page_title: Skykomish River
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Skykomish River / History
caption_attribution_description: "The Loggers' Bridge Suspended Over the Skykomish".
context_page_description: The Skykomish River is a 29-mile long river in the U.S. state of Washington which drains the west side of the Cascade Mountains in the southeast section of Snohomish County and the northeast corner of King County. The river starts with the confluence of the North Fork Skykomish River and South Fork Skykomish River approximately one mile west of Index, then flowing northwesterly towards Puget Sound. It is joined by the Sultan River and the Wallace River at Sultan. It then meets the Snoqualmie River to form the Snohomish River at Monroe. The Snohomish River continues along the river valley eventually dumping into Port Gardner Bay on Possession Sound.
  The Skykomish River's main stem is 29 miles long. The length including its headwater tributaries, South Fork Skykomish and Tye River, is 62.4 miles. The Skykomish's drainage basin is 834 square miles in area.
  U.S. Highway 2 and the BNSF Railway are routed to follow the Skykomish River, South Fork Skykomish, and Tye River to Stevens Pass and the Cascade Tunnel.
  The Skykomish is sometimes referred to by the nickname "Sky River" or "The Sky".
  According to the U.S.
context_section_description: In the 1890s the Great Northern Railway was built along the Skykomish, South Fork Skykomish, and Tye Rivers, crossing the crest of the Cascades at Stevens Pass. Today the track is owned by BNSF Railway, known as the Burlington Northern Railroad from 1970 to 1995. Stevens Pass is named after the Great Northern surveyor John Frank Stevens. Two railroad tunnels, both called Cascade Tunnel, were built at Stevens Pass. The first one was built slightly north of the pass. It was replaced in 1929 with the New Cascade Tunnel, which at 7.8 miles (12.6 km) long was for nearly 60 years the longest railroad tunnel in North America and is still the longest in the United States. The New Cascade Tunnel is a few miles south of Stevens Pass. Its western entrance is near the confluence of Tunnel Creek and the Tye River. A small amount of the water flows out of both tunnels into the Tye River. An interpretive center for the Iron Goat Trail, located at Scenic on the upper Tye River, describes the history of the area including the old railroad and new trail. The interpretive center was built near the site of one of the greatest railroad tragedies in American history, the Wellington Disaster.
  One of the Native American trails crossing the Cascades followed the Skykomish and North Fork Skykomish to Cady Pass.
caption: Loggers' bridge on the Skykomish (1910).  Photo by Asahel Curtis.
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