I’ve wondered what draws people to hardship. This picture shows the Pioneer Hotel and what Eatonville looked liked in the 1890s. These people came here to start farms and build a town. Sounds good, but starting a farm then meant clearing lands with a hand saw and a horse and building your own house and barn. And that’s BEFORE you ever got to farming. Heck, I feel taxed if I have to clear branches after a storm, and I own a chain saw.
It’s hard imagining taking your family out in the wilderness where there are no schools or amenities, especially when there were towns like Tacoma, not all that far away. But they did it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad they made the trek, but I’d really like to talk to some of them today and find out what they were thinking.
Photos courtesy of Pat Van Eaton and City of Tacoma.
Click on images to enlarge.
Eatonville To Rainier 
2 responses to “Eatonville’s Pioneer Hotel 1890s”
The short answer is free land, 160 acres. “All” you had to do was file a claim & prove up on it to get your homstead papers & it was yours. Many around Eatoville did that & promptly sold to a timber company.
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[…] you made your way to Eatonville in it’s first years, you’d be staying at the Pioneer Hotel. Paul Haynes built the hotel for Frank Groe in 1892 on the south corner of Mashell Avenue and Groe […]
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