Most of the other small communities around puget sound and really in the pacific northwest. The population presence was predominantly native american. By the end of 19th century coming over the oregon trail and some by c, small villages really of american and europeans had arrived. Mostly along the shoreline and that was because the primary purpose year for people that were settling was cutting timber and milling timber that was sent down to san francisco. That prompted a lot of entrepreneurs and investors and adventurers to come up and begin to build cities. So, seattle, bellingham, olympia all were small communities of 50200 people prior to the coming of the transcontinental. At the conclusion of the civil war and the announcement that the railroad was coming, every community hoped that they would be the Terminal City and that they would be chosen for the railroad. It came down to being between seattle, tacoma, and olympia. And so by 1873, early in 1873 the transcontinental obviously was being built into directions. It didnt have one railhead. But the big decision was congress in the charter for the railroad had dictated that the section from the Columbia River to puget sound needed to be completed and the Railroad Company needed to bring steam engines to saltwater by december 1873. In july of that year, the track had been laid from the columbia about halfway to what is today i5. In july of that year the railroad was entertaining offers from various communities, cash, lands, port facilities whatever a city put together to lure the railroad there. In july of 1873, july 14 the final decision between seattle and tacoma was made and tacoma was selected. The Terminal City, the choice for the conclusion of the line was set up not only to be an arrival point for goods and travelers, but also for the arrival of the telegraph which meant news and banking and munication. So over the course of the Transcontinental Railroad at the end of the 19th century was a big deal for the farr west. The reason tacoma was picked, there are a multitude of reasons. Primary reasons are it is an absolute perfect harbor, especially for sailing vessels. Even today it is an ideal harbor. Deepwater harbor, lots of area for war. Nearby solid bedrock grounds which could carry the weight of freight and railroads so you could bring the train ride up to the dock and be able to load goods off and on the ship. That was part of it. Frankly another reason was that the railroad was built on land grants, the federal railroad was built on land grants. The federal government basically divided the whole route into squaremile blocks and surveyed it, and the railroad got like a checkerboard, got every other parcel as payment for building the railroad. In seattle, most of seattle had already been staked, claimed, and was owned by the residents of seattle. In tacoma, a much smaller population, much more vacant ground. So the railroad came here because they could literally own the city, and indeed they did. When they arrived here, the railroad and thats a part of taco tacomas really first half of its life. The railroad came in. They set up the tacoma land company, and then they began to profit off the sale of land within the city. So it went from forest land that was practically valueless once the trees were cut to suddenly urban real estate that they could profit off of. So they brought wealth with them, and then they were able to turn around that profit from it. We see elements of that today too because not only did the railroad own the land and thereby own the terms by which they would sell the land to somebody who wanted to build a building or whatever, a house, but in the days before building codes and zoning, they were able to enforce their own ideas about how they wanted the city to look. And you very much sense that today here on the campus. These sturdy brick warehouses were all built under the guidelines that were imposed by the railroad. So the builders of the warehouses would meet the cash terms to buy the land from the railroad in the first place, but the railroad then dictated the design, the construction method of the buildings themselves. So all these warehouses, these sturdy fireproof warehouses are all pretty much the idea, the forced building standards the railroad had. By the 1930s and then into the 40s, the neighborhood began to kind of recede a little bit as the automobile took over and passenger traffic by rail faded away. Warehouses still remained in operation, but as the port modernized, a lot of the big grocery warehousers and hardware, all of the goods that came and went moved out into the industrial port area. And the prairie line became almost forgotten in a way. It was still a utility. It was still used, but it wasnt appreciated or understood for the story that went with it. And really after the second world war, even Passenger Service largely stopped on the prairie line in 1955, thereabouts, the last Passenger Service stopped traveling on the prairie line. By the 1990s, though, the city itself began to go through a real revival, and because of the sturdy, wellbuilt infrastructure, the built environment of tacoma, the recovery of the city largely happened around the reuse of the Historic Buildings that were already here. And it was during that period that people began to realize, hey, wait a minute. The origin of the city is still intact. Its still here and still functioning. In the 1990s and then into the current century after 2000, the campus the university of washington launched the campus here. They had been downtown. They moved to the Warehouse District and began buying up all the old empty warehouses and building a modernday campus. And a few years ago now, about 2010, with the expansion of the library, for the first time people began to talk about actually intruding on the 80foot right of way of the prairie line. That was conversation in building out the campus and meeting its needs, that they would start to encroach. And then somebody remembered that that 80foot rightofway is where everything started, and the University Made a very kind of courageous decision to keep the 80foot rightofway as open space, to keep the loading docks as covered pedestrian ways, and to keep as much as they could of the language of the Railroad Still intact. And today the prairie line as we see it is although its been hardscaped and modernized for campus use, for pedestrian use because railcars dont use it anymore, its now the sort of linear central open space of the campus. So for people coming here, they dont just enjoy a modern campus. They get a very authentic look at the narrative of not just tacoma but a big chapter in American History. This is a special edition of American History tv, a sample of the compelling history programs that air every weekend on American History tv, like lectures in history, american artifacts, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. Next month marks 100 years since Congress Took the first steps in granting women the right to vote by passing the 19th amendment to the u. S. Constitution and sending it to the states for ratification. Thursday we bring you an event with historian susan ware, who talks about some of the lesser known leaders of the Suffrage Movement in her book, why they marched. Thats 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, credit span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Next, a look at how Chinese Workers and native americans were affected by the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. This discussion from a symposium marking the railroads 150th anniversary was hosted by the Stanford Historical society. The impact of the United States expansion in the west is well documented. Less attention, however, has been given to the stories of those cultures forever
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