The Railroad Comes Down the River: Metaline Line to Run by Summer
With the financing closed and the election safely out of the way, the Idaho & Washington Northern will start building south from Newport this month — and Newport merchants are already counting the payroll.
One of the officials of the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad stated on Saturday that the work of constructing the extension of that road, from Newport down the Pend Oreille river valley to the Metaline country, would be started some time this month, and that the road would be in operation by next summer.
Everything connected with the financing of the road has been completed and the money is ready. The result of the general election was satisfactory to the management, so the work will be pushed this winter, instead of waiting until next season.
This will make things lively in Newport this winter, as this place will undoubtedly be the base for supplying most of the material, and most of the money paid to laborers will probably be spent with Newport merchants.
President Blackwell, of the I. W. N., has placed orders with Spokane employment agencies for large numbers of men to be employed on the extension of that road from Newport to Metaline, according to reports received here on Monday.
“This will make things lively in Newport this winter, as this place will undoubtedly be the base for supplying most of the material, and most of the money paid to laborers will probably be spent with Newport merchants.”
Newport spent the 1900s betting its future on being the railroad town of the Pend Oreille valley, and for a while it was: the I.W.N. reached Metaline Falls, was later swallowed by the Milwaukee Road, and pieces of that grade still carry freight and excursion trains. The pitch here — outside money arrives, local merchants capture the payroll, everything gets 'lively' — is the same one every small town makes for a new highway interchange or plant today.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.