The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-08-19
FIGHTING A BRIDGE.
La Conner Citizens Claim It Is
an Obstruction.
ALL ABOUT swINoMisH SLOUGH.
Anacortes Accused Of . Diabolical Plot
to Close Navigation to La Conner
for Her Benefit.

The manner in which the Seattle &
Northern railroad put its bridge across the
Ewinomish slough seems to have stirred up
a warm feeling among the jewellers along
that body of water. DR.. G. v. Calhoun,
mayor of La Conner, James Power, 3. L.
Martin and ]. H. Chilbsrg. who have come
from that place and are stopping at the
Snoqualmie, will appear at the hearing on
the matter in the Chamber of Commerce
building this morning at IL O'Clock before
Captain Symons, of the United States en-
cheering corps. OF course they will oppose
the railroad, and wish the position of the
bridge changed. Mayor Calhoun, Of La
Conner. has with him large map show
ing that the road crosses the slough dag
onally, and thus it happens that the long
draw pier runs out into the channel in
stead of in the same direction,
and blocks it to within five feet OF
the shallow water, as they claim,
on the west. They have a further COM
plant that though the draw is nominally
fifty feet wide, it is, in fact, less than that,
because near the pier there are some piles
driven in and sawed off two feet above low
water mark. The la Conner people assert
that vessels are likely to swing against
these IN going through the draw and meet
with serious damage. What they want is
. bridge running across the slough at right
angles, with draw 100 feet wide. To ac-
compllsh this it would be necessary for the
railroad to build further down and then
cross. Mr.. Calhoun and Mr.. Power hold
that the Seattle & Northern cannot perma-
nently improve the channel by dredging
wide space about the end of the present
pier, for that will not only make the chan
mel very crooked but bars will constantly
be forming at the point. They even go so
far as to say that the pier was placed as it
is in order to keep boats from going through
the Swinomlsh slough; and that the
Anacortes people engineered the scheme
in order to make all the boats for the Bel
bingham bay district pass that town. The
remonstrance against this obstruction was
signed by 125 steamboat men. and was the
immediate cause of the action of the secre-
tary of war in detailing Captain Symons to
investigate. La Conner holds that if Skagit
river, into which very few BOATS go, is en-
titled to draw 125 feet long in the bridge
across it, the Swinomish slough. which has
hitherto averaged five vessels day, should
have draw 100feet wide. Through this chan
mel. from Saratoga passage to Padella bay,
all the logs are floated from the Swinomish
country, and between $4,000 and 1900 tons
of freight on vessels plying between Seattle
and Bellingham bay are carried yearly.
DULY light draft boats 60 through here
which in stormy weather cannot take the
outside channel. The slough is really not
q river. but an am of the sea; and with a
view to deepening it Washington's delega-
ton in congress has succeeded in getting
into the river and harbor bill an item for
q preliminary survey. Mayor Calhoun
asserts that if the bridge remains in its
present position, all hope of getting the
channel improved either by congressional
or other action must be abandoned.