South King County-based author and historian Karen Meador will share the history of the Fort Steilacoom to Fort Bellingham Road in a PowerPoint presentation, “A Lasting Legacy: The History of Military Road” at the Historical Society of Federal Way’s annual meeting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.

The meeting will be held at the Brooklake Community Center, located on 356th Street just west of Highway 99. This event is open to the public; tours of the historic Brooklake building will be available and light refreshments will be served.

Retaining its original name and general route throughout South King County, Military Road is part of the Fort Steilacoom-Fort Bellingham Road constructed under the supervision of the U.S. Army in the late 1850s, according to Meador.

Hostilities between Natives and settlers and potential threats from foreign naval artillery spurred Congress, with the support of Secretary of War and future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, to appropriate $35,000 in 1857 to construct a land route between the two forts to move troops and supplies and facilitate settlement in the remote Puget Sound Country.

Traveling on foot with a pocket compass and an axe to mark trees along the way, Army Captain W.W. DeLacy began surveying the unsettled wilderness accompanied by a crew of six Native Americans and three settlers; the area was so densely-wooded that pack animals could not be used, Meador said.

Construction began in 1858 under the supervision of Lieutenant George H. Mendell; the road was completed to Seattle in October 1860. In South King County, Army troops camped at the three lakes the road connects: Five-Mile Lake, Star Lake and Angle Lake.

Carved out of the wilderness over 150 years ago, Military Road encouraged settlement and commerce and enabled the movement of people and supplies throughout South King County, a legacy that continues today, Meador said.