The First Railroad Built on 'Siwash' Labor
In a stark reflection of territorial labor practices, the first contracts for the Puyallup Valley Railroad have been awarded to Meeker & Mann, with plans to employ local Indigenous workers for four miles of track.
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.
CONTRACTS LAD.—The first two contracts on the proposed Puyallup Valley Railroad have been let, for work just out of Tacoma. Messrs. Meeker & Mann have the contract for the work and will employ the Indians on the reservation through which it passes for some four miles. It will be the first railroad in America ever built with Siwash labor.
This 1876 announcement highlights how early infrastructure in Washington relied heavily on the exploitation of Indigenous labor, often under coercive or low-wage conditions tied to reservation life. Today, as Seattle grapples with housing affordability and transit expansion, this history serves as a reminder that 'progress' has frequently been built on the backs of marginalized communities whose contributions were either erased or minimized in contemporary reports.
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