The Northern Pacific Railroad's War on Seattle
An 1886 rail schedule change reveals a corporate conspiracy to strangle the city's growth in favor of town-lot speculation.
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.
While affairs were running smoothly, while the road was paying, and there was no jar or friction between the two companies which operated it, an order was issued from the Northern Pacific headquarters, the object of which needs only to be stated in order that the public may realize the malignity and rank disregard to public rights which prompted it. By this order the train from Seattle will arrive in Tacoma just two hours after the train for Portland has left that place, and the train from Portland will arrive in Tacoma two hours after the train for Seattle has left. By this arrangement, passengers and freight to or from Seattle by rail, and even the United States mails, will be compelled to lie in Tacoma for twenty-two hours. It is a blow aimed with malice and deliberation at Seattle and the lower Sound country. For this order there is no shadow of justification; it is a plain attempt to cripple the business of Seattle and to interfere with its natural growth. By this order the Northern Pacific Railroad admits that it is a corporation whose prime object is not to carry on a railroad, but a real estate business; not to haul passengers and freight, but to boom town-sites; not to serve the public as a common carrier, but to inconvenience and harass the public whenever such a course may be considered best for its private interests.
“It admits that it is a corporation, the prime object of whose mission is not to carry on a railroad, but a real estate business.”
This 1886 editorial captures the early, bitter tensions between Seattle and the railroad giants that held the city's economic future hostage. The critique—that the railroad functioned more as a predatory land developer than a public transit utility—anticipates the modern frustration with private monopolies controlling the infrastructure that determines a city's affordability and accessibility.
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