All Over The Map: Washington’s weirdest town names are along Highway 2
Oct 25, 2019, 6:16 AM | Updated: 6:18 am
Highway 2, eastbound from Monroe through Sultan, Startup, Gold Bar and Index on the way to Stevens Pass, as depicted on a vintage topographic map. (USGS)
(USGS)
A stretch of Highway 2 on the west side of Stevens Pass might have the longest string of Washington towns with interesting and unusual names.
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First, however, it’s always important to point out that Stevens Pass is NOT named for Washington’s first Territorial Governor (and somewhat controversial historic figure as well as Union Army Civil War hero) Isaac Stevens.
The pass is named for railroad surveyor John F. Stevens, who first identified the area through the Cascades as route for the Great Northern Railway. Tracks were laid and tunnels were built beginning in the 1890s; the highway came in the 1920s.
Moving from west to east, here is the string of the towns along Highway 2 that have interesting and unusual names. Most of this information comes from books by the three giants of Washington place-name research: Edmond S. Meany, James Philips, and Robert Hitchman.
Monroe
Monroe is, admittedly, not that unusual a name, but the backstory is fairly interesting. The town was originally settled in the 1870s by a man named Salem Woods, who called the nascent community “Park Place.” In 1889, the U.S. Post Office rejected the name “Park Place,” and so “Monroe” was chosen instead, and is believed to be in honor of President James Monroe.
Not long after, the Monroe Post Office – and, really, the whole town – was moved one mile east to the location of a railroad station that had been built by the Great Northern Railway. Though this station was called “Wales,” the railroad agreed to change it to “Monroe,” so the town and the station had the same fifth-president-loving name. The original site of Park Place is now on the grounds of the state reformatory.
Sultan
Sultan, which sounds like some kind of exotic import from another part of the world, is actually an anglicization of the name of a Native American who is described by Washington names expert Robert Hitchman as the “chief of a Snohomish sub-tribe.” The chief’s name was Tseul-tud or Tsul-tad, depending on the source, and this name was first applied to the Sultan River. A settler named John Nailor, who arrived in the 1870s and became the first postmaster, named the town after the river.
Startup
Startup was originally known as Wallace, and was called this by a man named William Wait around 1890 (though it’s not clear where “Wallace” comes from). However, as there was also a town of Wallace in nearby Idaho, this apparently meant that mail was sometimes misdirected.
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Thus, in 1901, the town of Wallace, Washington was renamed in honor George G. Startup, who managed the Wallace Lumber Company. Because he was heralded this way, we can safely assume that Startup was a stand-up guy. We can also imagine the cheerleaders for Startup High School (if there ever were such a place) shaking their pompoms and chanting “Startup, stand up, fight, fight, fight!”
Gold Bar
The area around what’s now the town of Gold Bar was named by optimistic placer miners on the Skykomish River in either 1869 or 1879; their names were Alonzo Low and a man whose last name was Hooverson. A few decades later, the townsite was platted in September 1900 by the very shiny sounding Gold Bar Improvement Company.
Gold Bar is also home to the famous roadside eatery along Highway 2 known as Zeke’s Drive-In. A recent Seattle Weekly piece by Evan Thompson reported that Zeke’s was first opened by Nancy and Earl “Zeke” Wells in 1968. It’s been in the family ever since, and is currently run by Nancy and Zeke’s great-niece, Jen Cashman Cox.
Index
The town of Index and Mount Index (just south of the town) were both named by Amos D. Gunn in 1890 when he established a tavern there (in the town, not on the mountain). The name stems from the fact that the mountain has at least one, or perhaps multiple, sharp spires that look like index fingers.
Who knows? If Mount Index had looked like other human digits, the town might have been known as Pinky City, Thumbton or perhaps Birdville.
If there are other stretches of roads or highways in the Evergreen State with a string of names worth looking into, please let us know in the comments.
