, 1892-10-08

HOwTt was Looked Upon twenty
Years Ago.


The following interesting piece Of read
ing matter is taken from the Olympia
Transcript, published in this city on Sep
tember oath, 1870. 1t says;
The final location of the railroad from
the Sound to the Columbia river Is yet held
in abeyance yet no doubt that question
will soon be settled, as the grading con-
tracts will be let this fall or early winter.
1t is plain to be seen where the general
public locate the first road, by the trans
actions in real estate, the Improvements
made, and the confidence manifested by
property holders, both by old and new
citizens alike. Had we space to give list
of the buildings erected, together with the
own citizens who have become accustomed
to the sound OF the hammer and the noise
and bustle cOincident to improvement.
Houses have been and are still being built
that Immediately finds tenants, not at ex-
treme high rents, yet at remunerative
prices to the investor, even were there no
certain prospect for a rise. The immediate
prosperity of Olympia, of course, would be
greatly accelerated by the immediate loca-
ton of the railroad within her limits, yet
we hold that should we not see a railroad
here for the next ten years, that this place
would not go back uDon its present inn
proyements, but would make still further
tofore been lying dormant.
The great waterfalls at IumWater, less
than two miles from where we write, the
last one of a succession of falls, pouring, as
it does, into tide water, combining cheap
and reliable power with cheap freights,
will as surely build up great manufactur-
ing centre as time rolls on, as that water
will seek a level. We can imagine how,
in the no distant future, capitalists may
become interested, and transfer, at COM
parativeiy light expense, almost the entire
power to deep water, where steamships
might lie alongside of the mandatory
and discharge and receive freight, or that
present locality at Tumwater with the
shipping below.
This question of cheap freights is the
controlling question of trade. Witness the
recent transfer of the produce trade be-
tween the Sound and Portland, caused en-
tirely by the costs accruing on the trans
fer. The great bulk of the freight from
San Francisco to the Sound is carried by
returning lumber vessels for five dollars
per ton and much of it at four dollars; and
hence we are buying even Oregon
wheat in San Francisco. We only allude
to this as an illustration, but this principle
applies in all commercial transaction. Sit
uated as we are with incoming vessels from
all quarters of the globe, in great meas
ure In ballast, capable of carrying twenty
millions month Of lumber and spars,
with resources to supply as many million
a month for a century as we are now ex-
porting annually, it is easy to see that the
raw material can and will be transferred
here for manufacture.
The Northern Pacific will be the great
interior outlet. 1t will give us connection
south as far as the Columbia, next sum-
mer. Each year thereafter will witness an
extension of this line, either by the way Of
the Columbia or by some pass through the
mountains, or perhaps by both. At all
events the material prosperity of the Sound.
and that of Olympia, is an accomplished
fact.