East Side Highway: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Mount Rainier National Park, National Park Service
Hammond J. 2005. East Side Highway: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Mount Rainier National Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 400034. NPS Pacific West Regional Office. Pacific West Regional Office/CLI Database
The East Side Highway is a linear landscape that extends 13.8 miles from the park’s southeast entrance near Ohanapecosh Hot Springs (1,928’), to the Mather Memorial Parkway at Cayuse Pass (3,930’). Designed and constructed in the 1930s, the route was designed to perform a dual role as a north-south connector route and scenic park road. Following the east side of Ohanapecosh Creek, the road winds gently before steadily climbing up the Chinook Creek valley with the major scenic overlooks located at Shriner Peak trailhead and Deer Creek. Towards the higher elevations, the road carries through a series of long rock cuts and radial turns and several sections are supported by retaining walls up to 25’ in height, among the tallest in the park. Traversing a diverse landscape including lowland forest, montane forest, high elevation forest, subalpine meadow, and numerous creeks, the road retains the historic rustic values that showcase scenic features in the protected landscape of the park. The East Side Highway is a historic designed landscape, significant as a rare example of an early national park scenic highway, and an integral part of the early master plan for the park. The highway is distinguished by outstanding engineering achievements and features of naturalistic design. The period of significance for the East Side Highway cultural landscape spans the years 1931-1941, reflecting the period when the NPS coordinated the design and construction of the road, and from which the extant landscape characteristics and features date. The naturalistic character of the road is evident in the remaining landscape characteristics and features: spatial organization, response to natural systems and features, land use, topography, buildings and structures, views and vistas, small scale features, and archeological sites. These patterns and their surviving features continue to exist as originally planned conveying the integrity of the road as a scenic highway.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Hammond, John
- Date of Issue
- 2005-07-25
- Publisher
- NPS Pacific West Regional Office
- Units
- MORA , PWR
- Keywords
- Architecture, automobile, Bureau of Public Roads, East Side Road, Engineering, Highway 123, Historic Designed Landscape, Landscape architecture, Mount Rainier National Historic Landmark District, Naturalistic Landscape Design, Ohanapecosh Creek, Recreation, Road-Related, Rustic style, scenic highway, The 1930s: Era of Public Works, The Automobile Age and Suburban Development, Transportation, Views, Vista
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 400034: East Side Highway (400034)