Category: Transportation: Railroads

Copyright/published Year: 2018 by WSU Press

ISBN: 087422361X

Binding: large har

Railroad development and competition played a critical role in ì eastern Washington and northwest Idaho's agricultural and ì population growth. Sweeping opportunity lured transportation ì moguls into the fertile Palouse country--one of the world's most ì productive grain-growing landscapes. Recognizing the potential ì for profit, East Coast financial interests, as well as powerful ì Portland and Puget Sound players, battled for regional economic ì supremacy in an intense rivalry. Meanwhile, settlers and farmers ì arriving in the 1870s and '80s courted competition between ì railroad companies in order to reduce freight rates.

Initially as partners and later as opponents, the Oregon ì Railway & Navigation Co., Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific ì Railroad laid rail, invested capital, speculated, and built a ì remarkable infrastructure that included the Columbia and Palouse ì Railroad and its rival, the Spokane & Palouse Railway. Wheat ì Country Railroad offers the most comprehensive and detailed ì study ever compiled of the area's late 19th and early 20th ì century railroading--evaluating the personalities and actions of ì Henry Villard, Charles Frances Adams, Elijah Smith, James J. ì Hill, Edward H. Harriman, Charles Mellen, and other railroad ì barons who vied for wealth and empire. Based on internal railroad ì correspondence and documents, contemporary publications, and ì newspapers, this new study presents a unique reference work on ì railroads in the West and nation during the Gilded Age and ì beyond.

This is a used book in Very good condition.

Additional condition description

Very lightly read. May have previous owner's name on inside cover or front end-paper.