The wagon road was popular with settlers and cattle drivers from eastern Washington and was planned to be extended west to the Black River and east to the Yakima Valley using a $2,500 appropriation from the territorial government, but the funds proved insufficient and the project was shelved. The Snoqualmie wagon road was bought out in 1883 by the Seattle and Walla Walla Trail and Wagon Road Company and converted into a toll road to fund maintenance after the federal government declined to fund improvements to the road. The toll scheme was ultimately unsuccessful, as it failed to compete with the Northern Pacific Railway after it built its railroad across Stampede Pass to the south. The toll road was abandoned in 1893 and transferred to King and Klickitat counties, who contracted Denny to maintain and repair the road in 1899 with state money; by that time, sections of the road had deteriorated considerably, but approximately 200 wagons and 1,148 used the Snoqualmie Pass road that summer.