In January 1900, farmers from the Stuck River valley in Pierce County attempt to dynamite a channel to the White River to relieve flooding at a point where both rivers flow about 200 yards apart. A watchman hired by King County Commissioners to prevent just such an occurrence interrupts them.
There was at the time no solution to the chronic flooding in the two valleys. The Stuck River flowed into the Puyallup, which emptied into Puget Sound at Tacoma, and the White River flowed into the Duwamish at Seattle.
Beginning in the 1870s, farmers suffered from high water during times of heavy rain and snowmelt. With the expansion of civilization, floods damaged bridges, roads, and homes. Farmers in one valley wanted to breach the land between the rivers, thereby directing the flow down the other valley to cause the damage there instead.
In July 1899, the White River ended up partially flowing into the Stuck River. King County employed the watchman to see that the situation stayed that way. Farmers convened meetings and asked county commissioners for relief.
In the record flood of 1906, the White River cut a permanent channel to the Stuck, and the old channel of the White almost ran dry. An Army Corps of Engineers study recommended that the White continue to flow into the Stuck and in 1913 King County agreed to pay 60 percent of the cost of improvements and maintenance of the new river.
