120 years ago today: Mount Rainier became a national park
Washingtonians take for granted the majestic greenery and nature that we admire on a daily basis. But one of our most iconic natural beauties was preserved 120 years ago today.
On March 2, 1899, both houses of Congress voted to create Mount Rainier National Park. And though the park's main feature is the 14,411-foot mountain that lends its name, it also contains about 378 square miles to frolic in.
And that land's history dates back even further than that. Before European settlers ventured to the Pacific Northwest, the land was inhabited by a number of tribes: the Cowlitz, Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Puyallup, Squaxin Island and Yakama tribes all used natural resources from around the mountain. They called the mountain "Takhoma," and archaeological evidence has shown that Native people were on the land going back about 9,000 years.
The English explorer Captain George Vancouver is the one responsible for the name it's most widely known by today. He named it after his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, who never set foot in the United States or saw the mountain.
The first recorded summit of the mountain by white settlers was in 1870, when P.B. Van Trump and General Hazard Stevens made it to the top. Thirteen years later, James Longmire would find a mineral spring on his way down, where he would open a hotel and spa not long after -- a spot that is still the site of what is now called the National Park Inn.
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