The Railway Expansion That Remade the Cascades
Northern Pacific filed a blanket mortgage covering a planned rail line from North Yakima over the Cascades to the Pacific.
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.
On Monday, December 1st, Mitchell, Ashton & Chapman, attorneys for the Northern Pacific R.R., filed with the auditor of Yakima county a document known as a blanket mortgage. The United Railroad company, a Northern Pacific organization, is building from Centralia to South Bend, and from a point on the Northern to Olympia. The mortgage covers a rail and telegraph line starting at North Yakima, running westerly along the Naches River valley, crossing the Cascade mountains at or near the Cowlitz Pass, and continuing to the Pacific coast. This massive infrastructure investment signals the Northern Pacific's intent to dominate the mountain crossing and secure routes to the deep water of the Pacific.
“It mortgages all its lines of railroads constructed, under construction and to be constructed.”
This 1890 mortgage filing represents the massive industrial push to link the arid Yakima Valley to the coast via the Cascades. The route described remains a fundamental component of Washington's transit and geography today.
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