The Barlow family
John Barlow was the son of a Finnish coal miner, but he wanted a more exciting life for himself. Although he was just a youngster when his family immigrated to Carbonado, he struck out on his own to be a cowboy in Eastern Washington.
The glamour of life on horseback soon wore off, but he did find himself a Finnish wife and a career as a farmer on the other side of the mountains. In 1906, the family bought a homestead in the Issaquah area that covered 130 acres from Lake Sammamish to the base of Cougar Mountain.
John and his sons built the dairy into a thriving business, which operated until the 1960s. He had the first gas-powered launch on the lake. He used it to take his cream to Monohon, where it was shipped out to Seattle on the train. The water route was much faster than taking the cream into the Issaquah area by horse and buggy.
The old Barlow dairy farm included areas that today are the western parts of the state park, the Mark Frisby Tennis Academy, a stretch of Newport Way, and more than 2,000 feet of waterfront on Lake Sammamish. All three surviving children still live on parts of the homestead, although most of the land has been sold.
