Northwest Terminus: The Benefits and Burdens of a Mass Transit Decision

Process Paper
Senior Individual Website

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 Linden Warner
The theme for this year focused on debates that occurred, and what the after

effects were. The discussion as to where the terminus would go had a huge impact in

Washington State, and how travel would be affected for a long time. Without the railroad,

Puget Sound wouldn’t have been connected too much of the rest of the continent for a

while longer. Northern Pacific Railroad brought Puget Sound to the rest of the world,

along with many other popular locations, and helped connect the United States of

America.

After learning the topic for this year’s contest, my class was given a list of

important debates in Washington State. I had an immediate interest in the Seattle vs.

Tacoma terminus, a topic that wasn’t very popular. How did they choose the location for

the terminus, which impacts our lives today as well? There was a lot to learn about how

they traveled from city to city, to figure out exactly where they wanted to place the

railroad. I wanted to learn more about something that not too many people researched, or

knew much about.

Researching about the terminus took a lot of work. The information needed

wasn’t just there; we had to dig it up. The Internet gave us a lot of basic information

about the time period, the company, the cities, and more about the Northern Pacific

Railroad. Many secondary sources spoke about the railroad, but it tended to be just a

page, or a chapter. On my first visit to our central library branch, I found more about the

historical context, including newspapers, notes taken by the men who worked with the

company, and more on the cities in the running. I had emailed the librarians to get as

much information as possible, which greatly helped with the entire project. We were able

to find whole books on our topic, and even older history books that spoke about how

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Seattle and Tacoma felt about the whole situation. Research on the men involved with the

company and the cities helped more with the context of the situation, and what exactly

life was like for them. Our entire group found different things, and we were constantly

working on sharing everything we had come up with.

I chose to build a website because I have always been good with anything

electronic. I knew that going online to share the information I found would be the best

way to communicate it, as much of it would be easier to present. To begin building the

site, I joined Weeby and began to mess with the different tools. Slowly, I added my

actual information to the site, in no real order. As I found more information, or things that

wouldn’t be needed, I edited them in or out. Many pictures were taken from different

books and online databases.