Along with the Milwaukee, why did they build it? Retrospect at work here.
Rix
To get to other side of the continent. [swg]
That would enable the NP to tap the traffic to and from the North Pacific Coast towns of Seattle, plus whatever else they could find to haul along the way - timber, coal, other ores and minerals, etc. - plus whatever it could get from federal land grants and subsidies.
A couple references are Northern Pacific by Charles and Dorothy Wood, and The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography Creating the North American Landscape by James E. Vance, Jr., which describes its role as a developmental railroad in some detail.
- Paul North.
NP also did it first, beating Great Northern by about 10(?) years, and Milwaukee Road by about 26(?) years. Presumeably, there was a market for goods from the far east through the Port of Seattle.
In this day and age when the BNSF northern transcontinental line mostly follows the old Great Northern mainline, the question seems reasonable. But in fact the Northern Pacific was the first northern transcontinental. The NP was completed in 1883 and the GN in 1893.
Bruce
The NP was one of the four Federal Land Grant railroads(Central Pacific/Union Pacific/Kansas Pacific/Northern Pacific) The NP was chartered from the ‘Head of the Great Lakes’ to Puget Sound. Construct started at just west of Duluth, MN. The NP was caught up in the usual finance scandals and always had notes to pay off through the years. The NP did have those checkerboard land grants, but some in prime wheat growing areas were swapped for land further west. That land later became coal production, but never really helped the NP. The NP did have a lot of prime timber areas in the west and sold/leased that land through the years. The basic route is still intact as MRL(at least in Montana) and BNSF operated the rest of it yet. Coal trains to Lake Superior/Twin cites move over the eastern part of the ex-NP, and the western part is combined with the ex-SP&S to form the Portland route. The Stampede line is still used as an overflow route, many times with EB empty grain trains using it for their return back to North Dakota. MRL gets enough traffic from BNSF to make a go of it on the ex-NP line through the Rockies.
The GN was privately financed and built to west to the north of the NP route, and enjoyed a much better low grade assault on the Rockies. The GN missed much of the populated area of Montana. After one of the bank panics(1888??), J J Hill basically bought the NP and kept if afloat so he did not have to worry about others taking control of it. The NP remained part of the ‘Hill Lines’ up to the BN merger in 1970. He also financed the CB&N extension of the CB&Q down the east bank of the Mississippi so he had a controlled route to Chicago. He later bought controlling interest in the CB&Q and it was jointly owned by the GN/NP. The GN line is the main route for merchandise trains to Seattle/Tacoma. Both the ex-NP and ex-GN lines in Yakima & Wenatchee
RE: The Northern Pacific Railway
To add some depth to the question of “why”…
Did they build the NP railway to induce economic growth in the PNW, or did they build it to follow economic growth? In other words, did the NP lead economic development, or was it a response to it?
What about the Milwaukee?
J. P. Morgan and Hill reorganized the NP as a result of the panic of 1893 and its resulting depression. By 1900 Hill and his allies controlled the NP as individuals.
The NP clearly lead development. It was Chartered in 1862, in the same Act that revised the government’s requirements for the UP enough to entice private capital to build the UP. Congress saw the NP as a more risky venture, that is why the NP land grant was so big, both in absolute terms and sections per mile, which I think was 20 in the State of MN and 40 in ther territories, that is everywhere else.
I grew up in, and have travelled extensively in Washington. The NP located all of the towns and cities in the area its main line served except Spokane, then called Spokane Falls; Walla Walla the pioneer what town in the state and then and now site of the State Pennetertary; Seattle the most successfull of several small lumber towns whose economic foundation was entertaining the loggers from surrounding camps, and Olympia the State Capital, so located because of the Olympia oyster.
The NP founded Tacoma and ignored Seattle. Seattle “won” in the end. The whole thing is a great story splendidy told in Bill Speidel’s “Sons of the Profits” which you should be able to get, probably used, from Amazon or B&N.
The NP also set the pattern of development from the Dakotas to the coast. It was less decisive in Minnesota because development was already under way there by the end of the Civil War. IIRC the NP began construction in 1870.
Mac
Sons of the Profits: There’s no business like grow Business. The Seattle Story 1851-1901 by William Speidel - from $3.99 new and $0.01 used at Amazon - see:
http://www.amazon.com/Sons-Profits-business-Business-1851-1901/dp/0914890069
Read the 10 customer reviews - “seamstresses”, indeed ! [swg]
The NP was definitely a “developmental” railroad for the northern tier of states - again, see the Vance book that I referenced above. I presently have a copy from a local library - I’ll see if I can summarize what he has to say sometime in the next week or so.
- Paul North.
I’d say all the transcontinentals except the Milwaukee were built to induce future traffic. For the most part, they all built through no-man’s land.
But wait a minute. The PNW was already developing before the NP got there. So can’t we say that the NP was built to follow economic growth too?
Rails,
You can say anything you want. I can say the moon is made of green cheese, but that does not make it so.
What economic development was going on in the PNW in 1860, 1870 before the NP arrived?
Mac
Most of the Pacific NorthWest’s developmentr before the arrival of the NP was confined to the ‘tidewater’ towns, and tributary areas/ hinterlands acccessible by the local rivers, mainly the Columbia. And even that development was limited to resource exploitation such as logging, mining of high-value minerals, and the like that could be either floated out or carried or dragged by mules and horses, maybe the occasional team-drawn wagon. Beyond that, it was just subsistence farming or living off the land in the woods. Even to this day, the ‘Una-Bomber’ Ted Kaczynski (sp?) had a good reason for building his off-the-grid isolated cabin in the seclusion of the woods of Montana . . .
- Paul North.
I though a large portion of the NP’s traffic goal was to tap the Oriental trade. A ship could dock in SeaTac days ahead of a ship going to San Francisco (LA was not a port yet), and the goods rushed to Chicago and the east. Vancover BC was even closer, but that was in Canada. The traffic developed along the way would just add to the Oriental profits.
Phil
I’m just trying to point out that there is never a simple answer. People try to explain things in black and white terms. But history is never that simple. Binary thinking always fails. The truth is more nuanced, and in this case, I think the Northern Pacific was built both to exploit an already developing economy, and also to accelerate economic growth.
Once you think that way about the NP, you see it has much in common with the Milwaukee. Hmmm.
Rails,
The NP, or any other railway, was either built before or after development was otherwise underway in the territory served. If you want to argue that the NP was built, even in part, to carry and established trade, show me the trade. I would grant that there were some established towns in Minnesota as of 1870. But west of Minnesota the NP was built in advance of the traffic.
The only thing Seattle sold in any volume was lumber that moved to San Francisco by ship. The completion of the NP did not disturb that trade. Lumber from PNW to the midwest and east did not begin to move by rail until about 1900.
Mac
Any discussion of the NP over the Christmas holiday deserves a nod to the late, great Trains editor David P. Morgan. In the 10th Annual Christmas Issue (December 1985), and yes, they could actually call it the Christmas Issue back then, the wonderful wordsmanship of Morgan explained why he considered NP to be “The All-American Railroad.” If you can find it in your collection or on that new Trains DVD you just bought, I recommend a Christmas Eve read you’ll deeply enjoy.
Now, as for the question of whether the business and traffic was already there before NP arrived, or whether NP followed the traffic or created it, I have just a few points to make regarding the Inland Northwest.
As early as the 1860s, wheat was already being exported from the Walla Walla Valley and other parts of eastern Washington/north central Idaho. On into the 1880s, grain was being shipped from the region in sacks (to minimize spill and damage during handling) aboard wagons, then onto a series of rafts and ferries down the Columbia River, with transfer and storage at several warehouses along the way. Early exports were going as far away as England. This was all before any rail service reached the area.
En route to his new post as Washington Territorial governer in 1853, Isaac Stevens and more than 200 of his men made the initial government surveys for a possible northern transcontinental railroad, but before that railroad (NP) got built, John Mullan surveyed and created the Mullan Road between Fort Benton, Montana, and Fort Walla Walla, Montana, in 1859. More than 20,000 people traveled this road during 1866 alone.
In nearby northern Idaho and western Montana, several large settlements preceeded the railroads, most of them centered around mining and timber. After white pine and other timber supplies had been largely exhausted in New England during the 1700s and later in the Appalachian and Great Lakes regions, government surveys were begun in the Northwest in 1860. German settler Frederick Post, a
Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Outstanding essay.
I just did a bit of reading and learned that the idea of a northern transcontinental railway (to the PNW) goes way back to 1835 before the Union Pacific / Central Pacific transcontinental was built. I know that’s common knowledge to you guys, but it was news to me!
Following is a quote from a book (copyright 1899) entitled, “The Official Northern Pacific Railway Guide, for the Use of Tourists and Travellers,” that describes some of that history.
“A railroad from the upper Mississippi to the mouth of the Columbia river was advocated as long ago as 1835, soon after the railway system was introduced in this country. About ten years later, an enterprising New York merchant, named Asa Whitney, who made a fortune in China, urged upon Congress, session after session, a plan for building a railroad from the head of Lake Michigan, or from Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi river, to the mouth of the Columbia river, in Oregon. He asked a land grant of sixty miles in width along the whole line of his proposed route.”
Doing some other reading on the internet, apparently Asa Whitney’s idea was that the railroad would link the US and Asian economies, and even the European and Asian economies. Some grand ideas.
Posting this just as information.
Bruce Kelly, thank you for the history lesson of the Pacific Northwest. Cable television signals for most of Alberta have been generated out of Spokane, WA for almost 40 years. I have heard of most of the places you mention but until today I never knew the history of the area, and how it all fit together.
A very nice unexpected Christmas present.
Bruce