Unwilling to wait for the slow-moving federal government to act, and in order to attract 1853 emigrants already en route, the citizens of Puget Sound collected funds to send Edward Jay Allen, John Edgar, George Shazer and Whitfield Kirtley into the field to survey the Naches Pass route to determine its suitability as a wagon road. The road viewers departed June 1, 1853, and sixteen days later broke out into the open prairies of eastern Washington. Their conclusion was that a wagon road could be built. Allen hurried back to Olympia with the news, leaving for posterity his personal, detailed account of that exploration.: