The Northern Pacific's Grand Shake-up
A major administrative shift sees high-level rail managers moving to St. Paul as the transcontinental route nears completion.
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. John Muir, at present traffic manager of the Oregon Railway and Navigation company, with headquarters at Portland, Oregon, but the coming traffic manager of the Northern Pacific Railway, passed through the city yesterday on his way to New York. Mr. Muir was connected with the Kansas Pacific Railway, and at the time Mr. T. F. Oakes was made Vice-President and general manager he appointed Mr. Muir to the position of general freight agent, which he vacated, and in 1880, when Mr. Oakes assumed control of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, Mr. Muir accompanied him to the Pacific coast. The selection by Mr. Henry Villard of Mr. Oakes as the first vice-president and actual manager of the new transcontinental route again brings Mr. Muir to the front, and in a few months he is to remove with his family from Portland, Oregon, to St. Paul, Minnesota, and take charge of the entire traffic of the Northern Pacific Railway. It is probable, with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway during the present summer, that Mr. C. H. Prescott, at present manager of the Oregon Railway and Navigation company, will remove to New York to accept a position with the Northern Pacific; that Charlie Smith, comptroller, will remove either to St. Paul or New York, and that J. M. Buckley, assistant general manager of the Northern Pacific, will transfer his headquarters from Washington Territory to St. Paul, Minnesota.
“The selection by Mr. Henry Villard of Mr. Oakes as the first vice-president and actual manager of the new transcontinental route again brings Mr. Muir to the front.”
The consolidation of rail power in the 1880s mirrors modern corporate mergers, as Seattle and Portland fought for dominance as the terminus of transcontinental trade. These rail giants effectively decided the economic fate of the Pacific Northwest from boardrooms in St. Paul and New York.
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