Northwest Railway Museum
The Northwest Railway Museum is a railroad museum in Snoqualmie, King County, Washington. It incorporates a heritage railway, historic depot, exhibit hall, library, and collection care center, and serves more than 130,000 visitors per year.
The heritage railway incorporates 5.5 miles of the line built in 1889 by the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway. The construction of this line was part of an attempt to build over Snoqualmie Pass and on to Walla Walla, Washington. The SLS&E was part of Seattle's response to the Northern Pacific selecting Tacoma as their western terminus. The SLS&E was later purchased by the Northern Pacific in 1901.
Snoqualmie Depot
Built in 1890 by the Seattle, Lake Shore, & Eastern, this uniquely designed depot was built to serve several different purposes. The station chiefly served as the gateway to this early recreation area, but also served as an outlet for local products to the markets of Seattle. An atypical design was the result of this need for a rural combined freight-passenger depot, however, one with lavish decorations to reflect the holiday spirit of vacationers from Seattle. Visitors came to enjoy Snoqualmie Falls along with other outdoor recreation the area could provide.The station is a large frame building about with a generous eaves. A bay window features the telegrapher's office. The semicircular north end stands out in this design. The eaves are supported by wooden pillars and diagonal braces and scroll work decorates the intersection of the braces with the eaves and the pillars.
The current structure was modified from the original, in which the bay window continued up through the roof and formed an octagonal tower a full story in height. A two sash window with a semicircular upper sash appeared on each face of the tower and a prominent cornice separated the tower body from the steeply pitched roof. The roof was decorated with fancy butt shingles and capped with a finial. A large swept dormer was placed in the southern part of the main structure above the freight section, Cast iron cresting and fancy butt shingles decorated the roof of both the main body and the transverse dormer. The freight dock, was wider originally and ran the length of the entire rear third of the station, is now a small porch in front of a single sliding freight door.
The Snoqualmie depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, ID #74001963.
Museum
The Northwest Railway Museum was founded in 1957 as the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association. As part of a general reorganization, the museum took its current name in September 1999. The mission of the organization is to develop and operate an outstanding railway museum where the public can see and understand the role of railroads in the development of the Pacific Northwest, and experience the excitement of a working railroad.The museum's collection includes a variety of railway cars and locomotives that document the growth of the railway network in Washington from the 1880s through the 1990s. One of the items included is the Messenger of Peace Chapel Car which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also includes a 3,000-volume library and archives that focus on the history of railroads in the Northwest and on technical and other engineering aspects of railroading.