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Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent Records, 1900-1948

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent
Title
Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent Records
Dates
1900-1948 (inclusive)
Quantity
12 containers., (11.8 linear feet of shelf space.), (18,000 items.)
Collection Number
Cage 398
Summary
Correspondence, memoranda, rate schedules, Joint Freight Tarriffs, waybill corrections, lists of businesses, car locations, car movements, circulars, publicity, rate changes, building plans, and marketing information, principally from 1903 to 1923.
Repository
Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Terrell Library Suite 12
Pullman, WA
99164-5610
Telephone: 509-335-6691
mascref@wsu.edu
Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research use.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Historical Note

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 the 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 lines 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 had 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 under 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 Spokane, Portland and Seattle railroads.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

[Item Description]. Cage 398, Great Northern Railway Company, Seattle General Agent Records. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.

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Administrative Information

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 information 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 regulatory 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.

There are approximately 18,000 individual items in the first series; these items are grouped into 910 bundles of one or more items attached with a brass staple.

Acquisition Information

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).

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Detailed Description of the Collection

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Railroad companies--Washington (State)--Seattle--Records and correspondence
  • Railroads -- Washington (State)--Seattle

Personal Names

  • Stewart, Bruce. waps (donor)

Corporate Names

  • Great Northern Railway Company (U.S.). General Agent --Archives (creator)

Finding aid prepared by James O'Neill
2012

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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