Civil engineer Virgil Bogue had a long career with many significant accomplishments, particularly involving construction of railroad lines in mountainous territory. In the Seattle area his name usually comes up when discussing the 1911 Plan of Seattle. Bogue was hired by the city to assemble this classic City Beautiful plan. However, Bogue’s first visit to the area was three decades prior. He first came to find a way over the Cascades Mountains, and discovered Stampede Pass.
(This is a rework of an article that I wrote in 2009.)
Virgil Bogue’s first visit to Washington
When Virgil Bogue arrived on Puget Sound, Washington was not yet a state. It was still a territory.
It was March 1880. Seattle battled with Tacoma, trying to become the northwest terminus of the transcontinental railroad network, and the railroads fought with each other to capture lucrative long-distance cargo. At the time, the Northern Pacific Railroad wanted their own line over the Cascades to Tacoma, instead of leasing rails through Portland and ferrying across the Columbia.
NP hired Virgil Bogue because he knew how to work rails up impossible mountain routes. The previous November he stepped off a ship in San Francisco after a decade surveying for the highest, most treacherous railway in the world: Peru’s Oroya Railway.
He immediately took to the hills for the Northern Pacific and joined the teams NP already had in the field. Leading his own team on the west side and overseeing the work of engineer Charles A. White (1829-1898) with another on the east, Bogue scoured the Cascade Mountains from Mount Adams to Mount Rainier, looking for another way across. White discovered a way across two years prior (White Pass), but they needed a shallower slope for trains to traverse, and a pass that led east and hopefully northeast towards the headwaters of the Yakima River.
Discovering Stampede Pass
They worked the hills throughout 1880, but came up empty. All energy turned to detailed surveys of the headwaters of the Green River. Amazingly, Virgil Bogue was ordered back to the slopes in January of 1881. In the third month of the ordeal – constantly low on food, abused by foul weather, and at times entirely alone with wolf and bear tracks – Bogue led his party to a shoulder with clear views of both eastern and western Washington.
Virgil Bogue wrote up his findings and a history of surveying the Cascades in 1895 and had it published in the Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York. Opening with a detailed survey map to meet the geographical needs, he proceeded to tell of the fascinating, winter adventure leading to the finding of Stampede Pass. A much briefer version made it into Northern Pacific records. It’s undated, but likely both are based on field notes or an after-the-fact write up by Bogue.
Here is Bogue’s account of reaching the low point in the pass, after wandering blind in fog, mist, and heavy wind for days:
“A little after nine o’clock [March 19th, 1881], appeared a sharp bend in the ridge to the north, as anticipated, whence we descended, along a well-defined crest, so rapidly that in less than an hour the barometer marked only 3,495 feet [from a 5,500 foot summit], at a point where, for a little distance about us, there were no trees. To the east, a spur cut off much of our view, but facing west we looked down Sunday Creek. Beyond its confluence with Green River, were the mountains to the south, covered with dark fir forests, and, back of them, the great snowy mass of Mt. Rainier.. sharply defined against the blue sky. It was a beautiful scene, and so impressive that for a moment all were silent.”
Acquired by Robert Robey and posted to the Internet by John Phillips III, it is no longer available and was not crawled by Internet Archive
Naming Stampede Pass, Bogue’s story
Stampede Pass’s name, according to Virgil Bogue, came when some lazy trail workers all abandoned camp at the same time when a strict foreman arrived.
The account in his 1895 article in the Journal of the American Geographical Society differed a bit from what he later sent to the Washington State Historical Society in 1916. The latter account can be found in Wikipedia’s Stampede Pass article. Here is the 1895 writing:
“The Pass was, for a time, known as Garfield Pass, in honor of a President, during whose last days it was discovered, but, later, it was named Stampede Pass, from the following incident. Some weeks after its discovery, while encamped on Sunday Creek, I became dissatisfied with the progress of the party cutting trails which would be required before instrumental surveys could be extended across the divide, and sent them a foreman well known as a hard worker. His arrival became the signal for the flight of several men from the locality which was but a few hundred feet west of the summit, and which thus obtained a name; both their camp and the small lake near it [now Lizard Lake], and, later, the Pass itself being called Stampede.”
Naming Stampede Pass, the alternate story
In 1889, one of the surveyors in Bogue’s party, engineer J. T. Kingsbury, told a quite different version of the origin of the name.
“The Naming of Stampede Tunnel – The question is often asked why the Northern Pacific pass and tunnel through the Cascade mountains were named “Stampede,” and has never been answered to the satisfaction of the Herald, until the other evening, when Captain J T Kingsbury in conversation with a representative of this paper, said that in the fall of 1881 he was encamped with his party of engineers on this side of the mountains, at the point now known as Easton, and V. G. Bogue with his party were on the west side at the present Weston.
At that time, President Garfield was hovering between life and death, and Bogue and Kingsbury, after consultation, decided on naming the pass Garfield, but General Anderson, the chief engineer, coming along and camping with his two assistants on the bank of the lake, situated on the summit, was told of the decision.
Anderson didn’t look favorably on the name. He said, “Hasn’t Garfield suffered enough? You have White’s pass [named after engineer Charles A. White], Sheet’s pass [named after engineer James Sheets], etcetc; now where are Bogue and Kingsbury passes?”
That evening the mammoth mosquitoes from the lake pounced down on the party and stampeded horses and engineers, and from that incident the lake, pass and tunnel received their names.”
September 26, 1889 Yakima Herald p3 c1
It may seem incredible that mosquitos could lead to the name, but in fact a creek just west of Stampede Pass is called Mosquito Creek.
It’s interesting to consider which story is true. Perhaps neither, or perhaps both.
Further Reading
- Once upon a Time in the Plan of Seattle – how to read my paper about Bogue’s 1911 Plan of Seattle
- Festival Queen to Asylum Inmate – the surprising life of Virgil Bogue’s daughter Virgilia Bogue
- Virgil Bogue, a starter bio – written on my old site in 2009, with some basic facts
- Bogue, Virgil Gay (1846-1916) – article on HistoryLink written by my late friend Dotty DeCoster. I provided consultation.