The importance of rail development in the West is one of the plot lines in my current work-in-progress. Recently, I’ve been researching the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was the third transcontinental railroad completed in the U.S.. The Northern Pacific line wasn’t finished until 1883—almost a generation after 1860, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific joined their lines at what is now Promontory Point, Utah.
The second transcontinental route was the Southern Pacific, completed in 1881, from Texas to California. The Southern Pacific was the first “all weather” transcontinental rail line. That line does not figure in my novels, but the first transcontinental railroad and the Northern Pacific line are a part of my work-in-progress.
Abraham Lincoln signed the charter authorizing the Northern Pacific in 1864. The plan was to connect Lake Superior to Puget Sound in Washington Territory, which would open up timber, mineral, and farmland across the northern tier of the United States, as well as offering deep-water ports from the West Coast to Asia. In fact, some thought the Northern Pacific route should be built before the San Francisco route.
In addition to the rail line to Puget Sound, the original charter also envisioned a line south from Puget Sound to the Columbia River. In 1870 work started on track at Kalama, Washington (now part of Longview), on the north side of the Columbia River near Portland, heading north toward Puget Sound.
Financing the Northern Pacific railroad proved to be difficult and took years. Groundbreaking in Minnesota did not take place until February 1870, several years after the line received its charter.
In addition, there were disputes over where to put the western terminus of the Northern Pacific route. Ultimately, the board members of the Northern Pacific decided on Tacoma, Washington. They announced that decision on July 14, 1873, which is during the period that my novel takes place, and so that decision can figure in my plot.
Actually, the board had made their decision in September 1872, and the tycoons who were “in the know” (R. D. Rice and J. C. Ainsworth) spent the next nine to ten months buying up land around Tacoma. That, too, might factor into my novel.
It wasn’t a forgone conclusion that Tacoma would be the western terminus of the Northern Pacific. Many other locations were also under consideration, and in fact the citizens of Seattle gathered on July 14, 1873, expecting to hear that their city had been selected.
But Tacoma’s southern location on Puget Sound placed it closer to the Columbia River branch of the line, and Tacoma was still relatively unsettled and offered lots of inexpensive waterfront property. Immediately after the decision became public, Tacoma grew from a small, sleepy settlement into a commercial hub. The population surged along with the economic opportunities. Tacoma became a primary transportation and export center on the West Coast.
The Kalama-Tacoma portion of the line was completed in December 1873. That brought Oregon and Washington closer together economically, but completing the line to the Great Lakes faced greater difficulties. With the panic of 1873, financing was again a problem for the Northern Pacific, and the railroad filed for bankruptcy in 1875.
These financial issues, plus rough terrain, labor strikes, and disputes with Native Americans, led to further delays, and the line between Tacoma and the Great Lakes was not finished until September 8, 1883, when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final “golden spike” in western Montana.
Another interesting fact is that territories along the Northern Pacific line that had not yet been granted statehood delayed their entry into the union as states. That is because the railroad received larger land grants along the tracks in territories than in states. So North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho did not become states until 1889 and 1890, several years after the completion of the Northern Pacific line.
Most of my work-in-progress focuses on Portland, Oregon, but the increasing integration of the Western states was also an important factor in the growth of the American West. My novel will end in approximately September 1973, so the development of Tacoma and other points along the Northern Pacific will not be a part of the story. But my research into the Northern Pacific offers plenty of historical nuggets to bring verisimilitude to the novel.
What do you know about rail development in the U.S.?
