The Man Who Built a Road on His Own dime
While Seattle’s leaders debate and delay, a Walla Walla pioneer proves that private enterprise can conquer the wilderness where public funds fail.
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.
Scuttle is making a desperate effort to build the first fifteen miles of her railroad. At Walla Walla one man has constructed thirty miles of road, and this without incurring one dollar of outside indebtedness. Our people [Seattle] spend less than their Sound neighbors, but when it comes to real work they stand in.
That's what is the matter with 'one man.' Had not that individual constructed those thirty miles of road, the probabilities are that it could never have been done, and the people of Walla Walla would have been standing out yet, as the people of Seattle have for the last three years, waiting for the 'one man' power to accomplish the work. The 'right man for the right piece' has at length been found, and the first section of our road will be built without incurring one dollar of outside indebtedness, and with a surplus of not less than $50,000 available assets in hand.
The people of Seattle have contributed more than three times as much to the construction of this road as the people of Walla Walla did to theirs, and we do not feel that we have done much to blow about at that; but we do feel that under the present management the completion of the road to connect with the Walla Walla road in the shortest practicable time, mainly through the enterprise of one man, is assured, with or without the assistance of the people of Walla Walla, who will be equally benefited with those of Seattle by the work. With this connection made, we will be, not neighbors merely, but one people, united by a common interest and working together for the common weal; and in view of this event every expression of jealousy or rivalry is out of place.
This 1876 editorial highlights Seattle's chronic struggle with infrastructure development—a problem that persists today. The frustration with 'scuttle' (delay) and reliance on a single visionary entrepreneur rather than bureaucratic process mirrors modern debates over public-private partnerships for transit and housing in the Pacific Northwest.
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