A Cannon Salute for a Locomotive
Prominent railroad men visited Seattle in a private coach, prompting a bizarre public spectacle involving a territorial cannon.
Messrs. T. F. Oakes, Vice President of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and Mr. John C. Bullitt, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, who, in company with Charles B. Wright, have invested a great part of the stock in the Tacoma Land Company, accompanied by Mr. Buckley, came down from Tacoma by way of the Shore Line Road yesterday in a private coach belonging to the Northern Pacific Company. They had telegraphed to Mr. McNaught, the company’s attorney here, that they were coming, and he hunted up Mr. Frank Heidel and Mr. M. V. Mills, and employed them to take a small cannon belonging to the Territory, down near the railroad mill, and fire it off. Quite a number of citizens heard the noise and went down to see what it was about. Shortly after the first gun fired, this great train of one car with three men in it arrived, and most everyone felt badly sold, especially those who supposed the cannon was being fired in honor of the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. The gentlemen went directly to Mr. McNaught's office, where they remained half an hour or so. They were then driven about town by Messrs. Calvert and McNaught, after which they boarded the North Pacific, and returned to Tacoma, leaving the coach to return over the road empty.
“Most everyone felt badly sold, especially those who supposed the cannon was being fired in honor of the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill.”
The absurdity of firing a territorial cannon for a single private rail car highlights the outsized influence railroad magnates held over early Seattle. It serves as a reminder of the era when corporate interests were effectively treated like royalty, a dynamic that remains a central friction point in regional transit debates today.
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