The Battle for the Cascades
The Northern Pacific Railroad moves to cut costs and tighten its grip on the Inland Empire wheat trade with a massive new tunnel project.
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.
It is reported from Tacoma that the Northern Pacific has made surveys for a new tunnel through the Cascade mountains and that the Ellensburg and Lind cutoff and the double tracking of the line between the Sound and the Cascades are contemplated this year. The proposed tunnel is said to be three miles south of the Stampede bore. It is claimed that the Cascades can be pierced there at 500 feet less elevation than the present line. The cut connecting directly from Lind to Ellensburg would save 95 miles of haul between Spokane and the coast. The two improvements, it is claimed, would greatly reduce the cost of hauling freight from the Inland Empire to the coast and would remove the advantage the G.N. possesses in hauling wheat from the inland fields to the sea.
“The two improvements, it is claimed, would greatly reduce the cost of hauling freight from the Inland Empire to the coast.”
Railroad infrastructure in 1904 served as the 'tech' race of the era, where shifting a tunnel or cutting a grade determined which corporate giant controlled the flow of Washington's agricultural wealth. Today, the same logic drives investments in terminal capacity and port efficiency, illustrating how the 'Inland Empire's' role as a global exporter continues to be defined by these same mountain corridors.
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