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| Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA (509) 335-6691 Inquiries |
Cage 398
Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent
Records, 1900-1948
| Back to Finding Aids | |
| Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA (509) 335-6691 Inquiries |
Cage 398
Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent
Records, 1900-1948
The records of the Seattle General Agent of the Great Northern Railway were donated to the Washington State University Libraries by Bruce Stewart in November 1977 (77-64). The records were arranged and described by James O'Neill in August 1979.
ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
The Great Northern Railway had its beginnings in 1878 when James J. Hill and his associates purchased the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad; it was then reorganized and renamed the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba. In September of 1889, Hill organized th e Great Northern Railway Company around the charter of the old Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railroad Company and leased the Manitoba for 999 years. The lease stayed in effect until November 1, 1907, when the Great Northern officially purchased the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba along with the Montana Central, Seattle and Montana, and many other subsidiary companies. In 1890, shortly after the incorporation of the Great Northern Railway, the directors of the Great Northern requested Hill to extend its lin es westward from some suitable point in Montana to Puget Sound.
The discovery of Marias Pass by John F. Stevens in 1889 facilitated this extension which was completed in 1893. From that date until 1905, the General Agent operated out of the terminal buildings of the Seattle and Montana, a subsidiary company which h ad constructed the line eastward from Seattle to the Cascades. The construction of a new terminal was delayed by a long and bitter fight between the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific. In 1905, the new terminal was completed (along with a tunnel unde r Railroad Avenue) and housed both lines including the office of the General Agent of the Great Northern. The Burlington Northern was formed in 1970 by the merging of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Sp okane, Portland and Seattle railroads.
DESCRIPTION AND ARRANGEMENT
The records of the Seattle General Agent are divided into two series: Correspondence and Ledger. The Correspondence Series consists mainly of in-house communications from the main office in St. Paul, Minnesota, and from various freight agents along the line to the General Agent or his staff regarding movement of and rates on commondities shipped on the Railway. It consists of correspondence, memos, telegrams, rate schedules, Joint Freight Tariffs, waybill corrections, lists of businesses, car locations, car movements, circulars, publicity, rate changes, building plans, loading plans, meetings, some clippings, and i nformation on the creating and exploiting of markets. The bulk of the Correspondence Series dates from 1903-1923.
The Ledger Series consists of one bound ledger which contains tariffs, joint tariffs, ammendments, lists of general agents, rules and regulations of the Great Northern and associated railroads and the Transcontinental Freight Bureau, an independent reg ulatory body which governed the freight charges of its twenty-six member railroads. Although the series is dated from 1903-1911, most of its material is from 1903.
The description on each archival folder is an abstract of a longer description on the original folder (which has been retained); in addition, the original filing number of the Great Northern's filing classification system appears on both the original folder and the archival folder, although not in this container list. This system has determined the order of each file, the logic of which may be more fully revealed through perusal of the files.
The the first series consist of approximately 18,000 individual items grouped into 910 packets of one to about 200 items, each originally bound with brass fasteners.
CONTAINER LIST