Will the Railroad Make Seattle the Gateway to Asia?
General Anderson shares the ambitious, if controversial, vision for the Northern Pacific rail terminus, promising a future as a trade hub while dismissing Chinese labor as inferior.
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.
While in St. Paul recently, Gen. Anderson, chief engineer of the Northern Pacific, confirmed all that has been stated regarding the early completion of the road. When asked if arrangements had been made at the western terminus, Gen. Anderson stated that contracts had been let for buildings, a grand hotel and extensive shops. Regarding the Indian trade, ships now aim to sail the great circle, which is 1,000 miles nearer Puget Sound than San Francisco. I have an idea that Puget Sound will ultimately become the main entrepot for the East Indian trade. The harbor there is not excelled by any in the world, and when the forty miles of road remaining to connect Portland and Puget Sound is completed, the tendency of trade from the East will be to that route. It will most emphatically build up Dakota, Montana and Washington. Regarding the character of the work on the western division, it was the most expensive of any on the road. Chinese labor was not desirable except under certain conditions. They were worth only two-thirds the value of the average white man; they easily acquired how to 'sojer' (shirk), and preferred sitting still to work.
“Puget Sound will ultimately become the main entrepot for the East Indian trade.”
General Anderson’s 1882 vision of Seattle as an 'entrepot' for trans-Pacific trade proved prophetic, as Seattle grew into a global logistics hub. However, his derogatory comments on Chinese labor highlight the exclusionary sentiments that fueled the era's labor unrest and systemic discrimination in the region.
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