This is where the Wallace River flows into the Skykomish and is the place from which begins the real ascent of the Cascade slope. The town at first was named Wallace, but its mail was frequently misdirected to Wallace, Idaho; so it was renamed for George S. Startup, manager of a sawmill. Startup was a logging town, but diversified farming gained a foothold here as well. Like other lonely pioneers, F. M. Sparling, the first settler, advertised for a wife in the Heart and Hand Magazine and happily married Eva Helmic, of Ohio, in 1889. Startup is now a residential community with homes that look mostly to be from the 1960s or later. There is a notable ca. early 1900s wood-frame church, whose interiors have been altered to accommodate retail space; however, the gallery kept original windows and floor.