Ten Thousand Pamphlets and a Depot Deferred to Spring

The Newport Commercial Club has new quarters fitted up in the Scott building on Third street. The room has been nicely fitted up and arranged for a display of the products and resources of this section and for a meeting place of the Club.

The first meeting of the Club in its new home was held Wednesday evening and a number of topics of interest along the line of the work of the Club were discussed. It was planned to hold a smoker in the near future and extend an invitation to all business men and others interested in the growth of the town to attend.

The Club, jointly with the Newport Washington Land Co., has got out an illustrated pamphlet advertising the Newport district. It is handsomely printed and well illustrated, showing pictures of the town, modern residences, public buildings, views of the business district and industries. In the descriptive matter particular stress is laid upon the undeveloped resources, and as a whole the pamphlet is one calculated to interest people in the town and its surrounding country. It is the best matter of the kind ever issued in this territory and will compare favorably with that put out by other sections of the Northwest. An edition of 10,000 copies has been printed at a cost of $500, one half of which is paid by the Newport Washington Land Co. and the other half will be paid for by the Commercial Club. It carries no advertising matter for any individual and is strictly a Newport publication.

The secretary of the Commercial Club is in receipt of a letter from the State Railroad Commission in response to one informing the commission that the Great Northern Railroad was taking no steps to comply with the order to erect a new depot in this city.

H. A. Fairchild, chairman of the commission, writes that they took the matter up with F. Y. Brown, general western counsel of the road, who later came back with a proposition substantially as follows: That Mr. Gilman, assistant president of the road, has authorized Mr. Brown, in case the railroad commission will extend the time, to meet the citizens of Newport and submit to them plans for the construction of a station much more commodious than the commission ordered; that it was the intention of the company to erect a fine building. Such a building, however, would take several months to complete, and will be of such a character that they would not wish to undertake its construction during the winter months.

Since the time the commission visited Newport, the Superior Court of Thurston county has rendered a decision construing the power of the commission to be limited to simply ordering the railroad to furnish facilities of sufficient size to meet the wants of the patrons, holding that the commission has no authority to prescribe the architecture or nature of the building, other than to prescribe the floor space area.

The club, concluding from the tenor of the letter that we stand a much better chance of getting a depot that will be a credit to the town by waiting a few months, the secretary was ordered to so advise the commission and the matter of the new depot will be laid over until spring.