By DON CARTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

While galloping growth has brought many changes in once-sleepy Issaquah, there are still a few reminders of the quieter rural atmosphere that attracted many residents here.

It's 9:30 a.m. and Nancy Davis has dropped in at the old Grange Farm and Home Supply store to buy vitamins and grain for her horse.

Davis produces no plastic card, and no identification. The clerk, who knows and greets Davis by name, just takes a ledger card out of a drawer and jots down a figure.

Davis, who has acreage south of town, says she moved here in 1971 "so I could raise my kids in a rural setting" and not have to commute too many miles to her job at the Port of Seattle, where she worked until retirement three years ago.

While friendly people and rural atmosphere rank at the top of her list of Issaquah's attributes, traffic is at the top of her list of its drawbacks. But getting around is a lot easier since she retired. "I try to avoid the commute hours as much as possible," she says.

The traffic "is just something we learn to live with," says John Evanson, manager of the Grange store who moved here from Eastern Washington earlier this year.

"I was always intrigued by Issaquah," says Evanson. "It's kind of a rural atmosphere in an urban setting."

The cooperative store, which had its roots in the Depression, has a heady smell of rural things: grains, oils, leather.

Like many other Issaquah businesses, the Grange store is adapting to change. The store, which once limited its membership to farmers, has expanded to include general consumers. Its inventory now includes more lawn and garden items and pet foods.

The Grange store is just one of Issaquah's many surprises.

One of the biggest surprises is the layout of Issaquah itself: It just doesn't look real.

Here is this charming little village, surrounded by three soaring mountains that look like props borrowed from "The Sound of Music." And over by the freeway is a humongous new commercial development that looks like it was imported from Bellevue. More than a million square feet of new commercial space have been added in Issaquah over the past few years.

The crossroads location is responsible for the massive commercial growth -- as well as the traffic jams. Major highways to some of the county's fastest-growing areas pass through Issaquah. Commuters from Fall City, the Sammamish Plateau, Maple Valley and even Enumclaw must drive through on their way to Interstate 90.

Issaquah residents typically find creative ways to cope with the traffic.

Peter Gilthvedt, who works at The Couth Buzzard used bookstore and espresso shop, says he was able to find an affordable apartment downtown so he can walk to work in five minutes.

While some pedestrians may be intimidated trying to cross Front Street, the main drag through Old Issaquah, "those of us who live here just march across the street and they damned well better stop for us," says Robb Hunt, executive producer of The Village Theater.

Phyllis Woodward had trouble finding her white station wagon in the city's increasingly larger parking lots, until she attached a big bouquet of flowers to her car roof. Now she's known as "the flower lady."

Woodward moved here from California after retirement, and lived with her daughter in Bellevue before choosing a new community. "I went all around the state, and it was the small-town feel and friendly people that made me choose Issaquah," she says. "I also was able to find a place where I could garden, and where I felt safe."

Woodward also volunteers two days a week at the city's visitors center.

Continued:

• Recreation and improving life is a high priority
• Traffic is region's problem, not just town's, says mayor
• Village Theater is cornerstore of growing cultural scene