Chapter 31

(On the trail from Portland to Seattle – A Tale of Two Cities)

There were two strong visual impressions that struck me on this leg of my journey back in time.

The first was of the heavy imprint of the railroads on the development of the northwest corner of the lower forty-eight. Back on the east coast on the sweltering summer streets of New York City, I had visualized the Great Pacific Northwest as being a vast wilderness with precious few people and dangers that matched the risks of the violent Civil War.

On the trek westward, the wagon tracks and the rutted roads dominated my field of vision and we only came into contact with the railroad tracks and the actual trains on rare occasions.

Now that I was becoming familiar with the railroad hub of Portland, stretching not only north and south along the Pacific coast, but heading east to hook up with the northern tier of intercontinental railroad gridlines. Looking back on that region and that era from the perspective of the following century, I had seen the importance of development in that region of vast natural resources and how it all played a role in the actual economic health of the entire country.

I had often wondered, as I read the dubious history books, why development had lagged so badly along the Pacific coastline above the San Francisco line of demarcation. I remembered the primary culprit was suggested to be the terrible war between the States for the salvation of the Union and the expenditure of vast national treasures in the conduct of a war of brother against brother.

Of course, rightly so, the issue of slavery was uppermost on everyone’s mind back then, when it was the only issue being discussed in the media of the times. I personally questioned that fact during the early years of my Catholic school education, but was told, in no uncertain terms that we would be discussing only the freeing of the poor slaves. It seemed that even one hundred years later, any reference to matters such as economic conflict between the north and the south was not the focal point for any concern.

The entire nation in 1861 was at the crossroads of history with the western expansion and movement of the populace to the western territories of paramount importance. However, the expansion of the railroad systems and the improvement of road systems were “put on hold” because change would weaken the military position of the north and endanger the existence of the Union.

The lack of improved roads and railroad systems was a weak point in the Confederate defensive posture. The Union forces could ill afford the shift of wealth and material to the western development until their victory in the conflict was truly certain. General Grant and General Sherman saw this logistical nuance with great clarity. It was also appreciated in some detail by none other than Jefferson Davis in his political role as the leader of the Rebel cause. He had already studied the issue in his role as the Secretary of War for the Union prior to the start of the American Civil War. His decision to answer the call for his leadership in the south was based in great part for his adherence to the concept of “States Rights” rather than any mistaken support for an agrarian culture that depended on slaves to turn a profit.

Pressure was building now almost a decade after the conclusion of the war between the States to pull the Pacific Northwest into the main current of nation and global economies using the railroad systems and hordes of eager settlers to boost production. The demand was certainly there because as far back as the Gold Rush of California, the arriving settlers into California desperately needed lumber to build their domains and they looked to the north for the vast forests to supply the natural resources. I had theorized that the rich bankers and Wall Street operators had denied the Pacific Northwest the means of delivering the goods by manipulating their inadequate railroad system. They established their railroad hubs in future States further east where they had profitable land deals already signed, sealed and delivered.

As part of that policy, they depressed settlement in Oregon and Washington to less than ten thousand settlers between 1860 and 1880 whilst Minnesota and Nebraska received almost 100,000 settlers each via an extensive railroad system directly connected to the eastern centers of population.

With the advent of the Great Pacific Northwest Railroad system that connected Oregon and Washington to the population centers of the east, the number of settlers grew from 200,000 in 1880 increasing tenfold to over 2 million residents in the 1910 census. This startling increase was due primarily to the arrival of the new railway systems. They brought in the settlers that developed the new towns of the Northwest Territory and invested in the economy and production of goods from the raw resources so plentiful in the region. It came at the same time that the more easterly sections of the mid-west experienced a realization of the finite limitation of raw resources in their areas.

We arrived at a section of the trail that suddenly became much more developed and actually had side areas for temporary repair of wagons and even eating areas to water stock and sit down and have a snack or meal before continuing.

Our party had blossomed into a group of some sixty souls with some of the newer continental crossing wagons with added storage space. We were fortunate to have added two loaded flatbed wagons filled to the brim with logging tools and equipment for setting up a limited purpose lumber yard to prepare the wood products for our use and for sale to needy consumers in California and Nevada. It was still not sufficiently profitable to ship our products east because the big mills in the Midwest were still working at full capacity to meet demands further east.