A Railroad Plots Its Path Across the Yakima Reservation
Engineers for the Vancouver, Portland & Northern have staked a route straight through tribal land — and will soon sit down with the Yakima to ask for a right-of-way.
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.
The Vancouver, Portland & Northern people have about made a certainty of their route through our reservation from Vancouver through the north side of Camas prairie, across the Klickitat river, thence in a northeasterly direction across the mountains to Toppenish creek, and straight out towards the gap through which the Yakima flows. The engineer, E. R. Hamilton, has about completed the route. He returned yesterday to look over a portion of the route towards Vancouver; there he will prepare to commence the survey of the line to this country. In the meantime the company will have a council with the Yakima Indians relative to a railroad right-of-way through our reservation. This council will be held on the 10th day of July or later. There will be hardly any opposition to the company's proposition, as the Indians are well aware that a railroad is by far the best means of shipping as well as travel.
“There will be hardly any opposition to the company's proposition, as the Indians are well aware that a railroad is by far the best means of shipping as well as travel.”
A railroad's surveyors crossing reservation land and a promised 'council' to secure a right-of-way captures the pattern of tribal consultation that so often ran roughshod over Indigenous sovereignty. Today the Yakama Nation remains a major landholder and legal force in the same region, and fights over rights-of-way, water and infrastructure still turn on consent rather than convenience.
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