Town once got railroaded into a big move

Originally published Saturday, September 26, 1998

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Duvall got its beginnings in 1875 when James Duvall obtained a government land grant to begin a logging business. He rafted logs down the Snoqualmie River to market.

The area's first settlement was Cherry Valley, a mile north of present-day Duvall. But the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad needed the site to surmount a grade, so Cherry Valley's store, church and other buildings were moved to a new town site in 1909. It was named Duvall, after its founder, and incorporated in 1913.

Ray Burhen, a 50-year Duvall resident, bought the old railroad depot and restored it at a riverside site below the Woodinville-Duvall bridge in 1980. He once had a sawmill there.

Burhen, a longtime Duvall planning commissioner, is philosophical about the town's changes. He says he would be "happy with the city the way it was 50 years ago. But time marches on and that is in the past . . . It would be nice to have a little bigger tax base for the city."