Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1892-02-26
The Clearwater Route.


road was in Spokane recently,
demanding from the people a
complete right of way through
the city for the Great North
ern. In letter to Mr.. Reavis
Mr.. Hill thus explains why the
more northcrly route was pre-
ferred over the Clearwater riv-
err route;
"In selecting the line we
have built, on account Of it's
shorter distance and exception
ally low grades, we made a
much greater sacrifice in leav
ing our present constructed
line by way of Great Falls, He
lena and Butte, which could
have been extended, by way
of Anaconda, into the Bitter
Root valley, over the Lolo
Pass, and down the Clearwa-
ter, where the amount of con-
struction between the point of
departure at Fort Assiniboine
and Spokane Falls would have
carried us to Wallula Junction,
and would have placed the
four towns | have named, with
population of about 10000,
on our main line. | speak of
this in order that you may full
ly realize the value we attach
to the more direct line, with
lower grades, and that while |
am sure you, personally, have
been most active in doing
everything that could be done
In our behalf, we can better af-
ford to delay the time when
we can secure the business to
be done at Spokane, than to
incur the delay in the construc-
ton Of our line, whice would
throw its completion to the
coast beyond next fall"
And in a supplementary ad-
dress to the citizens of Spo-
kane in person last Saturday,
President Hill said:
"Some of you may have felt
that ifyou had failed Ito give
the right-of-way) would have
come here anyway. / can only
say that the firstsurveys we ran
hereabsolutely forbid our COM
ing at all. We could not get
in on the grades we wanted. IS
IT There were higher grades
in this section than on our
whole line between Minneapo-
lis and Puget Sound. To show
you we were not afraid of
sticking to theory, we aban-
doned our first line by way of
Great Falls, Helena, Butte and
Anaconda and through Lolo
Pass to the Clearwater, alho'
we had held the securities of
the Hunt road in our box for
over a year, when we found we
could cross the main range of
the Rocky mountains on l
per cent. grade. The first line
would have followed down the
Snake river to the Columbia,
and down the north bank of
that river to Portland and Ia
coma. But we abandoned it
when we found we could cross
the Rockies at a grade of / per
cent, the Kootenais at II, and
get to the Columbia river at a
8l-foot grade. We did not hes
itate to change our line, altho'
it left out the cities of Ana
conda with 5000 population,
Helena with $4,000 and Great
Falls with 10000"
1t is plain from these words
that it was the original inten-
ton of President Hill to adopt |
the Clearwater route. The APP
proaches to the Lolo Pass are
excellent on both sides of the
Bitter Root range. A few miles
on either side of the summit,
however, call for maximum
grades, which can be only |
overcome by tunnelling, us in
the case of the Northern Pa
cific across the Cascade range. |
The Clearwater route may not |
be profitable for a transconti-
nental railroad to occupy in
the present state of the devel-
opment of the Clearwater re-
gion, but that it will ultimately