Snoqualmie Pass: Seattle's Potential Iron Empire
A local developer scouts for iron and copper in the Snoqualmie Pass, hoping to launch a major mining and rail operation that would connect the mountain riches directly to Seattle.
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.
C. K. Jaeger left for San Francisco yesterday, taking with him one and a half tons of ore from the Denny iron and copper lode in Snoqualmie Pass, to be milled in that city in order to determine the exact value of it. If it turns out as well as expected, a force of men will be set to work at once developing the properties, and in less than two years a line of standard gauge railroad will be built from Seattle up to the Snoqualmie Pass.
“If it turns out as well as expected, a force of men will be set to work at once developing the properties, and in less than two years a line of standard gauge railroad will be built from Seattle up to the Snoqualmie Pass.”
This 1885 dispatch captures the relentless Gilded Age ambition to extract wealth from the Cascades. While the iron empire of Snoqualmie didn't manifest exactly as Jaeger envisioned, the dream of cutting a rail or road artery through the Pass became the defining, and still-contentious, narrative of Seattle's relationship with its mountain backyard.
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