The New Rail Connection
Speculation mounts over a new railroad connecting the Klickitat region to North Yakima.
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.
Railroads will soon radiate from Central Washington like spokes in a wheel, and the indications are that North Yakima will be the hub. The new road, the Portland, Vancouver, Klickitat & Yakima railroad, is being organized now, and its projectors mean business straight through to the completion of the road. The company will bridge the Columbia at Vancouver, run up the Lewis River through as rich and inexhaustible timber, coal and iron country as there is in the new state of Washington. It will strike the headwaters of the Ahtanum, and follow that stream down to North Yakima. Such a railroad would likely prove a serious competitor of the Sound cities in the eastern Washington trade.
“Railroads will soon radiate from Central Washington like spokes in a wheel.”
The competition between the 'Sound cities' (like Seattle and Tacoma) and Eastern Washington for economic dominance via rail infrastructure defined the late 19th-century geography of the state. This report captures the aggressive, boosterist spirit of a town positioning itself as an essential inland hub.
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