The Iron Rail Pipe Dream of 1882

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, commenting on the location of the railroad division terminus at Prescott instead of Walla Walla, said: 'If the citizens of Walla Walla cannot have this help in building their town they must build without it. If they make no effort in that direction during the coming season they will find themselves immeasurably weaker during the season following. They will not only lose faith in their own town, but outsiders will also. Walla Walla will go backward, while Prescott, Sprague, Cheney and Spokane go ahead. Under the circumstances we can commend no enterprise to them like the Seattle, Walla Walla and Baker City Railroad. Let them put half a million dollars into that enterprise in 1882 and its future and the future of the town are assured beyond peradventure. Let them build the road from their town to the summit of the Cascade Mountains, which, with the help of Yakima county, they can do easily enough. Such a road will pay them fifteen per cent interest per annum on the investment, and not only that, but it will add a hundred per cent to the value of every dollar's worth of realty they now possess. Try it.' The Union fully believes that a railroad from Walla Walla over the Cascades to Puget Sound at Seattle, or other point, would furnish Walla Walla and a great portion of Eastern Washington and Oregon with a short route to ocean-going ships. Trains leaving Walla Walla loaded with wheat and other produce for Puget Sound and the markets of the world would return loaded with lumber, coal, lime, and all that the inhabitants of Eastern Washington and Oregon do not raise or manufacture.