The Terminal City That Died on Grays Harbor

On the south side of Grays Harbor are four paper towns where lots were sold during the boom to a considerable extent. In South Aberdeen there is a deserted brick block of stores and eight or ten occupied dwellings. At Drummond there is nothing but a dismantled wharf. At South Harbor you see a rotten wharf and one deserted house. At Markham, where Johns River comes in, there are four or five dwellings. The most notable instance, however, of an abortive town is found on the north side of the harbor. There a gigantic land speculation blossomed and withered. The place was called Grays Harbor City and a little syndicate of St. Paul men were mainly responsible for it. To their credit it may be said that they put nearly all the money they received into improvements. They cleared off many square miles of forest, graded streets, erected buildings and built a mile-long wharf out to deep water. Probably not less than a quarter of a million dollars was paid for lots in what was advertised as the "terminal city on Grays Harbor." When the railroad schemes of George W. Hunt collapsed and the Northern Pacific refused to build down the north side of the harbor and the Union Pacific held out no hopes, the great speculation burst like a paper balloon. Only two families live in the "terminal city" now, and they are said to subsist on clams. I met a clever engineer at Tacoma who has a plan for moving the buildings over to Ocosta on scows. He thinks he can buy them for a trifle and make a nice sum for the operation. He will have to wait, however, till Ocosta needs more buildings. At present it has more than it wants.