The Railroad Buys the Coalfields: Northern Pacific Moves on the Puyallup
Poised to grade its Pacific Division with a large crew of Chinese laborers, the Northern Pacific quietly consolidates the coal lands north of Tacoma—and the finest coalfield on the coast.
The Northern Pacific Railroad Company, we are informed by an exchange, is prepared to build their road from Tacoma to the coal fields of the Puyallup. They have already arranged for the money for laying and grading the Pacific Division, and a large force of Chinamen were expected last week to begin the work. This will give the Company all the odd sections north of Tacoma as far as Snohomish City, including all the coal lands. It will then own the finest and most extensive coal field on the coast.
“It will then own the finest and most extensive coal field on the coast.”
The land-grant railroad assembling the region's coalfields is the classic Western power play: control the rails and you control the ground and everything under it. That concentration of land and resource wealth in a single corporation still shapes who benefits from Washington's extractive economy—and who is left holding the depleted ground.
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