As it turns out, he was an early champion
of the Pacific Highway, as Highway 99 was generally known before (and even
after) it was assigned its number in 1926. He was a man with a vision.
Of course it takes more than one man's
vision to build a highway, or any huge involved public works project for that
matter. All along the line, in each of the states that this road was to pass
through, it took men with imagination and energy to bring the dream to reality.
Sam Hill was the man in Washington state and later in Oregon as well.
Now if it seems that roads and railroads
are incompatible, that was not the case very early in the century. It is true
that eventually the two became rivals, and the highways won out. But back in the
wet and muddy turn of the century northwest, people could not even make it to
the railroad stations unless the roads were improved!
Inspired by a 34 mile road trip that was
short in distance but long in hours, he vowed that he would build a
hard-surfaced highway from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, and all
the way up to Vancouver, BC. So Sam Hill organized the Washington State
Good Roads Association in 1901. Their goal was to build an organized system
of hard surfaced roads, for what already existed was a messy, unsigned,
unsurfaced confusing assortment of private, city, and county roads. And, no road
in the planned system was to exceed a 5% grade, no mean feat in this mountainous
country. What would become Highway 99 was part of the planned mix.
So Sam and his cronies talked and pushed
and prodded and talked some more, and things started happening. A Highway
Commission was formed in 1905. By 1913, construction of the Pacific Highway
through Washington was begun. By 1923, it was about complete. (But of course we
now know that they only thought it was complete. They couldn't imagine the day a
state highway would need to be wider than 20'!)
Photo of The Peace
Arch courtesy of United States/Canada Peace Anniversary, Inc.
Sam Hill was not just passionate in his
efforts to get the roads built. He experimented on his own in how to build them
as well. On the grounds of his Columbia River gorge estate, Maryhill
(now an art museum ) he built ten miles of road (not to mention a replica of
Stonehenge). At Maryhill Sam experimented with different road building
techniques and surfacing materials. Those were the first paved roads in
Washington!
As if all of this wasn't enough, Sam Hill
left an even greater legacy. He is the man who proposed and spearheaded
fundraising efforts to build the International
Peace Arch at the US/Canadian border alongside the Pacific Highway.
The pretty white monument honors the
longstanding peace along this border and between Canada and the United States.
It was dedicated in 1921.
Sam Hill was among the
famous visitors to Justice William H. White's
Hotel Redmond. In
April 1883/4 ?, at Judge Burke’s speech, Judge “Warhorse Bill” White was
nominated to convince Congress that Seattle should become the western terminus
of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The people at the speech passed a hat
collecting $729 to send Judge White on this mission. The Tacoma Ledger
derisively dubbed him “729 White.” His mission was to urge upon Congress the
forteiture of the unearned land grant of the Northern Pacific Railway. Colonel
William F. Prosser in his "His Love of the Puget Sound Country," said:
"This commission was executed so well before the committees on public lands
of the senate and house that the result was to hurry the completion of the
Cascade branch of that railroad."