page_title: Darrington, Washington
section_title: Establishment and early development
hierarchical_section_title: Darrington, Washington / History / Establishment and early development
caption_attribution_description: English: Montegue and Moore store built in 1900. Caption on image: Pack Train ready to start up river [Sauk]. -note three babies on one pack horse. Darrington, Wash. P.M.R. On verso of image: Pack train of Nils Osterberg who had a cabin at Sulphur Creek Subjects (LCSH): Montegue and Moore (Darrington, Wash.); Stores, Retail--Washington (State)--Darrington; Pack animals (Transportation)--Washington (State)--Darrington; Children--Washington (State)--Darrington
context_page_description: Darrington is a town in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located in a North Cascades mountain valley formed by the Sauk and North Fork Stillaguamish rivers. Darrington is connected to nearby areas by State Route 530, which runs along the two rivers towards the city of Arlington, located 30 miles to the west, and Rockport. It had a population of 1,347 at the 2010 census.
  Non-indigenous settlement in the area began in 1891 at the site of a Skagit campsite between the two rivers, near the traditional home of the Sauk-Suiattle tribe. Prospectors had arrived in the area during the 1880s while looking for gold and other minerals, but were quickly displaced by the logging industry that would come to dominate Darrington for much of the 20th century. The Northern Pacific Railway built a branch line to the town in 1901 and ushered in several years of growth.
  During the Great Depression, Darrington hosted a Civilian Conservation Corps camp that improved roads, trails, and firefighting infrastructure in the nearby Mount Baker National Forest.
context_section_description: The Sauk Prairie campsite evolved into a settlement that was known as "The Portage" and developed around several homesteads established between 1888 and 1891. A vote on a name was held by several pioneer residents in July 1891 in advance of the establishment of a post office. The vote was tied between two options, Portage (in some accounts, Norma) and Darrington, the maiden name of settler W. W. Cristopher's mother. According to some reports, the name was originally to be "Barrington" but was changed due to a mistake from the Postal Department or by the townspeople to resemble the word "dare". By the end of the decade, the town had gained a schoolhouse, a general store, a hotel, and a postmaster, Fred Olds, whose horse inspired the naming of Whitehorse Mountain.
  Darrington's residents lobbied the Seattle and International Railway for the construction of a branch line from Arlington to the town as early as 1895, offering a 15-year contract to ship 75 percent of the area's extracted ores. The railroad agreed to the offer and began construction in 1900. It later merged with the Northern Pacific Railway, outpacing Great Northern and their plans to build a railroad to their timber holdings in the Sauk River valley. Railway crews arrived in the Darrington area by the following year and the first train arrived at the town's depot in 1901.
  Several sawmills and other timber industries began in the years following the railroad's completion, as mining fortunes in the surrounding area dwindled. Most of the original prospectors had left the Darrington area during the Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s, while those who remained established a single smelter in the mountains. By 1906 Darrington had more than a hundred residents; a second hotel and the town's first social club had been built.
  A Bornite mine was developed at Long Mountain in hopes of reviving mining in the area. After its mineral deposits were found to be smaller than expected, it was abandoned. The U.S. Lumber Company, which began in 1901 as the Allen Mill, was the largest employer in Darrington during the early 1910s, producing 23,000 board feet (54.28 m³) of wood per day.
  U.S. Lumber angered the townspeople by hiring 21 Japanese laborers at similar wages to their white counterparts. In June 1910, a mob of white men rioted and drove the Japanese out of town after little resistance, paying for their train fare to Everett after allowing them to retrieve their belongings. A report by Seattle-based vice-consul Kinjiro Hayashi was forwarded to the Japanese ambassador and state government. The company filed for an injunction after rioters had threatened to burn its Darrington mill and other properties should it attempt to return the Japanese laborers. The injunction was denied, but the townspeople relented and allowed 20 Japanese laborers to return to the mill a week later following Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu's visit to Seattle.
caption: A group of packhorses pictured outside a general store in Darrington, c. 1905
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