Railroads By Rayna Simons
What Did Seattle Do When the railroad went to Tacoma? ( Seattle-Walla Walla) Seattle and Tacoma were fighting about where the terminus for an East Coast railroad would be, Seattle or Tacoma? Weeks later, Arthur Denny read a telegram from the Northern pacific’s managers saying that the terminus would be located on Commencement Bay, Tacoma. This angered lots of Seattleites enough for them to decide to build their own railroad called the Seattle and Walla Walla, leaving Tacoma out of the occasion. The Seattle and Walla Walla railroad was never completed, but they got enough done to get to the mines of Newcastle.
What did Seattle do when the railroad went to Tacoma? ( the Seattle and Walla Walla ) In 1885, judges Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman raised capital for a new railroad, the Seattle Lake Sore and Eastern, with the hope of linking Seattle to the Transcontinental Line. Soon, the need to get coal from East Side and Renton for Seattle’s port grew bigger.
The Northern Pacific to Tacoma As soon as Arthur Denny set foot on the land that would soon become Seattle, he knew that for the city to become great, it would need a railroad. The first person in Seattle to really want a railroad was named Asa Whitney. He tried to organize one that went from Lake Superior to Puget sound, but it was never completed. The first trains crossed the Northern Pacific Railroad Bridge spanning the Columbia River between Pasco and Kennewick on December 3, The Northern Pacific’s managers favored Tacoma over Seattle until Henry Villard took control over the railroad in 1883.
The Northern Pacific to Tacoma continued He soon earned Seattle’s trust when his Oregon Improvement company bought the Seattle and Walla Walla railroad in 1880, and Seattle threw him a lavish tribute when he visited in September of On that visit, Henry Villard promised to build a spur line between Seattle and Tacoma. It opened with great excitement on June ; unfortunately, Henry Villard was banished soon after, and The railroad from Seattle to Tacoma became so unreliable that it was nicknamed “Orphan Road.”
The Great Northern In 1893, the Great Northern railroad tracks were completed, provided a direct rail link from Elliot Bay and the rest of the nation. The Great Northern railway was built by Chinese Immigrants under the direction of James Jerome Hill. The two train stations in Seattle were the King Street Station, which was built in 1896, and served the Great Northern Railroad and the Northern Pacific Railroad, also, Union Station which opened in 1911 and the Union Pacific railroad and Milwaukee Road.
How Did Railroads Help Seattle? With 1,150 residents, Seattle was the territory’s third biggest city by 1870, and it needed a railroad to get any bigger. Seattle’s population tripled to 3,5,33 because of the railroad in the next decade; President Rutherford B. Hayes visited the city to tell Seattle that it was now the second biggest city in the area. It looked like destiny had chosen Seattle after all. If the railroad hadn’t been there when the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, Seattle wouldn’t have grown from 43,000 people in 1890 to 237,000 people in 1910, and people would not have been able go to and from Seattle quickly and easily.
Some train pictures
bibliography Crowley, Walt, and Priscilla Long. HistoryLink's Seattle & King County Timeline. Seattle, WA: HistoryLink in Association with the University of Washington, Print. Warren, James R., and Mary-Thadia D'Hondt. King County and Its Queen City, Seattle: an Illustrated History. Woodland Hills, CA: Windsor Publications, Print. Warren, James R., and William R. McCoy. Highlights of Seattle's History. Seattle, WA: Historical Society of Seattle and King County, Print. MOHAI