They Put Their Houses on Wagons: How the Railroad Killed One Yakima and Made Another
The Northern Pacific wins its Supreme Court fight over a depot too late — Yakima City's residents have already hauled their buildings across the sagebrush to North Yakima.
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.
The victory for the Northern Pacific road in the supreme court of the United States, which does not compel it to build a station at Yakima, comes too late. The Northern Pacific has been stopping its trains there for more than a year. After the railroad decided to ignore Yakima City most of the inhabitants stampeded to North Yakima, taking their houses with them on wagons. Since then North Yakima has become an important and prosperous city, and there is talk of building an electric road between North Yakima and Yakima City.
“After the railroad decided to ignore Yakima City most of the inhabitants stampeded to North Yakima, taking their houses with them on wagons.”
When the Northern Pacific chose its depot site, an entire town packed up and moved to be on the right side of the tracks — houses and all, dragged across the sagebrush on wagons. It is the 1890s version of a city chasing a corporate headquarters, and a blunt reminder that in Washington the railroad decided which towns lived and which became a footnote. North Yakima dropped the "North" in 1918; Yakima City survives as a much smaller neighbor.
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