Algona/Pacific
Algona and Pacific, tucked at the southern edge of King County, owe their beginnings to a late-19th century real estate salesman named Clarence Dayton Hillman.
Hillman would buy and subdivide cheap logged-off land. He then promoted the lots, showing them off in special excursions and claiming they had fertile soil and were suitable for industry or even vacation resorts. Sometimes men were so anxious to get in on his deals that fights erupted. Some developments, including Algona and Pacific, sold in hours.
"Most of the old plots were very small," said Ed Davis, community development director for Pacific. "But I'm sure C.D. Hillman made quite a bundle from them." Hillman's fortunes changed, however, when he was convicted of mail fraud in trying to sell infertile land north of Seattle.
Pacific was incorporated in 1903. Algona, once a Filipino farming community, became a city in 1955.
Early on, the two towns jointly created an electric-rail transit system with links to Tacoma and Seattle. A recreational trail extending to the White River has since replaced the rail. Algona and Pacific also were linked by state highway signs saying, "Algona Pacific, next exit." But Davis said, "I'm always getting asked if we're the same city. Well, we're not."
Pacific once developed a ferry system to go across the White River. But that was soon replaced by a two-lane bridge, which could grow to four lanes under current proposals.