Five things
#1. The park is named for Fred Nolte, a mining engineer known as a founding father of nearby Cumberland, where he lived beginning in 1883. Nolte claimed a 160-acre homestead in 1887, built the Cumberland Hotel (now City Hall Saloon, a favorite destination for motorcyclists) by 1900, and co-founded the Carbon Coal Company in 1903.
#2. Nolte expanded his holdings with Deep Lake, where he built a resort that featured a dance hall over the water. By 1920, Nolte’s son, Bill, ran the resort with his wife, Mary, ditching the dance hall and adding cabins and picnic areas.
#3. When this region was a center for coal mining, Deep Lake offered miners respite and relaxation from underground toil. A small mine operated from 1940-1952 about 200 feet west of the lake.
#4. After Bill Nolte died, his older sister Minnie planned to leave the property to the Archdiocese of Seattle, which turned it down because it couldn’t afford the property taxes, so she turned to the state instead. The park’s administration building was Bill and Mary Nolte’s home.
#5. This is essentially a neighborhood park, where folks come for their daily walk or run, or to cast a line into the lake in hopes of catching a trout. We saw a lakeside picnic shelter set up for a birthday party, with bunches of balloons tied to a table and rainbow pinwheels stuck in the ground at intervals from the parking lot to show the way to the festivities. It’s a nice place, but perhaps without the destination features that characterize most other state parks. Still, I’m sure the people who live nearby are happy to have this pretty park, filled with dog walkers, picnickers, and fishers trying for stocked rainbow trout.
Fast Facts about Nolte State Park
- 117-acre day-use park, open year-round
- 7,174 feet of freshwater shoreline
- restrooms
- picnic tables, grills, kitchen shelters, horseshoe pits, playground
- hiking, biking, birding, wildlife viewing, metal detecting
- freshwater fishing, swimming, boating, paddleboarding
- boat ramp, dock
- Discover Pass required, $10 daily or, for a very reasonable $30, purchase an annual pass
- campsites, cabins, yurts, group camps, vacation houses, kitchen and picnic shelters, marina spots, and retreat centers vary by park and are reservable online
- park brochure
- park map
Land Acknowledgment
Nolte State Park occupies the traditional and unceded lands of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, who have lived and travelled here since time immemorial.