The Wild West of Washington Rail Speculation
As Seattle rapidly expanded, a flurry of shadowy railroad companies and land speculators rushed to claim water-front territory, hoping to dictate the future of commerce in the Pacific Northwest.
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.
Mr. P. B. Cornwall is a prominent citizen who has a railroad hobby on the brain. He is at the head of the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad Company, the object of which is to build a road from some point on the sound to Port Hope. The secret of the boom is that Mr. Cornwall and his associates acquired title to several thousand acres of land around the Bay. They grew tired of waiting and have concluded that land is worth very little if it is tied up. They could not dispose of it at a profit without a railroad. Various corporations were formed to build the road, but the people were skeptical and wanted to see the road's materials before they would put in much money. Mr. Cornwall realized that something must be done at Bellingham Bay, and he accordingly went into railroad building in earnest. He has a number of men employed, and on board the bark Germania, which recently sailed from San Francisco, he has 400 tons of steel rails and two locomotives for the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia railroad. 'I candidly believe that this road will be built to Port Hope,' he said. 'Of course, it will eventually be extended to Seattle.'
“The secret of the boom is that Mr. Cornwall and his associates acquired title to several thousand acres of land around the Bay. They grew tired of waiting and have concluded that land is worth very little if it is tied up.”
This 1888 account highlights a time when Seattle's growth was driven by speculative land-grabs and competing rail projects, a pattern of 'boom and bust' development that continues to influence the city's urban planning and housing affordability struggles today.
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