PUYALLUP, 140.6 m. (49 alt. 7,889 pop.), is on the rich valley floor along the dyked banks of the Puyallup River, lying 300 feet below the surrounding plateau.
Formerly a dense wooded expanse, now a busy modern city, Puyallup is the center of broad berry fields, orchards, and green pasture lands. Here, as in Sumner, its sister city, berry fields encroach as far as the main streets; many of the dwellings, some modern and some dating back to the 1880's, are surrounded by orchards and berry rows.
The immense yields of the district have attracted canneries, preserving plants, sawmills, woodworking plants, and box factories. The largest bee-hive factory west of the Mississippi is in Puyallup. In 1933 the canneries handled nearly 15,000,000 pounds of berries and small fruits. Like Sumner, Puyallup has many associations co—operating in the marketing of lettuce, eggs, poultry, berries, rhubarb, bulbs, and hops.
The oldest city in the valley, Puyallup as a settlement was known as Franklin. In February 1877, Ezra Meeker, (1830-1928), platted the first townsite and named it Puyallup (Ind. Generous people), so that the town would have a name unlike any other in the world. The town was incorporated in 1890.
Meeker first crossed the Plains by covered wayon in 1852. Later, in order to mark definitely the old Oregon Trail and to obtain funds from Congress for the survey and location of a national highway over its route, Meeker retraced the route by oxcart and covered wagon in 1906, when more than 70 years old. He later made approximately the same trip by automobile and, in 1924, by airplane at the age of 94.
pp. 388-89, driving tour 2.
Now with a population of 33,011 (2000 census), and at least triple that with unincorporated areas included, Puyallup (pronounced pew-awl-up) is no longer the small farming community alluded to in the American Guide. Most of the population growth has occurred south of the original core of the town up on what is known as South Hill. The historic core of the city remains and all but one of the historic spots mentioned in the guide's section on Puyallup still exist.
The farming aspect of the Puyallup Valley still remains, with berries, tulips and daffodils growing well in the fertile soil left behind from lahars caused by the last eruption of Mt. Rainier. The lahars, a blessing to the soil, are a potential curse to the increasingly dense community packed into the valley. For safety purposes a lahar warning system has been erected, lahar drills are practiced by the schools and a yearly community wide drill occurs.
Coordinates are taken in the center of downtown, at historic Pioneer Park, in front of a statue of Ezra Meeker, founder of the city.