The Railroad Plot for Seattle's Waterfront
A Chicago report says Elijah Smith is maneuvering the Oregon Improvement Company so James J. Hill and the Great Northern can take its Seattle terminals and water front.
The Chicago Times-Herald in another railroad article claims that well-informed railroad men think that Elijah Smith is playing his hand in the Oregon Improvement Company game so that James J. Hill will be the winner. It is said that, if Mr. Smith is successful, Mr. Hill will so manipulate things that he will be able to use the Oregon Improvement Company and get possession of its terminals and water front in this city. Mr. Hill, as is well known here, has always had much trouble with the Oregon Improvement Company as a result of the peculiar condition of the water front franchises. The Times says on that subject:
'Those who have looked carefully into the present contest are of the opinion that if Mr. Smith succeeds the stockholders of the Oregon Improvement Company must be prepared to see the property virtually run by the Great Northern, which would mean that the interest of the former would be made subservient to the latter. The aim of the Smith-Hill faction seems to be to get a hold on the terminals and water front at Seattle, now owned by the Oregon Improvement Company, and which are acknowledged to be the finest at that point.'
“The aim of the Smith-Hill faction seems to be to get a hold on the terminals and water front at Seattle, now owned by the Oregon Improvement Company, and which are acknowledged to be the finest at that point.”
Then as now, control of Seattle's waterfront was leverage over the whole regional economy. The Gilded Age fight over rail terminals and tide-land franchises prefigured today's battles over port authority, freight corridors and downtown shoreline development.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.