By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Sandy Gill is here to stay. Even after her marriage broke up, Gill stuck around Enumclaw, moving with her kids into an apartment and getting a nursing job. After years of life in Seattle and Renton, she was ready for a small town, far from the tensions and troubles in larger communities.

Here her daughters aren't picked on by bigger kids. They can grab some fast food and head for sparsely occupied places like the park on Pete's Pond for an evening outdoors with a view of the spectacular Cascade foothills.

After her divorce, "we just stayed, and I think I'm going to stick around," said Gill, 31, as she and daughters Karie, 10, and Christina, 7, munched chicken and hamburgers in the park on a hot evening. "I love it here. I feel safe here."

With a population of 10,550, Enumclaw still has a storybook look and feel, the kind that is luring many like Gill away from larger communities. It's just as well that the town has grown slowly, some residents say. That way, Enumclaw has had time to figure out how to keep its small-town appeal.

Situated on a plateau near the White River, Enumclaw is at the intersection of three highways: state Routes 164 and 169, which link it to Auburn, Black Diamond and Renton; and U.S. Route 410, undergoing major restoration and recently designated an "All-American Highway."

Motorists heading into town from the west thread their way through the valleys of the Green and White rivers, through the traffic snarls in Auburn and past small shopping centers at Bonney Lake.

From the north, on state Route 169, drivers pass through the Green River Gorge, eventually entering Enumclaw on streets that pass some of the town's oldest and best-preserved homes, once the retreats of timber barons and the business elite.

On a clear day, visitors and residents are treated to a stunning view of Mount Rainier, which dominates the view above the modest two- and three-story structures in the town's central core.

"I like the green and the trees," says lifelong resident Peggy Morris-Nelson, 42. "You drive three minutes and you're in the country."