The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-10-05


The president will have but a shor1
time in this wonder place. A little
sortie out onto the ice fields, a peak
down several crevasses in nearby
glacier, an armful of wild flowers
gathered and he will be hustled into
his auto and will drop down the noun
tain side and get back to earth and
tumultous crowds in Washington
cities.
Facts About Mount Rainier.
Mount Rainier is an extinct volcano.
14,562 feet high; always snow clad il
towers 5000 feet above highest nearby
peaks.
Forms Rainier National park, eigh-
teen miles square in Cascade Range
in the state OF Washington
Was worshipped as God by all In.
dams in the northwest within whose
vision it came.
Called Takhoma, meaning 'big
snow" by the Indians, named Rainier
after British Admiral Peter Rainier.
by Admiral George Vancouver, discov-
erer OF Puget Sound in 1929.
Famed among scientists and world
travellers for it's IL great alpine gla-
ciers, as many tributary glaciers, and
among botanists especially for the
wonderful floral growth found in
mountain meadows which form a
wreath fifty miles in circuit around
the mountain and extending almost
two miles wide from the eternal snow
line to topmost line OF great Washing
ton forests.
Paradise Valley. one of these noun
tain meadows, to which 1t is proposed
to take President Taft was since the
beginning of northwest Indian legend
ry sanctified as a place of refuge,
where none bore arms and where the
quarrels and struggles of the world
below were forgotten.
Indians fearing an angry deity dared
not go to the top. The summit was
first reached by P. B. Van Trump and
General Hazard Stevens in 1870. Par
ties make the summit now daily in
summer and fall seasons. 1t is hard
climb fraught with much danger from
fierce storms which swirl about the
peak.
Taft Will Encounter no Snakes on
Mount Rainier Because the Indians
Had ST. Patrick and Flood.
John H. Williams In his book, "The
Mountain That Was Cod prints the
following story dug from northwest
Indian lore by Miss Judson:
A long, long time ago, Tyhee Sa-
hale became angry with his people.
Sahale ordered a medicine man to
take his bow and arrow and shoot in
to the cloud which hung low over
Takhoma The medicine man shot the
arrow, and it stuck fast In the cloud.
Then he shot another into the lower
end of the first. Then he shot another
into the lower end of the second. He
shot arrows until he had made a
| chain which reached from the cloud
to the earth. The medicine man told
his klootchman and his children to
climb up the arrow trail. Then the
medicine man climbed up himself.
Just as he was climbing into the
! cloud, he looked back A long line of
bad animals and snakes were also
climbing up the arrow trail. There
fore the medicine man broke the chain
OF arrows. Thus the snakes and bad
animals fell down on the mountain
side. Then at once it began to rain. It
rained until the land was flooded. Wa
ter reached even to the snow line of
Takhoma. When all the bad animals
and snakes were drowned, it stopped
raining. After while the waters sank
again. Then the medicine man and
his klootchman and the children
climbed out of the cloud and came
down the mountain side. Thus there
are now no snakes or bad animals on
Takhoma.