The Army at the Bluff
As Aberdeen booms, an 'army' of three hundred laborers armed with dynamite and shovels cuts through the hills to bring the railroad into town.
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.
Aberdeen is today, as she has always been, the substantial, progressive city of Grays Harbor. The steady employment of labor in our numerous wood-working factories, the busy carpenters whose hands are full, and the firm condition of the real estate market are all conclusive evidence of what is building the city on the Harbor. Just at the head of the bluff east of the city is the advance guard of the Northern Pacific's army—a contractor's camp of 300 men who, with dynamite, picks, shovels, spades, and wheelbarrows, are breaking up and carrying away the mountain and leveling the grade that leads into the city. It is only one of the many factors that are building a city at the junction of the Chehalis and Wishkah rivers.
“Just at the head of the bluff east of the city is the advance guard of the Northern Pacific's army, a contractor's camp of 300 men who, with dynamite, picks, shovels, spades and wheelbarrows, are breaking up and carrying away the mountain.”
In 1891, the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad was the ultimate sign of progress, literally blasting through the geography of the landscape to secure the town's future. Today, Aberdeen grapples with the legacy of that same industrial expansion, as the town looks to repurpose the infrastructure that once defined its boom-era identity.
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