Portland Draws a Line in the Grocery Trade — and Asks Why Walla Walla Has No Streetcars
A visiting wholesale grocer says Seattle and Tacoma will not be allowed to poach the interior trade without a struggle, then marvels at five years of brick blocks — and at a city still without a single trolley line.
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Among visitors to Walla Walla yesterday afternoon was Samuel C. Kerr, of the wholesale grocery firm of Kerr Brothers of Portland. Mr. Kerr's visit to the city was to take advantage of an opportunity to join in a goose hunt on Eureka Flat with the company's local representative, R. S. Mahan, and he spent yesterday in the game fields with fair success.
Speaking of the contemplated invasion of the Walla Walla trade by the Sound wholesalers, Mr. Kerr said in an interview: "Forewarned is forearmed in this instance, and all I have to say is that the Portland wholesalers will not allow their trade to be wrested away without a struggle."
"Portland merchants are truly appreciative of the existing trade relations between themselves and the interior merchants, and if such a thing is possible there will be no interruption of these relations. Portland is the older town of either Tacoma or Seattle and, enjoying excellent transportation by both rail and water, is placed in a more advantageous position than either of the other cities catering to this up-country trade."
"Getting close in a business way — we hear much down our way of the wonderful prosperity the city and surrounding country is enjoying. It has been five years since I visited the city and I see many wonderful changes for the better. Many brick blocks have gone up in that time and the town is putting on metropolitan airs."
Like many other visitors to Walla Walla, Mr. Kerr marvelled at the fact that there is no street car system. "A street car system is a necessity and commercial bodies should agitate for one at once," he said. "A car system would go a long way toward building up the suburbs. It is wonderful, the growth in this direction even without transportation facilities."
“"Forewarned is forearmed in this instance, and all I have to say is that the Portland wholesalers will not allow their trade to be wrested away without a struggle."”
In 1903 the fight was whether Portland, Seattle or Tacoma would own the wholesale trade of the interior — a regional rivalry that still shapes how Walla Walla businesses buy and ship. Kerr's parting shot, that a town of brick blocks with no trolley was building suburbs "even without transportation facilities," is the same question every growing city faces about infrastructure arriving years after the growth does.
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