During World War One the U.S. military built the Spruce Railroad along the north shore of Lake Crescent to extract Sitka spruce, prized for aircraft construction. The line was completed just as the war ended in 1918 and saw little wartime use. The abandoned rail grade has since been converted into a popular lakeside walking and cycling trail.
There's a piece of world history hidden along the far shore of this lake. During the First World War, the military went desperate for Sitka spruce, the light, strong wood that built fighter planes back then, and the best of it grew right here on the peninsula. So crews hacked a railroad along the north side of this very lake to haul the timber out. The strange twist? They finished the line right as the war ended, and it barely ran a load of war spruce. Today that old grade is a walking and biking trail.
Photo: Chris Light · CC BY-SA 4.0
