworks system. Indeed, repeated and disastrous fires had claimed a large number of early buildings, including the town's first school which twice burned to the ground.
Funding was needed to develop a modern waterworks system for the stable community of 300, and to tax their thriving saloons, Redmond incorporated in 1912. Frederick A. Reil was the first mayor, and during his 6 years in office, many new buildings rose in the downtown area, automobiles became a frequent sight on Main Street (Leary Way), the first doctor took up residence in town, high school basketball games became popular community events, and 4 years ahead of the nation, Prohibition was enacted in Washington State, which created many bootlegging operations in town and liquor stills in the woods surrounding it.
As the area's virgin forests diminished with aggressive logging, the local timber industry faded during the 1920s. In the following decades, agriculture became the mainstay of Redmond's economy. On the hills and in the river valley once home to ducks, deer, bear and pheasants, farmers fenced their land for dairy cattle, built structures to house chickens and mink, staked acres of berries, and plowed the fertile bottomland. The town's population grew very little during this period, with many young adults seeking jobs in Seattle and elsewhere during the Depression years.
In 1927, the ladies of the Nokomis Club founded the Redmond Public Library which they maintained for decades with private fundraising. Redmond's first fire department was founded in 1946 with 15 hearty volunteers who brought a new level of security to local residents. In 1939, a few citizens organized the first Derby Days celebration, and with the community's support throughout the decades, this annual summer event is now the oldest continuous bicycle event in America.
Redmond's population was 503 in 1940 when the first Lake Washington floating bridge was opened, initiating a slow, steady yearly increase of residents. The completion of the Evergreen Point floating bridge in 1963 initiated vigorous residential growth which, like the logging boom of the 1880s, created a demand for local goods and services. Redmond's high-tech industrial growth began slowly in the 1970s, but by century's end, the population had exploded to 43,610.
With its independent economic and cultural heritage of logging and agriculture, Redmond has never been a bedroom community to Seattle, but from the days of the earliest steamboats and local horse-drawn stagecoaches, the natural progression of better roads and dependable transportation has facilitated the City's growth. Although Redmond is keenly challenged by its own success at present, its residents have a long tradition of community pride, participation, and pioneer resourcefulness.
For more information, please visit the Redmond Historical Society's website.