I am officially aboard the “Skid Road is an Urban Myth” camp! I have gone through the archives of every available Puget Sound newspaper, and every early Seattle history, and not one ever claimed Mill Street / Yesler Way was originally called Skid Road. In fact, Welford Beaton’s 1914 Seattle history

. . . The City That Made Itself, demolished the myth the first year it ever arose in his discussion of Henry Yesler’s mill, noting the pioneers “rolled [the logs] to tidewater and conveyed them with small boats to the mill. There was no other way to do the work. . . ” Henry Yesler’s account of logging operations on page 23 critically points out that any ox teams in the Puget Sound region that could have been used for log skidding were wiped out during the Puget Sound War of 1855-1858. The myth of Yesler Way as Skid Road seems to have started with Prohibition agitation in 1914 in conjunction with growing concerns among Seattleites of the period about all the bums hanging out in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. Sounds familiar, right!