The Canal That Could Save the West: How a New Waterway Would End Seattle’s Shipping Nightmare
As the Panama Canal project gains momentum, local experts calculate that Pacific Northwest farmers are losing millions annually due to the prohibitive costs of shipping grain around Cape Horn.
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The completion of the New York-based company's canal, which is to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, foretells the doom of that sailing vessel in the commerce between the two seas. It further illustrates the tendency of the carrying trade of the world to gravitate to a steam basis. For the present, it is a matter of small moment to the people of this district as to whether the advantage is carried to the world's markets by steam or sail. On account of the hum and uncertainty of the journey around the Horn or through the Strait of Magellan, with numerous stops at the intervening 'calling stations,' the steamer is obliged to keep close up to a limit. The sailor will be eliminated from the question on short notice, but adventure as a regular factor in the trade is bound to aid in hastening the construction of the Panama Canal.
When this is done, the broad-watered, deep-draft freighter which now makes the Pacific coast grain ports its special preserve, will take the way of the fast clipper which raced across the ocean in the latter part of the forties and in the fifties. It is a difficult matter to arrive at the maximum loss suffered annually by the producers of the Pacific Coast through their inability to reach the markets of the world except by a 17,000-mile journey around Cape Horn or an expensive overland haul and re-shipment by water on the Atlantic. This loss, direct and indirect, would run so far into the millions as to surprise the general public, who realize in a vague way that the canal would be of great value to the east, but are far from realizing the extent of this loss which would be incurred by Pacific coast producers.
The grain growers of Oregon and Washington alone suffered direct loss of about $10,000 per day for every day of the last cereal year, ending July 1 last, through having no other route to Europe except by way of Horn. During that period there was shipped to Europe from the three ports—Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma—67,417 long tons of wheat, valued at $12 an ton, and the total freight paid to ship owners amounted to $1,417,900, an average per ton of 2340 pounds of $2.10.
Something over 10 per cent of this amount was lost in transit due to delays and handling costs associated with the long route.
This article highlights a pivotal moment in Seattle’s economic history: the desperate need for a faster trade route to Europe. The Panama Canal, completed just two years later in 1914, fundamentally reshaped global shipping and cemented Seattle's role as a major Pacific port. Today, as climate change opens new Arctic routes and supply chain logistics remain a critical issue, the story of how geography dictated economic survival for early Washington farmers resonates with modern debates over infrastructure and trade efficiency.
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