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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 4 |
| 1898 | 12 |
16 stories matching freight
- The Great Wheat Bottleneck
Eastern Washington farmers face a crisis as railroads prioritize long-haul freight over local grain shipments, leaving warehouses overflowing.
- Wenatchee Growers Told a Railroad: Give Us Water and We'll Fill Your Freight Cars
A delegation of Wenatchee Valley orchardists met Great Northern officials at Seattle's Hotel Butler to argue that irrigation—not mines or timber—would turn eastern Washington into a freight-producing countryside.
- Yakima Horses Marching to the Klondike — 150 Bought for the Ice
A Seattle-led expedition buys up 275 horses and 100 oxen, 150 of them through Coffin Bros. in North Yakima, to freight supplies overland to the ice-bound Yukon this winter.
- The Orchardist's Revolt: Wawawai Grower Accuses Yakima Commission Firm of Withholding $1,100
J.W. Offield says Thompson Kain refused to pay for his peach and pear crop; the firm counters that he misrepresented varieties and freight rates.
- 377,509 Bushels: The Algoa Hauls a Record Wheat Cargo Out of Tacoma
A single tramp steamer carried the largest grain shipment ever loaded at Tacoma — 500 carloads' worth, a train three miles long — bound for Europe and a handsome profit.
- An Army of Harvest Hands Rides the Rails Into Eastern Washington
With California's fields barren, thousands of laborers descend on the region's mammoth crops — arriving on foot, on freight trains, and under the noses of train crews.
- When Every Eastern Market Was Swamped: The 1897 Fruit Glut That Broke Northwest Growers
A Northwest agricultural writer tallies the wreckage of a boom season — glutted markets, freight and icing bills nobody could pay, and a blunt prescription for growers: dry your prunes and hold for a price.
- The Great Spokane Butter Heist
Dairy inspectors crack down on a ring of restaurants and hotels serving illegal, colored oleomargarine.
- Yakima Sheepmen Stand Together Against Railroad's Strings-Attached Lease
Two dozen Yakima-area sheepmen signed a pact to reject Northern Pacific's demand that all their wool and sheep ride its rails—only to hear the company might hand their range to outsiders.
- Railroads Raise the Freight on a Crop Already at Rock Bottom
A half-cent-a-pound shipping increase hits Washington hop growers just as overproduction and lice drive prices to their lowest ebb.
- A Fruit Grower's Pitch: Stop Sending Cash East — Feed Alaska Instead
Before the Northwest Fruitgrower's Association, S. L. Moore argued that Washington farmers should diversify beyond wheat and prunes, supply Alaska and Western markets, and let the Northern Pacific's traveling fruit exhibit lure settlers west.
- The Codlin Moth War: Hogs, Padded Poles, and a Walla Walla Grower's Doubts About Spraying
W. S. Offner reported a quarter-million-dollar fruit trade from the Walla Walla valley—and explained why the standard spray calendar failed against the orchard pest.
- The Wholesaler Tells the Growers the Truth: 'We Don't Love You'
Sixteen years in the Seattle commission trade and no patience left, R. Merchant tells a room of fruit growers that no middleman has ever cared about them — and that neat, uniform packing, not grievance, is the only thing that ever got a farmer paid.
- Wenatchee, 1898: A Valley Sold on Irrigation and Fruit
A booster's tour of the Wenatchee Valley recounts the first settlers, the whisky traders who fled the law, and the orchards and ditches that promised to turn sagebrush into wealth.
- The Tumbleweed That Threatened Washington's Wheat
In 1898, a state agricultural professor traced an invasive Russian thistle to railway yards and warned that Yakima County was already infested.
- The 1898 Sales Pitch That Called the San Juan Islands a 'Klondike at Home'
A judge's promotional essay promised apples, prunes, sheep, fish, limestone and health in Washington's island county—and complained that the outside world had not yet noticed.