Although the Puyallup Indians inhabited the region, for hundreds of years, the first settlers in Milton were white. Thousands came to the Puget Sound region during the 1800’s and by the early 1890’s some of them had built a mill among the evergreens on a hill overlooking the Puyal- lup Valley. Known as “Mill Town,” it was made up of a handful of homesteaders and lumber camp workers who furnished timber to feed the mill. Local growth was boosted with the construction of the Interurban Railway in the early 1900’s, which connected Seattle and Tacoma. Milton was incorporated as a city in 1907 and today, it is still a quiet, peaceful community surrounded by fields, trees, open vistas and gardens just 10 minutes from Tacoma and 30 minutes from Seattle.

Near the confluence of the gurgling Puyallup and Carbon Rivers, the bold strength of Mt. Rainier shining above, Orting rests in tranquility. The first people here, the Puyallup’s, lived in longhouses and subsisted from nature’s bounty; salmon, clams, berries and roots. The white settlers were part of the first wagon train to cross the Cascades at Natches Pass in 1853 and four families, led by the Whitesells, filed land claims in 1854. The whites settling of the land led to the Indian War of 1855 which ended with the indigenous people being forced onto reservations. Coal was soon discovered at the headwaters of the Puyallup River and brought the railroad in 1877, to transport it. Fredrick Eldredge began to earnestly promote the area and in 1889 “Whitesell’s Crossing” was incorporated as Orting.