Rattlesnake Ledge looming behind Rattlesnake Lake. The area surrounding RattleSnake Lake has been in use by humankind for a very long time. archaeological evidence shows that aboriginal people camped on Rattlesnake Prairie they fished and hunted around the Lake as early as 7000 B.C. In recent history, The Snoqualmie tribe ( Children of the Moon )fished for trout, gathered huckleberries, and traded goods with the Yakama tribe, from Eastern Washington, who traveled across the Cascade Range to meet in the vicinity of the lake and prairie. In 1907, the Milwaukee Railroad completed its route over the pass and along the Cedar River. To house railroad workers, a railroad camp was built one half mile east of the power station, on the northern shore of Rattlesnake Lake. (the Left side of this image ) Taking the name Moncton, the community grew rather quickly. In 1911, a new masonry dam was built to harness more of the river. Moncton was built near it, and housed more than 200 men. By the spring of 1915, the masonry dam was filling up, which unfortunately caused seepage through the vast glacial moraine underneath. Throughout the clear-cut hillsides that rainy season, nearby residents saw springs burst forth out of the ground, not a good sign. The moraine, filled like a sponge, was squirting out water wherever it could. As more water filled the dam, and more rain fell from the skies, more pressure caused more mini-geysers to erupt in the hills above Moncton. The excess water in the moraine had nowhere to flow but into Rattlesnake Lake. The water rose a little over a foot per day. The levels kept increasing to the point where houses popped off their foundations, causing them to float like corks into the middle of the lake. The City was abandoned and many of the workers had moved to the City Light Camp ( Were I was standing when I took the image ) . A fire destroyed much of City Light Camp in 1922 . Very little today remains of Moncton and a few years ago they took all the railroad track out so the land is pretty much returned to its former glory. Well that is minus the beautiful old growth cedar trees they chopped all down , all that remains of them is big stumps in the ground with huckleberrys growning out ot the tops of them. I took this photo with my Sony CD Mavica 350 ( 6x zoom ) . I did a 180 taking 3 images but only 2 of them worked out for this . ( shading was wrong and my 3rd image didnt line up right. ( It works great if you have a tripod though ) . I used a program called Photostitch to merge the images togeather and did a bit of post work to fix the seam a bit. I like the heal brush in Adobe photoshop the best. Cloning works ok but leaves a bit to much of the same patern repeated in the same area and sticks out like a sore thumb so you end up smearing it a bit and them you have a bigger mess to clean up .