A Railroad Decision Kills a Town: Prescott Empties Overnight
When the division center moves to Wallula Junction, the mechanics of Prescott pack their tools, close their shops, and watch town lots collapse from $700 to under $100.
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.
WALLA WALLA, August 22.—The Statesman this morning says: The news reached here yesterday that an order was received at Prescott for the removal of all the railroad employees to Wallula Junction, the future division center. The mechanics, pursuant to the order, whitened all the machinery, closed their shops, and are now actively engaged in packing their tools and household effects preparatory to the removal. Lots in that town have fallen to almost nothing. One young mechanic who had invested $700 in lots could not realize $100 from his land after the news of the removal had been received. Almost all of the Prescott people will go to the Junction, which promises now to regain its long lost life. A couple of wipers and the section gang will remain at Prescott.
“One young mechanic who had invested $700 in lots could not realize $100 from his land after the news of the removal had been received.”
Prescott's fate shows how a single corporate decision about where to place a rail division could raise or erase a town, and with it the savings of ordinary working families. The Northwest is still built and broken this way — a plant, a headquarters, or a rail line relocates, and property values and lives move with it. The young mechanic whose $700 stake shrank to under $100 is an early case study in the region's speculative real-estate economy.
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