Earthquake Point

For more than a century nobody could agree where this earthquake struck. It came at 9:40 on the night of December 14, 1872. Early readings of the newspaper reports put it near Vancouver, British Columbia; later studies moved it into the North Cascades and then to the south end of Lake Chelan. In 2014 geologists found a young fault scarp in Spencer Canyon near Entiat. The best witness was here all along. Wapato John, a Chelan headman who farmed upstream, said the river rose some fifty feet overnight over his fields before it broke through.

What the plaque says

Earthquake Point This site on Ribbon Cliff called Broken Mountain by the Indians experienced a violent earthquake in December, 1872. The shock split the mountain, forming the cliff to the west and causing a huge rock slide which stopped the flow of the Columbia River for several hours. The black ribbons of the cliff are lava-filled fissures. Plateau lavas of the region later covered this rock mass. The white volcanic ash in road excavation is so recent as to have buried undecayed logs. It was blown from Glacier Peak, a volcanic cone, 50 miles to the northwest. Erected by the Washington State Department of Transportation in cooperation with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery — 24 mi
  The world's largest salmon hatchery when it opened in 1940, built to make up for the runs Grand Coulee Dam cut off, on the fishery the Wenatchi were promised.

More markers nearby

• Blewett — 29 mi