History
The Mountain Loop Highway was established on March 23, 1936. Before the highway was built, primitive and very rough wagon roads connected the Monte Cristo Townsite with the small towns of Darrington and Granite Falls. A narrow wagon road, known as Wilmans Trail or Pioneer Trail, or simply the Sauk wagon road, was built from Sauk City on the Skagit River to Monte Cristo in 1891. That same year the surveyor M.Q. Barlow discovered the feasibility of access to Monte Cristo via the South Fork Stillaguamish River. Mining interests funded a wagon road from Silverton to the Sauk wagon road via Barlow Pass. These roads roughly followed the current route of the Mountain Loop Highway along with some railroads. Construction of the road started in 1936 and finished in 1941. The road was closed in 1942 due to the war in Europe.
The highway closes mostly in the winter due to floods and reopen in the spring of the following year, but a windstorm in 2003 closed the highway. With other windstorms following in 2006 and 2007, the highway had to be closed until 2008.
The Mountain Loop Highway officially reopened on June 25, 2008 and the cities along the full loop (Arlington, Granite Falls, and Darrington) had a large celebration.
Read more about this topic: Mountain Loop Highway
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