In its relentless expansion westward, the Northern Pacific Railroad finally reached its Puget Sound terminus in November 1873. The race to build the last link, from Kalama on the Columbia River to New Tacoma, was fraught with intrigue, adventure, and financial setbacks. Built primarily by Chinese construction workers, the project also featured Washington Territory's first labor strike.
Cooke's Deep Pockets
During Washington’s Territorial days, most commerce came from agriculture or various extractive industries. With cash rolling from the deep pockets of Jay Cooke (1821-1905) and via construction bond subscriptions, the Northern Pacific (NP) Railroad was undertaken. The NP made its first foray into the territory on May 16, 1871. Practically overnight, the railroad and its contractors became the largest labor brokers in Washington Territory.
Cooke, a nineteenth-century financial genius and world banker, chose to construct the northern-tier transcontinental railway on two fronts. One team would work from Lake Superior to the west, while the other would establish a link between the Columbia River and Puget Sound. By and by, the two halves would meet somewhere in between.
Locally, three men were chosen to make necessary preparations for constructing the Puget Sound link, known more commonly as the Pacific Division. These trusted men were Richard Rice, George Cass, and Bill Ogden. Upon arriving at Portland, Oregon, the men consulted with steamboat Captain John C. Ainsworth (1822-1893), who pointed out a broad section of flat land adjacent to the Columbia River near the midway point between Portland and Astoria. John Davenport, an old settler, had claimed that property as his homestead. As early as 1853, Davenport envisioned a bustling town on his claim and filed a plat named "Davenport." Yet, 17 years later, the town that bore his name never materialized. For the directors, finding a parcel with a pre-approved plat made setting a location effortless. Davenport had finished much of the preliminary work for them. The Northern Pacific representatives must only purchase the land and lay out Davenport’s grid. Other than the planned railroad facilities, the only noticeable change was the name: Kalama.
In Philadelphia, a young account executive for Jay Cooke and Company named James Boyce Montgomery (1832-1900) decided to bid on Cooke’s plans to construct the NP’s Pacific Division. An entrepreneur through and through, he owned a daily newspaper in Pittsburgh and had garnered experience by building a railway through the rugged Pennsylvania countryside. Before moving to the wilderness of Washington Territory, Montgomery turned to his most trusted advisor: his wife, Mary.
Mary Phelps Montgomery (1846-1943) was born on Independence Day, 1846, in Springfield, Missouri, to Mary and John Phelps. To distinguish young Mary Anne (or Ann) from her mother; the daughter was called "Mollie." Her mother dedicated much of the Civil War years to nursing war-wounded from both sides of the conflict. Educated in New York, Mollie grew to be a strong and independent woman. Her mother introduced her to Montgomery, a recent widower, after a chance encounter while riding the train to Springfield. Thus, the train would become a theme throughout their long marriage. The couple were married in 1866, and Mary was intrigued by adventure. She would bless James's suggestion with the caveat that they must set up their headquarters in a civilized community. The only place that met her criteria was Portland.
Leaving Kalama
James Montgomery placed a bid for the construction of 25 miles of track beginning at Kalama. His bid was accepted. The couple hastily packed their belongings and moved to Portland to set up their headquarters. Montgomery’s first order of business was to establish a contract with one of the Chinese labor Tongs. Montgomery initially hired 300 men. These men were seasoned, having carved out a route for the Central Pacific through the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Chinese were directed to set up camp in a gully on the Davenport homestead. That gully is still called China Garden to this day. Kalama historian Urrutia claimed these Chinese were mesmerized by the size of the trees Montgomery needed to remove to establish the right-of-way.
In the days leading up to the groundbreaking, Kalama was abuzz with activity as facilities were hastily constructed. Another railroad contractor, Edward Slade "Skookum" Smith, moved his sawmill operation to Kalama to supply Montgomery with ties and timbers. Smith’s sawmill hungrily chewed away at timber felled to clear grounds for a railroad yard near the banks of the river. Hour after hour, the mill turned out lumber to build a railcar construction shop and a wharf to accommodate the offloading of supplies. Smith’s sawmill also cranked out lumber to construct an expansive boarding house: Blackwell’s Hotel. A publisher named M. H. Money set up a print shop, publishing a weekly paper he called the Kalama Beacon.
Assisting Montgomery in the initial phase was Hallett Construction, whose principal responsibilities were in track-laying. Following behind the track layers was subcontractor George Shannon, who ballasted the track to form a smooth-running surface. Henry Jackson managed a team of bridge carpenters. Overseeing the construction on behalf of the railroad was the respected General John Wilson Sprague (1817-1893). Sources indicate that Gen. Sprague chose Skookum Smith as his personal consultant. Smith’s influence would have lasting implications.
The first 25 miles of construction went smoothly. The Kalama and Toutle rivers were traversed, and Montgomery earned himself a contract extension of 10 additional miles. However, Henry Jackson’s carpenters could not gain a toehold to cross the Olequa River. NP surveyors had to scrap their original alignment and find a river crossing in forgiving soils. It was a first of many setbacks, but one that Montgomery was quick to overcome.
Onward to Tenino and Beyond
The next setback for Montgomery came when bids to construct the middle segment to Tenino were opened. To his surprise, he had lost the contract to his subcontractor, Hallett. The tables had turned. Now Hallett was calling the shots – and reaping the profits. Montgomery was kept on as a subcontractor. By the time Hallett and his crew arrived, "two boarding houses, a general store, a whiskey bar, and a barn had been built" (Beacon, November 2, 1872, p. 1). Soon, Hallett established a railhead at Tenino, where yards and facilities were constructed.
Revenues on the Northern Pacific steadily increased with the railroad’s arrival at Tenino. M. H. Money of the Kalama Beacon noted a sharp increase in passenger fares. Commodities carried in these early days included beef cattle, burled maple, canned salmon, hops, logs, lumber, sheep, and telegraph cables.
Again, the construction contractors (14 in total) were invited to bid on the final segment of the line: 40 miles from Tenino to the waterfront of Puget Sound via Puyallup, which had become the breadbasket of Puget Sound thanks in part to Ezra Meeker (1830-1928), who had journeyed to Philadelphia to extoll Puyallup's virtues to Cooke as a produce distribution center.
With the end in sight, Montgomery was now more determined to win the contract. He slashed his potential profits to the bone, and his bid was accepted in mid-April. Two weeks later, when it came time to sign the deal, NP management sat Montgomery down for a clandestine meeting. The terms of this contract would be vastly different than the previous ones. The new agreement would include a provision to construct an additional 60 miles. It was a strategic move on the part of the NP, which needed to hold the interests of business leaders north of Tacoma in Seattle. Buried in this agreement was a carefully phrased escape clause that held Montgomery responsible, without penalty, for the first 40 miles. The deception worked (Morgan, 161).
For Montgomery to make the most of his meager contract, he needed to work fast. The money left over at the end of the contract he would pocket himself. To Montgomery’s credit, in sharpening his construction bid, he did not skim on workers’ wages. According to the Kalama Beacon, Montgomery paid his unskilled laborers $1.75 per day, and Chinese men were paid $6 a week. One key advantage was the broad expanse of prairies the route was located on between Tenino and Yelm. The Chinese graders made quick work of the line to this point, setting up an opportunity for Montgomery to lay an unprecedent 14 miles of track in just 18 days. In her memoir, Mollie emphatically stated, "The transcontinental railroad lines could never have been constructed without the employment of these Chinese" (Miles, 533).
Dash for Cash
Meanwhile, back in Philadelphia, Cooke and Company was in financial trouble. Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President of the United States, had been implicated in a corruption and bribery scandal involving the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads. The Credit Mobilier Scandal was seen as a robbery of American resources and prevented many potential domestic investors from purchasing railroad stocks and construction bonds, thus deflating the value of the NP. Whether Montgomery was aware of the financial situation in Philadelphia is unknown. However, he became suddenly and personally aware of a problem when his June reimbursement failed to arrive in time to meet the July payroll.
Mollie and the children never strayed far from her husband. Mollie was in charge of four children: three of her own, all under 5, and eldest son, Henry, from James’s first wife. Mollie and James lived in three large canvas tents in headquarters camp. Each tent was divided into two living spaces. Mollie and James retired to one tent divided into a reception area and bedroom. The second served as a bunk room for the children with separate accommodations for their nurse. A third tent featured a private kitchen and dining space. In total, Montgomery had as many as 18 camps housing roughly 1,500 workers stretching over 20 miles of Washington Territory.
On a Thursday morning in early July 1873, James confessed to Mollie his financial conundrum. While at the breakfast table of their canvas-clad dining room, Mollie listened as James expressed fears that if he did not have $60,000 to meet payroll by that weekend, there would be trouble in the camps. The bank was 150 miles away in Portland, and the only person he trusted to fetch the funds was her. James and Mollie made preparations to ensure that she could make all the necessary connections.
The following morning, she departed from Rainier Prairie for Portland in the pre-dawn darkness, accompanied by Montgomery’s chief clerk Ed Bingham. Before alighting her horse, James handed Mollie a check for $60,000 and a note for bank cashier James Steele. With a nudge of her booted heels and flick of the reins, Mollie set off on her adventure to retrieve the payroll. From the outskirts of the camp, she rode 10 miles to the bustling construction terminal at Tenino. Bingham arranged to have a locomotive waiting to take her south to the Toutle River bridge. Here, she transferred from one of her husband’s locomotives to a waiting NP train, which took her to Kalama. There, she caught the Astoria steamer bound for Portland. The steamer arrived at the Portland dock at 6 p.m. She then called upon the house of Steele. She presented Steele with James’s letter expressing the urgent nature of his request.
The following morning, Mollie was greeted at the steamboat dock by Steele and two armed guards, each carrying a saddle bag full of money. When Mollie landed at Kalama, she escorted the payroll to the Wells Fargo branch until her train was ready to depart. The northbound NP train arrived at Toutle in the early afternoon, where a waiting construction train took her to the end of the track. At that point, Bingham brought out four horses: one for Mollie, two for the armed security guards, and another to carry the saddlebags filled with gold and silver coins. Mollie and her entourage arrived safely back to headquarters camp around 9 p.m. A potential labor strike was averted on Sunday morning as Bingham distributed the funds.
Cooke's Demise
Back in Philadelphia, Jay Cooke attempted to belay the cash hemorrhage. He needed a quick infusion, but construction bond sales failed to meet expectations. Cooke turned to his most significant asset, land grants to the Northern Pacific Railroad. There was little perceived value in mile-square sections of inaccessible properties. To add value, he needed to declare a terminus. The directorate of the NP named Commencement Bay as the terminus of the railroad on July 14, 1873. The NP staked claim to 13,000 acres of prime land and city plats dubbed New Tacoma. Within the week, surveyor General James Tilton arrived at Commencement Bay with a crew of 500 men to initiate an immense undertaking. General Tilton and his men were set to task clearing lands, driving piles, building wharves, staging facilities, and other endeavors to accommodate the imminent arrival of the railroad.
Meanwhile, the Chinese had graded a route from the crossing of the Nisqually and were actively cutting trees near Spanaway Lake. Plans to reach Puget Sound via Puyallup were scrapped, and the timber cutters were ordered to return to Roy to await further instruction. Surveyors quickly determined a new route north of Roy, following Galligher’s Gulch down to the New Tacoma waterfront.
The situation became dire for the NP and its directorate. General Cass of the NP informed president Rice and board member Ainsworth that any further delay in the development of Tacoma would be fatal to the railroad’s plans for procuring new financing. In August, Cooke and Company opened a new holding company named the Tacoma Land Company. The NP maintained a 51 percent share of the company, which bought and sold NP lands in Pierce County to various commercial interests. Money started to trickle in but, again, not in the volumes that had been predicted.
Montgomery was on the verge of ruin. In desperation, he sought an extension of credit amounting to $133,000. His creditors placed liens on all his holdings, including lands bartered by the Northern Pacific. Having gone unpaid by the NP over two consecutive months and more than $200,000 in debt, Montgomery had no choice but to file for bankruptcy in August. Feeling betrayed, he departed for Philadelphia to get answers directly from Cooke. Mollie and 5-year-old Mary Jane accompanied him as far as Missouri, stopping to see Mollie’s family in Springfield. Refreshed, James left Mollie to travel to Philadelphia for top-level meetings with Cooke and the Directorate of the NP Railroad.
At noon on September 18, the cashier of the Cooke and Company Bank branch in New York City announced, "Get out, gentlemen! Get out!" Stunned bank customers quickly spread the news; they had been locked out of their deposits. The ensuing chaos caused a run at banks that swept from New York to Boston and soon to Philadelphia. The Panic of 1873 had begun (Lubetkin, 283). The following day, Montgomery greeted his wife and daughter on the platform of the Philadelphia train station. Mollie was unaware of the circumstances until James uttered, "Cooke and Company has failed" (Miles, 538). In her memoir, Mollie insists that James attempted to manage the NP construction from his office in Pennsylvania. Regardless, by the end of September, the situation was hopeless. Creditors tried to attach liens upon Montgomery’s private residence in Portland but found Mollie Montgomery, and she alone, held title (Miles, 538).
Final Push to New Tacoma
With James Montgomery filing for bankruptcy and fleeing to Philadelphia for answers to his financial problems, the NP needed someone to manage the Pacific Division’s construction. General Sprague appointed his consultant, Skookum Smith, to assume the role of general contractor. Unlike Montgomery, Smith was an unorthodox taskmaster. A political cartoon circulated widely in area papers the following week characterized Smith as a land shark. Smith, originally from New York, was an opportunist. Knowing that the NP would need lumber, he made a small fortune by building the sawmill at Kalama. As construction extended toward Puget Sound, Smith moved his mill operations to Tacoma.
At the time of the collapse of Cooke and Company, the railroad had advanced to Yelm Prairie. Jackson and his carpenters were busily erecting the trestle across the Nisqually River, the final major hurdle between the railroad and Puget Sound. Or, more important, the last major obstacle to a wealth of Congressional land grants.
With financier Cooke out of the picture, the remaining NP board members were compelled to reach into their pockets to provide the funds to continue track construction. Various NP stakeholders raise a princely sum of $220,000. The scraped-together financing wouldn't get them to the finish line. As the Chinese graders moved ever closer to Tacoma, hundreds of laborers were given their severance.
The first construction train entered Tacoma in early November, only to pile up in a heap short of Seventeenth Street. Engineer Ed McCall and Conductor Nicholas Lawson were uninjured. They busted a hole in the roof of a camp car to extract a very bewildered cook. Later that week, the first train from Kalama arrived. William and Alice Blackwell were the first passengers to arrive at Tacoma via train. They came to Tacoma to establish a new boarding house. Sprague greeted the Blackwells at the end of the track near Seventeenth Street. However, when they arrived at the waterfront, they found their new hotel only half-finished. The only place of refuge was inside the cab of the piledriver. They slept on a mattress on the floor of the contraption located next to the pier where their hotel stood (Hunt, 198).
Labor Showdown at Skookumville
News of trouble among rank-and-file workers reached the directorate of the NP in New York on November 22. It was then that NP President Cass sent a telegram informing James Montgomery’s clerk, Ed Bingham, that despite being $150,000 behind, no further payments were forthcoming and that all creditors should wait patiently. Rumors of yet another missed payday circulated widely throughout the camps.
The head of the spike gang, those responsible for spiking rails to the ties, was a foreman named Davis who had made his mark on spikes from Kalama to Tacoma. Davis instructed his men to drop their mauls until they were content that they would be paid for the work they performed. Undoubtedly, this action prompted the message to Cass. "It is ... stated that a gang of hands formerly employed by the company, one hundred strong, have declared that work shall not progress until they receive their back pay" (Washington Standard, November 29, 1873, p. 2). This article was the first word the public had received about labor unrest. It would not be the last.
One Seattle paper claimed, "An attempt was made by Skookum Smith and others to persuade the men who failed to receive pay ... that it was the fault of Mr. Montgomery ... and they must look to him for the money” (Puget Sound Dispatch, December 11, 1873, p. 1). Smith had informed the men that it was their duty to return to work immediately and to voice any complaints to Bingham. Smith blustered, if the men did not return to work, he would terminate their employment. Smith’s strategy backfired.
With nothing to lose, Davis and his men doubled down by actively seizing corporate assets. On Saturday, November 29, they claimed the Clover Creek bridge. Utilizing stockpiles of railroad ties, the men erected a makeshift blockade. The morning train from Tenino stopped short of the fortification. Conductor Nicholas Lawson climbed down from his train and found himself taken hostage. Davis refused the train load of construction materials to pass. Davis intended to hold the train until he and his men were paid. But quick-thinking Lawson negotiated to return to Tenino and express the striker’s demands to Sprague. Davis acquiesced. Lawson instructed his engineer to back the train to Tenino. Later, a special train carrying delegates from Olympia arrived at Clover Creek to negotiate a deal with the strikers. On board were Governor Elisha Ferry (1825-1895), protected by a squad of guardsmen, NP Superintendent Sprague, and a small host of other dignitaries.
When the delegates arrived, a picket line of armed men had formed 200 yards south of the Clover Creek bridge. As Sprague and the Governor approached, rifles and pistols were cocked and raised to the ready position. A warning was issued from beyond the firing line not to touch so much as a railroad tie. "The sheriff spoke first, informing the men behind the barricade that they were acting unlawfully and under the ‘Riot Act,’ he might remove them with force" (Sullivan: Battle). Calmer heads prevailed. Facing armed men was nothing new to Sprague. He had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for facing a determined enemy during the Civil War. According to Hunt, "The strike leaders went forward to parlay." As a result of this parlay, NP board member John C. Ainsworth guaranteed the strikers’ wages (Hunt, 195)
Seattle newspapers referred to the strike camp as "Skookumville." A Seattle labor paper further claimed that Skookum Smith was of the same personal character as a pimp (Armbruster, 42). Reverend W. T. Chapman arrived to preach a sermon to the strikers. He reported that a considerable crowd had gathered to "lend aid and comfort to the strikers" (Hunt, 195). Wagons from Olympia and Steilacoom brought out droves of sympathizers. Reverend Chapman estimated the crowd at 300; many supporters brought baskets of sandwiches and coffee.
A squall moved through the region, blanketing the coast with up to four inches of snow. But the snow did not dampen the spirits of Davis and his band of strikers. Sprague and Ainsworth arrived daily to elaborate on the strikers’ terms and provide payment updates. Davis ushed them into his tent and offered them coffee to take off the chill. Sprague and Ainsworth attempted to convince Davis that the railroad was doing everything possible to make the strikers whole again. Davis’s communication was clear: no pay, no work. As calmly and objectively as he could, Sprague attempted to underscore the implications the strike had upon the railroad company. Time was of the essence. If the gap were not closed by December 19, the railroad company would forfeit hundreds of square miles of Congressional land grants. One Seattle newspaper claimed that Davis went so far as to guarantee the line's completion by the deadline, but he and his men refused to return to work until the overdue payment was received.
Skookum Smith’s sub-contractor, Henry Failing, and NP director Ainsworth withdrew personal funds to help meet the anticipated payroll. It was not enough. Ainsworth sweetened the pot by including script to the Hansen-Ackerman Company store in Tacoma with promissory notes making up the balance. The workers acquiesced and began pushing the final few miles to the terminal at Tacoma. The first strike in Territorial history was finally over.
End of the Line
A construction train loaded with supplies arrived at the end of the track on the morning of December 16. The train was hastily unloaded, and the mile-long gap between Seventeenth Street and the newly constructed Northern Pacific wharf was closed before a crowd of 200 well-wishers. An impromptu ceremony occurred at 3 p.m., with General Sprague driving home the final spike. Later that afternoon, the first NP train from Kalama trundled down the Prairie Line to the newly constructed waterfront wharf. Regularly scheduled service between Kalama and Tacoma began on January 5, 1874.
It took Montgomery three years to settle the NP debt. "He had to take cats and dogs in payment thereof" (Mile, 538). Mollie stated that her husband was forced to accept large quantities of worthless bonds "which could not be sold for fifty cents on the dollar" (Miles, 538). However, in negotiating with the railroad, Montgomery could sell those bonds back to the railroad at par in exchange for lands acquired through the Congressional charter. James and Mollie Montgomery returned to Portland the following year to begin a survey of his new real estate holdings. These parcels included five acres of prime waterfront on Commencement Bay in Tacoma. As for Skookum Smith, in his role as consultant, he convinced the Northern Pacific not to build to Seattle, but instead to his coal mine holdings at Wilkeson and Carbonado.
