The Railway King's Monopoly Game
A rare glimpse into the backroom dealings of 1887 Seattle, where coal and rail barons haggled over the city's infrastructure and the 'survival of the fittest'.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In a candid interview, Mr. McNaught of the Pacific Northwest Mining Company shed light on the aggressive expansion of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the competitive landscape of Seattle's developing infrastructure. When asked about a proposed railroad connecting Seattle to the Canadian system, McNaught revealed he had personally offered Senator Crawford $75,000 for his franchise, plus half-interest in townsite property—an offer the Senator rejected. McNaught claimed his group sought to avoid duplicating lines, but warned that the current scramble for routes, particularly the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern's plans, would likely lead to a 'question of the survival of the fittest.' He expressed deep skepticism toward the Lake Shore route through the mountains, citing reports of snowbanks fifty feet high at Snoqualmie Pass, despite the engineers' confidence in the grade.
“They go into a country now adapted by the Oregon Improvement Company, and if the work goes on with his enterprise there will be two other roads built to his works. That will divide the business up so there will not be much in it for any one of them, and it will be a question of the survival of the fittest.”
In 1887, Seattle was a frontier city obsessed with railroad connections as the key to economic dominance. Today, the debate has shifted from rails to light rail and tunnel projects, but the underlying tension—private capital determining public infrastructure, the 'survival of the fittest' in urban planning, and the geographic challenges of carving a city through the Cascades—remains the central narrative of Seattle’s growth.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.