SOUTH NEIGHBORHOODS - 2

 Des Moines

 Federal Way

 Kent

 Auburn

DES MOINES

Des Moines offers an excellent blend of quality homes, natural beauty, and business opportunity - all within minutes of the Seattle and Tacoma metropolitan areas. Our six miles of shoreline include public beaches, natural areas, waterfront parks, a 900-slip marina, fine dining, and a popular boardwalk. Des Moines neighborhoods offer housing of every type and price range-from waterfront mansions to affordable apartments. There are numerous commercial properties ready for redevelopment.

Highline School District is currently undertaking an ambitious plan to renovate most of the school buildings in and around Des Moines. The City is also home to Highline Community College, and a future satellite campus for Central Washington University. Des Moines is easily accessible from Interstate 5, Pacific Highway South, and Sea-Tac International Airport. "The Waterland City" welcomes you to our community.

FEDERAL WAY

Federal Way was eyed for its logging potential in the late 1800s, but the community developed slowly. It was not until the early 1950s that the city's Chamber of Commerce officially accepted the community's name.

According to the Federal Way Historical Society, the city got its name from a federally funded road built on an old trail in the mid-1800s. The trail is now called Pacific Highway South.

By the 1960s, the community was growing fast, with many Weyerhaeuser executives and Boeing engineers making Federal Way their home. Community growth surged again in the mid-1970s after SeaTac Mall was built. The city was incorporated in 1990.

Federal Way is home to the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, a bonsai collection museum and the Wild Waves and Enchanted Village amusement park. The headquarters of the international forest products giant, Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd., is in Federal Way, as is World Vision International, a Christian relief organization that works to help impoverished communities and countries.

Federal Way and the surrounding area is characterized by urban wetlands and woodlands interspersed among booming retail stores and SeaTac Mall, where the big-name stores include The Bon Marche, Gap, American Eagle Outfitters, Bath & Body Works and As Seen on TV.

KENT

Kent's setting in the Green River Valley 18 miles south of Seattle offers clear-day views of Mount Rainier rising majestically over the landscape, and the Cascade and Olympic mountains on the horizons. Convenient to other major cities and Sea-Tac Airport, Kent is halfway between Seattle and Tacoma.

In 1890 with just 763 residents, Kent became the second city to incorporate in the newly established state of Washington.

In 1910, the school that would later become Tahoma High School was built where it still stands today. In 1926, the students named it by taking the first two letters of the three districts they came from: Taylor, Hobart and Maple Valley.

In its early history and into the 1970s, Kent was known for its agriculture. Its hops production, in fact, mirrored its namesake, Kent, England. The truck farms that stretched along the Green River Valley through Kent in the early- to mid-20th century supplied regional stores and Seattle's historic Pike Place Market.

Today, agriculture that once made the Valley lush and green has mostly given way to the southward spread of warehouse and distribution centers serving the Greater Seattle area, and increasingly to large multi-family housing developments just west of downtown Kent.

Downtown itself is distinctly small-town. The banks, small shops and restaurants at its core are flanked by parking, playfields and community centers to the north, City Hall and a county-operated regional library to the south and golf courses, parks and playfields to the west.

Downtown is nestled on the valley floor, one of three distinct areas of town that also include West Hill (mostly residential along the path of Interstate 5) and East Hill (with its predominantly single-family neighborhoods, schools and more retail shopping).

State Route 167 runs through the middle of the city, Interstate 5 is on its western edge and to the east is a sprawling residential area. Few major roads point east-west, making it tough to get home from the freeway, or vice versa. Also, bicycle lanes and sidewalks have been left behind in the city's mad dash to grow along with its population over the past decade.

AUBURN

Auburn has gone from home of the "Slaughter House" to become the "loveliest village of the plain." Auburn is actually located in something rather unlike a plain, with hills all around it and a river plowing through it. The area is a perfect fertile valley for farmers.

The valley was originally the home of the Skopamich, Smalhkamish and Stkamish Indian tribes. Settlers first came to the valley in the 1850s -- and the natives naturally fought the would-be pioneers to protect their natural homes. On Dec. 4, 1855 -- two months after an Indian ambush killed nine people, including women and children -- Lt. William Slaughter camped in what is now Auburn. He and two soldiers were killed by one of the tribes. Eventually, a new treaty was signed and the White River tribes combined to form the Muckleshoot tribe, which has the only Indian reservation now within King County.

In 1891, the area was incorporated as Slaughter in honor of the fallen officer. The town hotel was actually called the Slaughter House. Within two years, the town was renamed Auburn, which was taken from the first line of an Oliver Goldsmith poem, The Deserted Village: "Sweet Auburn! Loveliest village of the plain."

The Northern Pacific Railroad was established through the city in 1883, but the Seattle-Tacoma Interurban line in 1902 allowed farmers to sell their goods to the cities. The railroad also brought businesses such as Borden Condensery, which made Borden's Condensed Milk, and the Northern Clay Company. In the post-World War II years, even more businesses were coming to Auburn including The Boeing Co., which built a facility to mill sheet-metal skin for jet airliners. By the '90s, most of the farmland was being paved over as the city looked to commercial and high-tech enterprises to generate tax dollars. Auburn also hosts the Northwest's only High Definition mobile television studio with the company Jonas Jensen.

Although the city has moved past its Slaughter origins, the city still honors the man through a monument erected in 1918 in a local park.

SOUTH NEIGHBORHOODS - 2