The Iron Road Reaches Yakima
Northern Pacific Railroad breaks ground on the vital Cascade Branch, signaling a new era for mountain transit.
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.
Orders reached Portland on Saturday from New York for the work of construction on the Cascade Branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad to be commenced at once. Accordingly, on Monday, Capt. J. F. Kingsbury, a civil engineer, was appointed Chief Engineer and Superintendent of Construction of the Cascade Division, and on Tuesday he left Portland with a party of one hundred and fifty men for Yakima City. These men will be divided into three parties on the line, and form a nucleus round which a thousand men will be set to work before the end of June. Captain Kingsbury's instructions are to push westward as rapidly as possible across the mountains till a connection is made with the standard gauge road from Seattle to Green River. This is what the people of both Eastern and Western Washington have been looking forward to for years—the construction of a railroad across the mountains.
“This is what our people, and the people of both Eastern and Western Washington, have been looking forward to for years—the construction of a railroad across the mountains.”
The Cascade line transformed Seattle into a transcontinental hub, effectively ending the isolation of the Puget Sound region. Today, the I-90 corridor continues to serve as the critical artery connecting Seattle to the east, still grappling with the same topographic and transit challenges that defined the 1883 construction effort.
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