Out of the Past: North Bend Chamber of Commerce is dissolved; Businessmen announce plans for Alpental resort

Published 11:39 am Friday, March 25, 2016

The following stories happened this week, 25 and 50 years ago, as reported in the Snoqualmie Valley Record. From the Record’s archives:

Thursday, March 21, 1991

Just about everyone who has been involved in the North Bend Chamber of Commerce feels sadness and disappointment over the organization’s dissolution. The chamber last met on June 26, 1990. The members agreed not to meet for a month or two. Then, that September, president Dick Hamm was on vacation in Mexico. This is the latest in a series of disappointments that may be traceable to the re-routing of the main highway in 1978.

The Weyerhaeuser Company and the Trust for Public Land have reached and agreement on a plan to protect a big chunk of prime forestland on Rattlesnake Ridge. The sale, first proposed by the timber giant, would protect 1,800 acres of forest — most of the land facing North Bend on the mountain.

Thursday, March 24, 1966

Plans for a $10 million major year around mountain resort on Snoqualmie Pass to be called Alpental were announced last Friday at a press conference in Seattle by James S. Griffin and Robert E. Mickelson, Tacoma businessmen who are partners in the development. The first phase of the project, costing about $1.5 million and which will include construction of a 1 and a half mile access road, will get under way this summer.

The James Corcoran family of Duvall escaped in their night clothes when a flash fire completely destroyed their home one mile east of Duvall early Friday morning. James, his wife Dora, their daughters, Mary Ann and Debbie, and his mother, Anna, were all asleep when the fire started. All contents of the house, including $400 in cash realized from the sale of livestock and chickens the previous day were lost.