Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1883-02-17

CLKAR CRKKx, Neb., Jan. 30.

CLxAR CREEK, Neb., Jan. 30.
Ed. PosT-INrxLLIoKNcKR:
lnclosed please find one dollar. IN,
which send me your WEEKLY Tvan'
news from the North Pacific ooun,rv
ana IN 10 Deter place can get il thar
In your paper.
l see and hear that your place ia inn
proving rapidly, and that Won are ahon,
TO realize the long cherished bone tba,
seattle viii get railroad. That hope
expressed when Col. Tinckham with his
inolan guides penetrated the Sound
country by the Snoqualmie Pass in 1853
lie was one Of Gov. Stevens's engineers
ana we thought then we would get ride
by car back to the States in two q,
.hree years. Little did We know about
the building OF railroads, never having
seen one, and knowing nothing Of them
more than from hearsay.
l see by your DAILY Of Jan. 18th tha.
you look for the Oregon Short Line.
lou need not fear disappointment in
that direction. Jay Gould will push the
onort LlHe TO Seattle as sure as fate;
also the Baker City line to Portland
and Astoria. / worked at Astoria in
1857. and know what it costs to GET ves-
sells mp to Portland. These two points
Astoria and Saattle-will be the great
points of traffic with the Orient in time
to come. The grade from Astoria up
the Columbia, and on by Snake river to
Green river, the junction of the Oregon
Short and Union Pacific lines, is grad
1al and quite easy compared with the
central Paclfio's route to the same
point, as ! know, for l travelled it in
lo'2. and the Seattle line, via Snoqnal-
nile Pass, is far less than the Central
faclfic up the western slope of the Sier-
ra Nevadas. worked at Auburn, and
saw Cape Horn IN 1855, the place where
they let men down with" ropes to cut
footholds to drill and blast the rocks to
get start to grade on, long after my
leaving that region,
Jay Gould has the Union Pacific
something like the great upas tree, with
its root at Omaha, its main trunk along
Platte river to the mountains, with
branches few hundred miles each in
length; at Papilion, a branch to Kansas
City, st. Joe and the southwest; at Val
ley Station branch to Stromburg and
Lincoln: at Columbus, a branch with
limbs i'll Northern Nebraska; at Grand
Island, a branch to st. Joe, st. Louis,
&c.; at Julesburg, a branch to Denver;
at Cheyenne, they are building north to
the Black Hills, with limb into the
Yellowstone country; with another
limb into Southern Utah, and now the
road from Granger through Idaho to
Oregon and Washington, known as the
Short Line. From this you can see that
Gould and those with him are bent on
all they can in the whole
western country, from the Missouri to
to the Pacific and from Mexico to Can
ada. They also control the Wabash
system, with rSDt at Toledo, Ohio,
which extends through Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. also sys-
tenn of southwestern roads, through
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tex
as, with root at st. Louis. In all Gould
is the virtual head of systems aggregat-
ing 10000 miles of railroad, and the
building Of one more line, to Puget
Sound, will be matter of compara-
lively small moment to him, while it
will at the same time be perhaps the
most important and valuable of his pro-
perties. He is great man, and while
the people alternately curse and en-
brace him, beseech him to come and
abuse him after he does come, he goes
on in the even tenor of his ways, max
ing roads, opening up the wilderness,
and adding to his wealth five millions a
year.
But there, you must excuse my scrib-
bling. 1t is a cold stormy day. Snow
is no stranger TO these parts. The cold
is l311 degrees below zero.
F. BRYANT.