Bridging the Mountains Before the Train
As railroad dreams stall, Seattle businesses are bankrolling a wagon road over Snoqualmie Pass to keep the trade routes open for cattle and emigrants.
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.
A wagon road across the Cascade mountains would be the forerunner of a railroad over the same range. In a letter to the editor, Mr. Walter A. Bull, President of the Seattle and Walla Walla Trail and Wagon Road Company, said: 'We have had excellent success in the several sections visited. Seattle is good for $30,000. We have men at work and will have the Snoqualmie road open for general travel by October 1st, and for light immigrant travel at an earlier date.' The goal is to establish ferries and roads from Priest Rapids by which beef and other live stock may be driven to Puget Sound.
“A wagon road across the Cascade mountains would be the forerunner of a railroad over the same range.”
The quest for a mountain crossing defined early Seattle identity. The struggle to fund and build the Snoqualmie road paved the way for the modern I-90 corridor, showing how 19th-century 'booster' politics directly shaped the state's arterial map.
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