Issaquah Historic Railroad Depot Museum

The depot was built in 1889 as a passenger station and freight warehouse for the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, serving a town then called Gilman — known as Squak Valley until 1888 and renamed Issaquah around the turn of the century. Within a few years of opening, in the 1890s, the SLS&E was absorbed by the Northern Pacific Railway. Passenger service at the depot ended in the 1940s, and Northern Pacific walked away from the building entirely in 1962. The City of Issaquah bought the structure in 1984; restoration began the following year and wrapped up in the early 1990s, and the depot — listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 — now operates as a museum managed by the nonprofit Issaquah History Museums, the organization formerly known as the Issaquah Historical Society.