Six Hours Stranded in Gate City: When the Railroad Made Portland Closer Than Tacoma
A new Northern Pacific timetable leaves Grays Harbor travelers — and Olympians — fuming, forcing a six-hour wait at Gate City and making far-off Portland a faster trip than nearby Tacoma.
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.
There is a loud howl against the proposed change in the running of the Northern Pacific railroad, and the howl is heard not only in Olympia, but at Tacoma and in the Grays Harbor country. Editor Frank Owen, of Aberdeen, said to the Ledger reporter: "People start from Aberdeen at 6 o'clock in the morning; shortly after 9 they are at Gate City, and wait there until 3:15 o'clock, when the Portland train arrives, bound for Tacoma via Olympia. They can then go on. Coming back they wait just the same, six hours, until the train from Portland reaches Gate City. If they wish to go from Aberdeen to Portland they find close connections made, so that they can go directly to that city. Though it is 135 miles to Portland and only 81 to Tacoma from Montesano, a person can get to the former place, according to the new arrangement, three and a half hours sooner. This will make it a day's trip to go to Tacoma, including six hours in Gate City."
The Aberdeen people are going to protest against the outrage in mass meeting tonight, and it might be just as well to have the people of Olympia say a word or two on the subject. Getting to Portland from the Grays Harbor country by rail before you can reach Tacoma or Seattle looks like mighty poor railroad management.
“Getting to Portland from the Grays Harbor country by rail before you can reach Tacoma or Seattle looks like mighty poor railroad management.”
A century before debates over the Amtrak Cascade corridor and South Sound transit, Olympians were already angry that rail schedules served distant Portland better than nearby Puget Sound cities. The grievance is the same one riders raise today: who decides the timetable, and who gets left waiting on the platform.
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