James J. Hill's Gamble to Make Seattle the Cheapest Port on the Pacific

President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern railroad, was in Seattle last week, making further arrangements for building the immense projected elevator and warehouses here in Seattle. Mr. Hill had with him many prominent eastern men.

Briefly, Mr. Hill's improvements here were outlined by a Great Northern official as follows:

"Mr. Hill has brought here Mr. D. A. Robinson, who is the most extensive elevator builder in the United States. He constructed a steel elevator for Mr. Hill in Buffalo which is one of the largest in the country. In order to take up the present work Mr. Robinson had to cancel contracts for six elevators in Iowa and Illinois. Mr. Hill intends to have Mr. Robinson construct at once on his site in this city a large steel elevator and warehouses capable of holding 500,000 bushels of grain, and this is to be done immediately.

"Wharves and docks and other arrangements are to be immediately made to accommodate all the foreign shipping and done in a way so as to handle exports and imports at the lowest possible cost. In other words, to make Seattle the cheapest port on the Pacific coast. These improvements will cost several hundred thousand dollars."

The big steel elevator will be constructed alongside the big waterway which is embodied in the plan, and will be erected on the fill that will be made by the excavation of the waterway. In this way a good foundation will be secured and the elevator removed from over the water. It will, however, be so located that wheat can be moved in bulk directly into the hold of the ships that will lie alongside in the ship canal.

Mr. Hill, as reported by the Seattle Times, said:

"Our work here in establishing terminal warehouses and wheat elevator will be a prominent matter with the railroad until it is completed, which will be in time to handle this year's grain crop. This work is now assuming shape, and we hope to have it progressing rapidly in a very short time."