Monte Cristo Snohomish County, Washington

Name: Monte Cristo
Address: Washington

Mapped Location

Monte Cristo: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

Information

General information on Monte Cristo

Feature Type: Place

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Monte Cristo

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name	Description
Monte Cristo	Official

Origin Notes and History of Monte Cristo

References to Monte Cristo that document the origin of its place name

MONTE CRISTO, a mining district and town in the east central part of Snohomish County. It was named in dramatic fashion on July 4, 1889, by Joseph Pearsall, a prospector who was climbing over the hills and saw evidences of minerals. Through his field glasses he saw what he believed to be a long and broad streak of galena. Waving his arms he shouted: "It is rich as Monte Cristo !" From that hour the name was established. (L. K. Hodges: Mining in the Pacific Northwest, published in 1897, and quoted in The Mountaineer, Volume XI., 1918, page 32.) L. W. Getchell organized the Silver Queen Mining and Smelting Company with a capital stock of $5,000,000 and became general manager in 1890. A railroad was built between the new town of Monte Cristo and Everett. (Julian Hawthorne: History of Washington, Volume I., pages 437-438.) When the mining interests declined the region remained famous as a resort for fishermen, hunters and campers.

Edmond S. Meany in Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Meany, Edmond S., Origin of Washington Geographic Names, 1923 University of Washington, pp 170 | Origin of Washington Geographic Names

A Selected Bibliography of Monte Cristo, Snohomish County, Washington

A compilation of essential readings detailing the history, geography, and culture of the region.

Monte Cristo by Philip R. Woodhouse, Robert L. Wood

Monte Cristo details the rise and fall of a remote, late-nineteenth-century mining boomtown situated in a spectacularly rugged alpine basin of the western Cascade Mountains in Washington State. The authors focus intensely on the treacherous topography surrounding the South Fork Sauk River headwaters, where sheer granite peaks and heavy winter snowpacks made access incredibly dangerous and prone to devastating avalanches. The narrative chronicles the immense engineering struggles required to push the Everett and Monte Cristo Railway through winding, flood-prone river canyons to extract gold and silver ore from these isolated, high-altitude claims. Ultimately, the book serves as a geographic case study of how the unforgiving mountain environment constantly thwarted human industrial ambitions and eventually reclaimed the townsite back to the wilderness.

307 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Non-circulating [ 1 ]

History · 1st Edition · Mountaineers, Seattle, 1979
Related Catalog Items: Monte Cristo · Snohomish County

Snohomish County

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Last updated: 2017-02-26