The story of the Northern Pacific i

The story of the Northern Pacific in Seattle began in 1864 when Congress chartered the company and awarded land grants totaling 60 million acres in checkerboard sections along a 40- to 80-mile-wide strip flanking the planned route from Minnesota to Puget Sound. Five years later, in 1869, another national railroad company, the Union Pacific, completed the country's first transcontinental railroad line. This was great for the development of the Midwest, Southwest, and California, but did little to promote the growth of the Pacific Northwest. The Northern Pacific's land grant stipulated that the company complete its transcontinental line by July 4, 1876. The company failed to meet this deadline, and forfeited some of its land holdings.

Around 1870, railroad lines from the East spread out across the expansive Western states in a contorted, piecemeal fashion. Much of the Pacific Northwest was accessible only by wagon or ship -- greatly complicating the transportation of freight to and from the region's interior. Construction of the Northern Pacific lurched along with inadequate funding. Potential investors expressed concerns about a northern route (from Minnesota to the Puget Sound) that had few population centers and harsh winters.

Despite these concerns, in 1870 Jay Cooke (1821-1905), a Philadelphia financier, pledged his fortune to the construction of the Northern Pacific. Crews immediately began laying tracks. One Northern Pacific line reached west from Duluth and the other faced east from Kalama, Washington Territory, on the Columbia River. This burst of activity soon came to an end, but not before the Northern Pacific had snubbed Seattle as its Western terminus in favor of Tacoma. This July 14, 1873, decision came after a series of generous offers from fledgling Seattle. The city offered Northern Pacific 7,500 town lots, 3,000 acres, $50,000 in cash, $200,000 in bonds, and a 30-foot-wide strip along its waterfront. It was enough to move the town onto the company's short list along with Mukilteo and Tacoma -- then barely a village on the shore of Commencement Bay.

Two months later, on September 18, 1873, the nation slipped into an economic panic. Jay Cooke's fortune evaporated and Northern Pacific activity came to a virtual halt. The company, slowly moving along in the late 1870s under the leadership of Frederick Billings, would not recover for another decade. During these years, Seattle's relationship with the ailing railroad giant lagged. Most of the company's decisions, freight rates, and routes favored Tacoma and Portland. Between the 1870s and the early 1890s, Seattle investors funded small railroad companies in and around the city. These came to form the foundation of Northern Pacific development in the 1890s and beyond.