A Steel Bridge to Make Vineland a Boom Town
A 1,485-foot span across the Snake River to Lewiston is under construction, and its promoters promise it will raise property values more than any improvement ever could.
The big steel bridge from Concord, Wash. (Vineland) across the Snake river to Lewiston is now in course of construction. The Pittsburg Bridge Company has the contract, and the Carnegie Steel Company is furnishing the steel. Shipments of the steel begin about December 15. The piers of solid concrete masonry are now under way. The bridge is to be 1,485 feet long, and with its approaches about 1,650 feet. It will be 50 feet clear above high water, and be fitted for a street railway. This bridge was chartered by special act of Congress approved February 15, 1898, and a permit was issued by the Secretary of War on August 24 last. It will cost a total of $110,000, and will add more to the value of property in Vineland than any other improvement could possibly do.
Cherries and peaches pay so well in Vineland and other parts of Lewiston valley that some of the expert fruit growers are cutting out their apple orchards and substituting cherries and peaches. This is not to be wondered at when the Chicago fruit handlers say that the cherries from that locality are the best grown in America, and that when grown, selected, picked and packed in a first-class manner will readily bring 20 cents per pound wholesale, as an average price. The promoters of Vineland claim that an orchard of such fruits is more certain than a mine in the Klondike, and far more profitable than an orange orchard in California or Florida.
“The promoters of Vineland claim that an orchard of such fruits is more certain than a mine in the Klondike, and far more profitable than an orange orchard in California or Florida.”
Vineland was a speculative townsite sold on the promise of a bridge and a fruit bonanza — the same booster playbook that built and sometimes bankrupted towns across Washington. The bridge did get built, but the townsite's grander promises are a reminder of how often the growth machine oversold the ground beneath it.
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