The Pennsylvania of the Pacific
How the coal mines of Renton and the Cedar River Valley became the engine of early Seattle’s industrial expansion.
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 'Pennsylvania of the Pacific' has become a stereotyped periphrase for Washington Territory. Its correctness cannot be questioned as regards our resources in coal and iron. But we can discount Pennsylvania on timber, gold and silver, climate, and facilities for navigation. Not half of the coal resources surrounding this city have as yet been prospected. The Talbot company are now in readiness to resume work on a scale far in advance of any of their operations hitherto. Their mine is again in thorough working condition, with several millions of tons of coal to reach, and the new railroad is nearly ready to bring down their output. As fast as it is quarried, they plan to place into market the coming year at least fifty thousand tons. The completion of the fifteen-mile section of the S. and W.W.R.R. will greatly facilitate the coal trade of the country. It already reaches the Renton and Talbot mines. A further extension a few miles up the Cedar River valley will bring it to the McKinney and other Washington mines, and a south-eastern branch extension of six or seven miles along the convenient lateral ridge that skirts the foothills between Cedar and Green Rivers will open up the extensive McHenry coal lands—another thousand acres of coal on the latter tract. This link will also nearly complete the connection by rail between Seattle and the Northern Pacific extension to the Puyallup, now under construction. Its building will be incidentally an incalculable benefit also to the farmers and homestead claimants of the valleys of Cedar, White, and Green rivers.
“The 'Pennsylvania of the Pacific' has become a stereotyped periphrase for Washington Territory.”
In 1876, the industrial future of Seattle was being laid out in the coal mines of Renton and the Black Diamond area. Today, the legacy of that coal-driven boom—once centered on resource extraction and railroad connectivity—has transformed into the sprawling logistics and tech corridors of the very same river valleys.
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