Tacoma's Railroad Stranglehold
How the Northern Pacific's control over regional freight trade stifles the city's economic future.
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.
The effective manner in which the Northern Pacific has 'bottled up' Tacoma, so far as railroad transportation is concerned, is strikingly shown by the freight traffic arrangements which the Great Northern has to make in order to get goods out of this city, or into it. The Great Northern cannot ship one pound of freight over the line of the Northern Pacific between Tacoma and Seattle to connect with Great Northern rails; only by using steamboats between the two cities can it handle such freight as is offered. Freight coming from the East over the Great Northern is unloaded at Smith's Cove and transhipped by steamboat to Tacoma at considerable extra expense. Conversely, when freight is offered at Tacoma for shipment east, it must be hauled to the wharf and loaded into a steamboat for conveyance to Seattle to be placed aboard Great Northern cars. As a matter of course, the Great Northern must make as low rates as the N.P. to get trade, meaning it must pay for the steamboats out of its own freight receipts, reducing net profits. Many citizens are beginning to ask: why not force competition? The city’s future depends upon the number of transcontinental lines it can secure; other matters should be dropped and every effort concentrated upon getting various roads to come here.
“Tacoma would grow so large and prosperous that the C.P. would want to come. The future of Tacoma depends altogether upon the number of transcontinental roads which it can secure.”
The turn-of-the-century struggle for railroad access mirrors contemporary debates over Tacoma's logistics infrastructure and the Port of Tacoma’s reliance on monopolistic rail corridors. Like the merchants of 1904, the city remains tethered to the strategies of massive, centralized transportation giants.
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