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    Spokane International Railway
    Spokane International Railway
    Spokane International Railway
    Ebook199 pages37 minutes

    Spokane International Railway

    By Dale W. Jones

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    The last half of the 19th century was typified by tycoons and shrewd railroad barons. A key figure in the development of the Spokane International Railway was James Jerome Hill, or simply Jim Hill. Spokane businessmen regarded Hill as a tyrant and considered his Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads unwelcome monopolies in Northeast Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. In 1905, Daniel Chase "D.C." Corbin broke the Hill lines' stronghold by forming the Spokane International Railway as a 140-mile rail line from Spokane, Washington, to Eastport, Idaho, to interchange traffic from the Canadian border to the Pacific. Today, the route continues to be profitable under Union Pacific Railroad ownership with commodities shipped to Western markets via the Canadian Pacific Railway. This book shares the story of the Spokane International Railway and traces its international and local connections with every major railroad in the Pacific Northwest.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 9, 2019
    ISBN9781439667934
    Spokane International Railway
    Author

    Dale W. Jones

    Dale W. Jones resided for many years in the state of Montana, photographing trains at Essex in Glacier National Park; the Flathead Valley and Kalispell; Lewistown, branded as the "Center of the State;" and Plentywood on the northeast border with North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

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      Book preview

      Spokane International Railway - Dale W. Jones

      collection.

      INTRODUCTION

      The last half of the 19th century was typified by tycoons and shrewd railroad barons. When the Civil War ended, factories built by the Union to defeat the Confederacy were retooled for peacetime industry. In the decades of the 1870s and 1880s, railroad mileage rose from about 35,000 miles in 1865 to over 163,000 in 1890. Moguls of the time realized that owning and building railroads could reap huge profits for their investments. Expansion of rail lines began on the East Coast and progressed toward the West as the 19th century ended.

      Although not directly involved, a key figure in the development of the Spokane International Railway was James Jerome Hill, or simply Jim Hill. Spokane businessmen were eager to have an alternative shipping option to Hill’s Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads and viewed him a tyrant with unwelcome monopolies in northeastern Washington and the Idaho panhandle. One cattleman described Hill as the barbed-wire, shaggy-headed, one-eyed old son-of-a-bitch of Western railroading.

      J.J. Hill’s connection with rail transportation began in the late 1870s when the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad (St.P&P) and other Minnesota based railroads became insolvent. Hill examined the potential for profit by acquiring control of these rail lines. In May 1879, he partnered with George Stephen, Norman Kittson, and others to form a new railroad—the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway (St.PM&M). Jim Hill set his sights on connections with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) at Winnipeg, Manitoba. By linking the newly formed Canadian Pacific with his American routes, Hill envisioned a railroad route west without constructing an all-Canadian route along the rugged north shore of Lake Superior.

      Jim Hill sought to hire men who had ambition and determination, and in 1881, he suggested that William Cornelius Van Horne be an officer of the railway. Van Horne had gained management skills while working on the Illinois Central Railroad and the Chicago & Alton Railway. In 1882, Van Horne strongly opposed Hill’s plan of using US routings for the Canadian Pacific Railway and insisted on construction across the north shore of Lake Superior. This decision infuriated Hill, causing him to leave the CPR in May 1883, swearing revenge against Van Horne and the Canadian Pacific.

      After returning to the United States, Hill began aggressive expansion of his Great Northern Railway, playing out a game of railroad chess across the northwestern states and southwestern Canada, building his own route to the Pacific and earning the title of Empire Builder. Van Horne once described Hill as the bitterest enemy Canadian interests have in the United States, and the most dangerous because he is the most unscrupulous. Hill built many rail lines that can be said served little function other than to make Canadian Pacific managers feel compelled to spend even more money in a foolish effort to counter him.

      To thwart the advances of the Great Northern, Van Horne believed it was necessary for the CPR to build a rail line across the southern interior of British Columbia; sharing his view was Thomas Shaughnessy, who was to succeed Van Horne as the Canadian Pacific’s president.

      In 1897, work began building a southern route across the province from three different locations, but advancement was short-lived in view of the high cost of construction. To contain expenses, the CPR terminated the important Crowsnest Pass portion of the line on the south end of Kootenay Lake, cutting the road into three disconnected segments of track relying on boats to connect them. Despite the revenue generated by the mines in the region, there was no direct rail access to the rest of Canada, as these connections were now exclusively in the hands of Jim Hill. When Hill was forced out of the Canadian Pacific, he swore revenge, saying: I’ll get even with him [Van Horne] if I have to go to hell for it and shovel coal. It appears Hill’s prophecy may have been fulfilled.

      Enter Daniel Chase D.C. Corbin, a new player in the western railroad scene who broke the Hill lines’ stronghold in Washington and Idaho’s Inland Empire. Born in Newport, New Hampshire, on October 1, 1836, Corbin came west in 1855 as a government surveyor in Iowa and Nebraska before moving to Denver in 1862 and entering the wagon freighting business. By 1886, he had relocated to the Inland Empire and developed a combined rail and steamboat system connecting the mines in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho with the Northern Pacific (NP) main line east of Spokane, Washington—he ultimately sold these holdings to the NP in 1888. The following year, he became involved in the construction of the Spokane Falls & Northern (SF&N), and its subsidiaries the Nelson & Fort Sheppard and Columbia & Red Mountain Railways, linking Spokane to the mining and lumbering communities in northeastern Washington and southern British Columbia. In 1898, Corbin sold the SF&N system to the Northern Pacific, which was promptly resold to the Great Northern Railway. When Corbin sold the SF&N to Jim Hill, and all the papers were signed, he went up the SF&N line and took the telegraph lines down—poles, crossarms, insulators, and wire. Jim Hill said, Hey you, I bought that railroad. Corbin replied, You bought a railroad, you didn’t buy a telegraph line. Purportedly, Corbin brought the poles and other equipment over and put them on his Spokane International Railway. It has been said he was the only man who ever beat Jim Hill.

      Corbin invested in the Washington State Sugar Company at Waverly, Washington, the Spokane Valley Land & Water Company, the Corbin Coal & Coke Company, and the Eastern British Columbia Railway connecting to the Canadian Pacific Railway Crowsnest Pass route near Fernie, British Columbia.

      The Spokane International Railway story is

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