The Northern Pacific's Expansion Plans for Puget Sound
Superintendent John Muir details new steamships, massive grain elevators, and Alaskan tourist excursions as the railroad bolsters the Northwest region.
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While in Chicago recently, Mr. John Muir, superintendent of traffic of the Northern Pacific company, was interviewed by a Tribune reporter and gave utterance to much that was of interest to the Great North Pacific region. The passenger travel on the Sound, Muir says, has so largely increased during the last year that the company has found it necessary to arrange for increased facilities. Therefore, it has made contracts for two side-wheel steamers with steel hulls, which will cost $400,000 and will be delivered on Puget Sound on December 1st. Each one of these steamers will have berths for passengers and will accommodate 140 day passengers. The Northern Pacific Terminal Company is putting up three large elevators: one at Portland with a capacity of 1,500,000 bushels, and the other two are to be located at Walla Walla and Tacoma or Seattle. Mr. Muir also said his company intends to run three excursions to Alaska this summer. The routes will include Yellowstone Park, the grand scenery of the Columbia River, Puget Sound, and Alaska.
“The passenger travel on the Sound, Muir says, has so largely increased during the last year that the company has found it necessary to arrange for increased facilities.”
In 1883, the Northern Pacific was aggressively building the infrastructure—railroads, grain elevators, and steamship lines—that would turn Seattle into a major commercial port. This era of 'boosterism' laid the literal and economic foundations of modern Seattle, though today’s shipping giants have long replaced the river-steamer era.
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