The Woodin Family and the Squak Slough

Woodinville takes its name from Ira and Susan Woodin, who in eighteen seventy one became the first settler family to homestead here, claiming one hundred sixty acres along the banks of a shallow, twisting waterway then called the Squak Slough, known today as the Sammamish River. Ira Woodin, born in eighteen thirty three, and Susan, born in eighteen forty eight, cleared the land, ran a small tannery, and opened their home to the young community. The first post office, the first school, and the first Sunday school in the area were all held inside the Woodin house.

Getting anywhere meant the water. Before roads and railroads reached the valley, settlers poled and rowed flat boats down the slough toward Lake Washington and on to Seattle. In the eighteen eighties, loggers poured into the valley, and lumber mills and shingle mills became the main employers.

The town that grew up around the Woodin homestead kept the family name. It would remain a small farming and mill community for more than a century, not incorporating as an official city until nineteen ninety three. For a place now famous for wine, Woodinville spent most of its history as a hard working valley of stumps, sawdust, and river traffic.