The Mail Monopoly Hurting Washington’s Pioneers
Settlers in Snoqualmie and Fall City faced weeks of delays because a contractor prioritized convenience over the needs of isolated rural communities.
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.
Those who have never experienced the isolation of Western pioneer life can scarcely realize how highly they esteem the advantages of a well-regulated postal service. It is the connecting link which binds them to the outside world. Too frequently, however, the wishes of those in whose interest the service is supposed to be conducted are totally disregarded by the contractor, who manages to run it upon a schedule to suit his own personal convenience rather than the requirements of the people.
Lately, numerous complaints have come to us from the Snoqualmie Valley, Fall City, and Snoqualmie settlements, where recent changes in the regulations of their weekly mail service have put the people to great inconvenience. By the original arrangement, the mail carrier left Snoqualmie every Friday morning for Seattle, arriving on the evening of that day, and returned on Saturday. This allowed settlers to receive Seattle, Portland, and other papers fresh from the press and enabled the carrier to perform errands for them in town. A new carrier took the route, and a petition was circulated in town—where residents knew nothing of the merits of the case—to change the schedule. Now, the mail leaves on Friday morning, meaning settlers do not get their papers until they are a week old. Furthermore, Eastern mail reaches Seattle on Friday evening, and that portion directed to the settlements must lay over here for a whole week.
This route from Seattle to Snoqualmie is about forty miles in length, but twenty miles of the distance is now traversed by the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad to Newcastle, to which point a daily mail service from Seattle has recently been extended. The proper thing to be done is to readjust the Snoqualmie route and have it terminate at Newcastle instead of Seattle. We suggest that the settlers of the several districts in question make a move in this direction and immediately send a strong petition to that end. Possibly a tri-weekly service might be secured in this way at no additional expense.
“The wishes of those in whose interest the service is supposed to be conducted are totally disregarded by the contractor, who manages to run it upon a schedule to suit his own personal convenience rather than the requirements of the people.”
The struggle for reliable infrastructure in rural Washington echoes today’s digital divide and the ongoing challenges of logistics for remote communities. Even 150 years ago, the conflict between corporate efficiency (the contractor’s schedule) and public service (the needs of the settlers) was central to the development of the Pacific Northwest.
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