Goldendale’s Ten-Million-Dollar Dream
A newly incorporated railroad company eyes a line from Goldendale to North Yakima, with local elites betting big on the route.
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.
Goldendale seems to have had new life infused into it lately. A corporation has been organized under the name of the Columbia Valley & Goldendale Railroad Company with a capital stock of $10,000,000, divided into 100,000 shares. The immediate object of the company is to build and equip a railroad from Goldendale to connect with the Northern Pacific at Yakima. The stock is being rapidly taken and enthusiastic meetings are being held throughout the county. Col. E. W. Pike headed the subscription list with $1,000. John J. Golden, the townsite proprietor, has donated liberally of ground for depot purposes and right-of-way, and engineers are already in the field making a preliminary survey of the route across the head of Rock Creek.
“Goldendale seems to have had new life infused into it of late.”
This reflects the fierce competition between small Washington towns to secure a rail connection, which was the singular most important factor in a town's survival or extinction in the 1880s. Today, town identity is tied to highway access or tech-industry presence, but the desperation to be 'on the map' remains constant.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.