The Iron Vein: Seattle’s Gamble on the Railroad

It is a familiar saying that 'well begun is half done.' We hope it will prove true in the case of our transmontane railroad. The outlook, just now, is certainly very promising. With 18 miles in operation this fall, and a strong sentiment in favor of a State Constitution and admission into the Union, there is a fair prospect for the rapid prosecution of the enterprise and its early completion.

The road runs directly from this main center of trade, and connects even now with several productive coal mines, with a prospect of gathering new trade as fast as built all along the line. Being constructed cheaply, on a practical plan, and with local means, it will most likely be remunerative from the start, and instead of being a suction drain to the pockets of foreign bond holders, will pour and distribute the wealth it gathers into our own city and throughout the region which it develops.

There are now two points to come under consideration and be worked up by the time for the resumption of operations in the Spring: how much further can the road be carried next season, and how much help can we muster from the other side? We are in the situation now where to stand still means to go backward. What has been already done has tended in a great measure to stimulate confidence on the other side, but still the cavil is made that it is only a local undertaking and not intended to extend beyond the coal mines of Mo Quilchena [Mo Quilchena/Mo Quilchena area]. Let us once thoroughly disabuse their minds of that fancy, and it will ensure a general rally on the line all the way to Walla Walla.

The present section affords access to the already respectable coal yield of the county and to its agricultural product. Another short section will reach more coal and fine timber of the mountains, and the neat, the iron, copper and other valuable mineral ores of the mountains, and the neat, the great grain and cattle trade of the interior. The event of reaching this region will mark a new departure in the life of our city. It will make this port a leading grain mart and one of the great shipping points of the country.

The burden of the work will not hereafter fall alone upon this city. The settlers on the other side are probably as anxious for its success as the people of Seattle. We are informed by a prominent citizen of Yakima county, that the people of that section have lately turned out and made a wagon road from Kittitas to Priest's Rapids on the Columbia, 35 miles eastward, in the hope that they could thus obtain an outlet. But in this they have been disappointed, as they there found themselves so much farther away from market, and now regret that the work was not expended in the direction of Seattle.

He states that a railroad to the Sound is there regarded as the great hope that country, and that as soon as the railroad company gets 35 miles built eastward from here, they will turn out men, and make a good turnpike to connect with it on this side the summit. Most of the settlers, he says, would contribute 100 days' work each, toward it, or $300 in money, and he himself would give $500. Furthermore, he assured us that as soon as 70 miles are finished, the citizens of Kittitas alone, would grade the road-bed to meet it, from the trade center of that valley.

The necessities of these people in the way of commercial accommodations should not be neglected by the merchants of Seattle. And though we build solidly and safely, as for all time, and therefore it may be safely so, we ought, at least, to build so much each year as to convince them that the road is safe to come, and, ever along the busy wheels on the iron track ring a merry harvest home through the grain fields of the Yakima and Walla Walla.