Mount Shuksan as seen from the Artist Point parking lot, ca. late 1920s. As early as 1886 surveyors traveled up the north fork of the Nooksack River for the purpose of finding a route from Bellingham Bay to the upper Skagit River. Rugged terrain halted that idea until 1893 when a commission was formed, with T.P. Hannegan as chairman, to establish a state road through the Cascade Mountains. Banning Austin did the preliminary cruise on the west end of the proposed road. After Austin's survey, the Cascade State Wagon Road was built as far as Hannegan Pass, but doubt surfaced about the possibility of actually building a road over the Cascades. By 1890 wagons could travel the bumpy road as far as the community of Shuksan. Eventually, plans to build the road over the mountains were abandoned, but by the early 1900s there was a push to upgrade the wagon road. The Whatcom County Commissioners and the Forest Service collaborated to upgrade and complete the road, renamed the Mount Baker Highway, all the way to Austin Pass in 1926. In 1931 the highway was extended just beyond the pass, to Artist Point, elevation 5,100 feet.
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