From a Pile of Logs to a Booming City

Skid Road was a logging term likely coined by western Washington loggers. Skid Road then came to be used as an early name for the Pioneer Square area. When Henry Yesler built the Puget Sound’s first steam-powered lumber mill in 1852, the hillside was used to “skid” trees logged from above, down a series of greased logs to the Yesler sawmill on the bay below. Soon after, other businesses began to arise in Pioneer Square, driving early settlement and development of the district. In later years, the term Skid Road morphed into “Skid Row.”