108 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST THE TIME 1875–1917 ¾ PEOPLE TO KNOW Erastus Brainerd Charles Dawes James J. Hill May Arkwright Hutton Ezra Meeker Leaving the John Nordstrom Mathias Reinbold Henry Villard Frederick Weyerhauser Henry Yesler ¾ PLACES TO LOCATE British Isles Germany Scandinavia (Norway, Finland, Sweden) Italy China Alaska Klondike Region Oklahoma Nebraska Seattle Tacoma Ellensburg Spokane Walla Walla Palouse Region Portland, Oregon Washington, D.C. San Diego, California San Francisco, California ¾ WORDS TO UNDERSTAND coerce condensed milk degradation delude derogatory domestic arts exploit fjord Ezra Meeker came to Washington by covered wagon in 1852. He lived long enough to fraud retrace the Oregon Trail—first by wagon and then by car—to promote marking the trail humane with monuments. Then, in the1920s, he retraced the route in an airplane. industrial arts insatiable M M irony TIMELINE 1875 1885 motley L L per capita repeal 1875 1883 1885/86 revenue Congress Northern Pacific Tacoma and passes the Transcontinental Seattle expel sanitation Indian Railroad is all Chinese. subsidy Homestead completed. Act. CC h h a a p p t t e e r r Frontier Behind77 1889 1900 November 11, Washington Weyerhauser and Montana gain statehood. buys 900,000 Fires burn down much of acres of timber Ellensburg, Spokane, and from Northern Pacific R.R. Seattle. M M 1895 1905 L L 1887 1890 1893 1897 1899 1905 The Dawes Act Idaho gains Great Northern News of gold Mount Rainier Washington deeds reserva- statehood. Transcontinental discovery in National Park takes the lead tion land to Railroad is com- Klondike reaches is created. in U.S. lumber individual pleted in Seattle. Seattle. production. Indian people. 110 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST The Railroad Age he frontier period in the Pacific Northwest ended on September 8, T1883. On that date, the tracks of the Northern Pacific’s rail line from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound were joined. Now a journey that once took three to five months could be made in only five days—or even less. Other transcontinental railroads finally reached Washington, too. The companies extended lines into the mining, timber, and farming regions. Federal Land Grants It would have been almost impossible for private companies to build a transcontinen- tal railroad. The vast unsettled nature of the land was a harsh fact. There were deep gul- lies, raging rivers, thick forests, and steep mountains to cross. There would be trouble with Indians who would resent railroad tracks crossing their hunting grounds. Land had to be cleared, bridges built, and tunnels blasted. Heavy steel rails, lumber, and sup- plies had to be delivered to the sites by teams of wagons. Thousands of workers had to be hired, trained, and paid. The trains themselves had to be purchased. It was clear that help from a very large company or the national government was needed. At one time, the federal government owned all of the land in the West. As settle- ment progressed westward, the govern- ment gave land grants to farmers, ranchers, timber companies, and railroads. Huge amounts of land were given to the railroad companies to improve transportation for everyone. Then the railroad could sell some of the land to settlers. This would raise money for construction of the rail lines. The Northern Pacific Railroad received a land grant subsidy of 40 million acres (an area about the size of the state of Washington) to build a rail line from Lake Railroad posters promoted the West. How did this poster entice settlers? Superior to Puget Sound. LEAVINGTHEFRONTIERBEHIND 111 The government deeded every other section (one square mile) on both sides of hingt the tracks to the railroad upon completion as on of every twenty-five miles of track. The gov- W ernment kept the alternating sections for PORTRAIT other uses. This resulted in a vast “checker- board” across the region. The Northern Pacific Railroad was the most important corporation in the state’s history. No other business had a greater influence on Washington’s settlement and economic development. An article in the Spokane Falls Chronicle described the excitement surrounding the HENRYVILLARD arrival of the first passenger train of the Northern Pacific: he individual most responsible for the completion of the Northern Pacific was a man of remarkable talent and About half past 6 o’clock in the energy. Villard had emigrated from Germany to the evening, Graham’s band struck up a United States when he was eighteen years old. He worked lively tune, and then almost the T as a journalist, reporting the Lincoln-Douglas debates, entire population of the town left the election that Lincoln won, and the Civil War. homes, stores, shops, and offices, During a visit to Europe to recover from overwork, Villard and hastened to the depot. At 7:14 met a group of German men who were interested in investing the train came into view . the money in American railroads. They persuaded him to handle crown cheered, the band played, their financial affairs in the states. In a daring move, Villard and greetings were extended to those raised $16 million for the venture. who came to Spokane by rail. Villard used the money to form the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. The company built the ORN tracks along the Railroads and Immigration Columbia River to where they met the tracks of the Northern In order to earn revenue from their Pacific Railroad. Then Villard bought the Northern Pacific and land grants, railroads hired land agents to directed the completion of the tracks through Idaho and Montana. sell pieces of the land to businessmen and settlers. Northern Pacific land agents spread out across the United States, the British Isles, and northern Europe. There were 831 agents in Great Britain in 1883. They dis- tributed advertisements at weekly farmers markets, while another 124 agents carried the same message across northern Europe. Brochures were published in English, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and other languages. The Northern Pacific, and later the Great Northern Railroads, published detailed instructions on how to travel to the Northwest. Both railroads ran special trains at reduced rates to carry immigrant families Horse teams pulled the heavy iron rails and wooden and their belongings. Settlers could buy rail- cross beams to the track site. road land as low as $1.25 an acre, though 112 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST some land cost more. If immigrants didn’t immigrants came. People also came from have the money to buy the land, the rail- many other countries. road sold it to them on credit. By 1910, forty-six percent of the state’s The result was a tidal wave of immigra- people were either born in another country tion into Washington. Railroad-sponsored or their parents were. These new immigrants migration was the principal cause of the joined the Chinese and Irish already here. state’s growth after 1880. Scandinavian Immigrants Puget Sound attracted Scandinavians Who Were the because its wet climate, high mountains, and Immigrants? many ocean inlets reminded them of home. Norwegians started a colony at Poulsbo on y providing a faster way for immi- the Olympic peninsula because it looked like grants to travel to the Northwest, the their native fjord in Norway. Swedes worked Brailroads were actually responsible for logging companies, doing work that was for the ethnic mix of the state. In the late familiar to them. For the same reasons, 1800s and early 1900s, mostly Canadian, Norwegians and Finns were attracted to English, German, and Scandinavian fishing and Danes to dairying. Scandinavian families worked together on a dairy farm in the 1860s. LEAVINGTHEFRONTIERBEHIND 113 German Immigrants German farmers established small settle- ments across the Palouse and Big Bend regions. Mathias Reinbold was so impressed by the railroad’s message in Germany that he persuaded nine of his fourteen children to emigrate. Today their descendants are found in Lincoln County. Italian Immigrants Washington’s Italians arrived with rail- road construction crews. Others came as skilled stone masons to help rebuild Spokane, Ellensburg, and Seattle after the terrible fires of 1889. Italian farmers located in the Walla Walla Valley, where they became famous in later years for their Fire! German families built sweet onions. round barns. Mr. Steinko’s barn actu- n 1889, the same year ally has twelve sides. IWashington became a state, Photo by Barbara Murray people living in Seattle, Ellensburg, and Spokane had to deal with the devastation of huge fires. In Seattle, a craftsman was heating glue in his shop when the pan boiled over. When the glue hit the hot stove it caught fire. Soon entire blocks of wooden buildings were burning. Flames were jumping from roof to roof wedish, and even across dirt streets. By S Norwegian, evening the entire business dis- Italian, Japanese, trict was in ruins. Soon people were doing business from tents. and German Italian, Chinese and other newspapers were workers cooperated in rebuild- ing the cities—this time with fire- published in proof brick and cement. Seattle at the turn of the century. LINKING THE PAST TO THE PRESENT Today, Seattle’s International District remains a thriving reminder of the ori- This pile of basalt rocks is actually an oven. Italian railroad construction crews in eastern gins of diversity. It is also a stronghold Washington made the ovens to bake their bread. of Asian and Pacific Island cultures. 114 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST After tracks were laid timber next to deep water meant that trees been treated in American history? to the forests, logs could be cut, milled (sawed into boards), were carried by rail. and easily exported by ship. In California, the demand for lumber A Natural Resource seemed insatiable. Huge log rafts were Economy towed to San Diego to be processed in a mill built specifically for Northwest ashington’s explosive growth timber.