15,000 Ties Float Toward Hoquiam as a New Railroad Takes Shape
A joint Union Pacific-Milwaukee line moved closer to reality when contractors sent a raft of fresh ties down the Skookumchuck and Chehalis rivers—and Tacoma waited for the Milwaukee's president to talk connections.
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.
That the joint road of the Union Pacific-Milwaukee railways from Gate City and Hoquiam is to be built was shown Saturday when 15,000 new railway ties were dumped in the Skookumchuck River and started down to the Chehalis River to go to Hoquiam. The ties were bought by Caughren, Winter, Smith & Co., contractors for the Grays Harbor roads.
It is expected that when President Earling of the Milwaukee railway arrives here this week, conferences will be held relative to building a line from Gate City to McKenna to connect the Tacoma Eastern with the Grays Harbor line, thus giving the Union Pacific and Milwaukee both a temporary entrance into the city from that section.
“That the joint road of the Union Pacific-Milwaukee railways from Gate City and Hoquiam is to be built was shown Saturday when 15,000 new railway ties were dumped in the Skookumchuck River.”
The Skookumchuck and Chehalis rivers once floated the raw material of a rail boom; today the same corridors carry freight and commuters, and Tacoma still argues about who gets connected and at what cost. The 1909 race to link Puget Sound to Grays Harbor was the region's version of a growth machine.
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