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Wheat Country Railroad

The Northern Pacific’s Spokane & Palouse and Competitors

Philip F. Beach

$50.00

Vying for economic supremacy on the Palouse, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific Railroad laid rail, invested capital, speculated, and built a remarkable infrastructure that included the Columbia and Palouse Railroad and the competing Spokane & Palouse Railway. Their intense rivalry played a critical role in eastern Washington and northwest Idaho’s agricultural and population growth. Based on internal railroad correspondence and documents, and contemporary publications and newspapers, Wheat Country Railroad offers the most comprehensive and detailed study ever compiled of the area’s late 19th and early 20th century railroading.

A regional masterpiece in that it reaches well past the scope of railroad development in the Palouse. The broader context provides an excellent perspective of railroad development that is rarely attained.”—Railroad History

“An extraordinarily valuable overview and reference guide.”—Oregon Historical Quarterly

“The author has researched all this extensively and the result is a fine-grained account of how all the railroads in the Palouse were planned, funded and constructed.”—Heritage Rail Alliance

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SKU: 978-0-87422-361-3 Categories: , , , Tags: ,

Description

Railroad development and competition played a critical role in eastern Washington and northwest Idaho’s agricultural and population growth. Sweeping opportunity lured transportation moguls into the fertile Palouse country—one of the world’s most productive grain-growing landscapes. Recognizing the potential for profit, East Coast financial interests, as well as powerful Portland and Puget Sound players battled for regional economic supremacy in an intense rivalry. Meanwhile, settlers and farmers arriving in the 1870s and ’80s courted competition between railroad companies in order to reduce freight rates.

Initially as partners and later as opponents, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific Railroad laid rail, invested capital, speculated, and built a remarkable infrastructure that included the Columbia and Palouse Railroad and its rival, the Spokane & Palouse Railway. Wheat Country Railroad offers the most comprehensive and detailed study ever compiled of the area’s late 19th and early 20th century railroading—evaluating the personalities and actions of Henry Villard, Charles Frances Adams, Elijah Smith, James J. Hill, Edward H. Harriman, Charles Mellen, and other railroad barons who vied for wealth and empire. Based on internal railroad correspondence and documents, contemporary publications and newspapers, this new study presents a unique reference work on railroads in the West and nation during the Gilded Age and beyond.

Now retired, Philip F. Beach was a political science professor for thirty-five years. He has published multiple articles on Washington and Idaho railroad history.

Illustrations / maps / notes / references / index

Recognition

“Beach’s book is an extraordinarily valuable overview and reference guide, a beginning place for understanding the importance of railroads in the Palouse Country from the 1870s to 1910.”—Oregon Historical Quarterly,

“The author has researched all this extensively and the result is a fine-grained account of how all the railroads in the Palouse were planned, funded and constructed. The business dealings, alliance and divorces are Byzantine in their complexity and the author follows every thread.”—Aaron Isaacs, Heritage Rail Alliance editor

Wheat Country Railroad is a regional masterpiece in that it reaches well past the scope of railroad development in the Palouse. The broader context provides an excellent perspective of railroad development that is rarely attained…a riveting narrative.”—David H. Hickcox, Railroad History

Additional information

Dimensions 8.5 x 11 in
Format

Hardbound