No other single factor contributed more the commercial and social development of the Pacific Northwest than the arrival of the railroad. For the first time in history, people could get to the west coast in a matter of days rather than months by covered wagons or boat around the southern tip of South America. Immigrants, adventurers, opportunity-seekers, and entrepreneurs came by the hundreds of thousands. "Between 1887 and 1889, the railroad brought into the area an estimated 100,000 people." 3 "The population of Washington in 1880 was 75,116. By 1890, it had reached 349,390, a 365 percent increase in just ten years." 4 The Pacific Northwest advanced in a single generation the development that took the eastern United States several generations t

"The whole significance...in western railroad history was their importance as a period of transition from pioneer conditions to those of the present day. Problems of construction and engineering gave way to those operation and manipulation... State legislation gave way to federal regulation ... conditions had become such that the present-day user of the railroad have found himself pretty much at home. The pioneer had given way to the permanent to the permanent settlers."

The results of railroad construction in the Pacific Northwest were momentous. The railroad enormously expanded the territory tributary to the port cities of Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle. Although these cities fought over the trade of the interior, they increased it immensely over the days of the Columbia-Willamette route. The railroad encouraged the flow of immigration to the region. "Most of those who produced the great population increase of these years and contributed to its greater homogeneity were relieved in body and pocketbook to come by train rather than by covered wagon or by ship."17

The depression of 1873 brought the dream of a lifetime to a Canadian citizen by the name of James J. Hill. He had come to the United States with the purpose of making his fortune. He later received the nickname "the empire builder" because of his remarkable achievements. He was a storekeeper in St. Paul, Minnesota, when he and a partner founded the Red River Transportation Company, which was a financial success. He began dreaming of a "Northwest Empire" and the trade opportunities that access to the pacific coast would offer. In 1878, Hill and a group of Canadians bought out the almost non-existent St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and began expanding, changing the name of the railroad to the Great Northern. Hill's goal was the Pacific and beyond. 13

As a result of railroad surveys commissioned during the 1860's for the purpose of finding practical routes to the Pacific, three railroads were chartered for westward transcontinental expansion. These railroads were the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, and the Northern Pacific. The Union Pacific came from Omaha in the east, the Central Pacific came from Sacramento in the west, and met each other at Promontory Point in Utah, on May 10, 1869.5 The Union Pacific is generally seen as the most important of the northern transcontinental railways, partially because of its early construction and also partially because of its more central route.6 The Union Pacific did experience financial difficulties because it did not receive federal cash loans and because its construction began before there was sufficient commercial traffic to make the company turn a pr

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1815
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)