page_title: Cedar River (Washington)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cedar River (Washington) / History
caption_attribution_description: One of three photos collectively captioned "Bringing Cedar River water to Seattle. / This shows work in hand by Pacific Bridge Company." The photo is individually captioned "Headworks intake and wing dam".
context_page_description: The Cedar River is a river in the U.S. state of Washington. About 45 miles long, it originates in the Cascade Range and flows generally west and northwest, emptying into the southern end of Lake Washington. Its upper watershed is a protected area called the Cedar River Watershed, which provides drinking water for the greater Seattle area.
  The Cedar River drains into Puget Sound via Lake Washington and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
context_section_description: Efforts to use the Cedar River as a water source began in the 1890s. A dam was built at Landsburg and water diverted into a 29-mile (47 km) pipeline. The pipeline sent water to Seattle's Volunteer Park and Lincoln reservoirs on Capitol Hill. The first deliveries occurred in 1901. A second pipeline was built in 1909 and a third in 1923.
  Another reservoir was constructed in the early 1900s by the City of Seattle on an ancient glacial lake bed.  The city constructed a ninety-foot concrete dam and used bedrock to the west and a glacial moraine to the east as natural barriers.  The reservoir was known as the Cedar Reservoir and was fed by the Cedar River Drainage.  Between the hours of 12AM and 2AM on December 23, 1918 a large section of the Cedar Reservoir failed and spilled between 800,000 and 2,000,000 cubic yards of water.  The discharge flowed down Boxley Creek Valley, destroying the town of Edgewick, sawmills (owned by North Bend Lumber Company), and parts of the Milwaukee Railroad.  The failure did not occur at the dam, but 6,000 feet on the moraine side of the reservoir.  Initial discharge rates were estimated between 3,000 and 20,000 second-feet.
  By 1899 the City of Seattle had acquired ownership of most of the Cedar River Watershed. Some land remained privately owned, mainly by logging companies and sawmills. Before 1924 large sections of the forest were cut for timber. Wildfires burned more forests in the wake of logging operations. In 1924 the City of Seattle began the process of managing the Cedar River Watershed with a plan of ensuring water quality for the future. Logging continued, but methods were increasingly regulated and fire precautions strengthened. The 1962 Cedar River Watershed Cooperative Agreement began the process of transferring the remaining privately owned land to the City of Seattle. In 1996 the United States Forest Service ceded its land in the watershed to Seattle. As a result, the city is the sole owner of the Cedar River Watershed area of the upper Cedar River.
caption: Headworks intake and wing dam on the Cedar River, 1900, part of the Seattle water supply system.
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