After the Coal Rush
It's been said that Roslyn became a ghost town soon after.  Certainly, it was a town changed.  The population dropped from a high of 4,000 in the early 20th century to 938 in 1999.

Not much has been written or recorded about Roslyn in the past 50 years.  Through the generations, Roslynites changed from miners to loggers to government employees working for the U.S. Forest Service.  Our children moved on to Seattle, California, Alaska.  Stores closed down, reopened as something new, then closed down again.  Commuting became a way of life for many.

In the 1970's, Roslyn experienced a new influx.  Drawn by the quiet, rural lifestyle and compelled to stay here by the unique Roslyn charm, the town became a haven for young people.  Some were looking for a good place to raise children.  Others were artists who found inspiration and freedom here.  For a time, hippies and retired coal miners scraped together a living side by side (or with several vacant houses between them).

Then, in 1990, a television production company came to town and shook everything up once again.  Roslyn became the location site for the award winning television series Northern Exposure.  Film crews filled the streets, along with the tourists who came to see it all happening.  For five years, Roslyn was known by millions of TV viewers as Cicely, Alaska.  New businesses sprouted, tourists poured in, and the town was booming all over again. 

Since 1995, when the series ended, Roslyn has quieted down some.  There are still Northern Exposure gift shops, but the stream of tourists buying moose key chains and mugs has become more of a trickle.  Locally driven small businesses are taking hold.  Cottage industries are being cultivated.  Art still flourishes.  People flock here not so much to see Cicely, but to go mountain biking, fishing, backpacking and snowmobiling in the thousands of acres of wilderness and national forest surrounding the town.  Roslyn is experiencing a "new age."

The reasons why haven't changed.  Roslyn and her surroundings are unique, special, beloved by many.  One visit and it is easy to see why.  An early description of Lake Cle Elum, located several miles northwest of Roslyn, appeared in the Kittitas Standard of September 1, 1883:

"Passing through miles of open country in which berry and hazel nut bushes occasionally vie with each other in blocking the way, the whirr, whirr of the grouse, the deer and bear signs seen quite often, very quickly explain the great attachment our dusky population feel toward this section.  Sighting the magnificent waters of Lake Cle Elum, bounded upon one side by high, craggy, treeless peaks and upon the other by gently sloping, forest-covered hills, free from underbrush, one can readily understand what a magnificent sight must have been presented when in days agone, the lake was dotted with gaudily decked Indian canoes, or its ice-environed surface was illuminated by hundreds of torches of the piscatorially inclined children of the forest.  Nor is any great stretch of the imagination required to enable one to see that at no distant day the waters of this beautiful lake must attract to its shores many persons upon health or pleasure bent."

*Historical information provided by the following sources: