Seatte? Why Seattle?

The train pictured on the front of this post card is part of the Spokane, Portland, and

Seattle Railway. It is said that “All is fair in love and war.” When it came to building railroads, there was definitely love – the people loved the new, quick transportation; and there certainly was also war – and lots of it. The Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S) was born of war, not love. James Hill, the “Empire Builder”, wanted to make an incursion into the territory of E. H. Harriman. Harriman controlled the two most important railroads (Union Pacific and Southern Pacific) of Oregon and California in the late 1800s. His companies were making money because of the power of these two railroads in the area. James Hill wanted a piece of the action. However, he also knew the power that Harriman could wield. Hill was already in control of two other railroads, the Great Northern and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy. These two had a similar control in the Northwest as Harriman’s two did in Oregon and California. Hill decided to enter Oregon. He knew that Harriman would be suspicious and take actions if it looked like Hill was trying to connect his two railroads which were in Spokane. Building a set of tracks out of Spokane would raise and alert. Instead, he chartered a railroad to “build from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Oregon. This, on paper, was a non-threatening proposal – a north/south route with no connection to the other of Hill’s railroads. But this railroad went north/south only on paper. Hills’ company was actually building along the north side of the Columbia River from Spokane toward Portland. After a court challenge that Harriman lost to Hill, the Portland and Seattle Railway was completed from Spokane to Portland. Mr. Hill decided that it was now time to express the reality in the name of the railway and renamed it to the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway – even though it never did get to Seattle. The line was completed in 1908, after going way over the budget, because Mr. Hill told the builder to spare no expense. Soon after this the Panama Canal opened, taking paying traffic away from the railway, too. The company did not get out from under that debt until World War II provided the rail traffic needed to do so. The quote below comes from this website: http://www.sps700.org/zoldsite/spshist.html "The SP&S really came into its own after 1945. With powerful steam locomotives and a growing fleet of Diesels, the line billing itself as "the Northwest's Own Railway" was able to take advantage of the only water-level route from the west slope of the Rockies to the Pacific Coast. Even the UP had to contend with the Oregon Blue Moutains, which contain the steepest grades on that entire railroad. The post-war SP&S was particularly known for its large fleet of Alco Diesel locomotives. Where most railroads, including the SP&S' parents, bought mainly General Motors (EMD) locomotives, the SP&S endeared itself to Alco fans by buying a large fleet of Alco road and switch engines (though it used EMD units for passenger trains). After the Burlington Northern merger, GN and NP Alco engines were sent to the former SP&S route, where they were familiar to engine crews and shops. The Hill lines, including the SP&S, merged together into the Burlington Northern in 1970." This ended the existence of the SP&S.

The post card was published by the Pacific Novelty Company (started in 1908, the same year the railway was completed), which had offices in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. This publishing company printed many postcards that were duplicates of postcards published by Edward Mitchell. Mitchell was a partner with other photographers in this publishing company then at some point he bought the others out. A major publisher and printer of view-cards depicting California in halftone lithography. They produced cards in different styles, most of which were printed in Germany. They eventually sold off their own printing department to Herman Vogel who renamed it Quadricolor Press. Pacific Novelty went on to produce photochromes that were manufactured in the United States.