The Ghost Railway of the Okanogan
Investors are clamoring for dividends from a railway that exists only on paper and in the pockets of its promoters.
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.
Easterners have bought much stock in the Puget Sound, Spokane International railway, according to the state department of public works, and they are now writing to learn why they don't get any dividends. The line was 'promoted' seven years ago, and the happy stockholders appear to have assumed that it was built between Spokane and Bellingham, through Slate Pass and the Okanogan country. Secretary Calderhead of the state board is informing inquirers that while the company has paid its corporation taxes for seven years, it has never laid a rail, and so far as he knows, hasn't even a right-of-way.
“The line was 'promoted' seven years ago... it has never laid a rail, and so far as he knows, hasn't even a right-of-way.”
This 1923 report on a 'promoted' railway illustrates the classic boom-era scam where visionary infrastructure projects serve only to extract capital from distant investors, leaving no physical legacy—a phenomenon that persists in modern speculative bubbles.
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