Spokane International Railway Company (Signed by Daniel Chase Corbin)

Product Details

$50 to $75

Historical Context

The Spokane International Railway, was built by local businessman and railroader Daniel Chase Corbin following an agreement between him and the Central Pacific, with CP agreeing to fund much of the line's construction and to secure the loan by holding the new line's bonds.

Especially significant was the fact that the CP controlled the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway (Soo Line) and its connections to Minneapolis, Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois. Completion of the Spokane International now meant that the CP could compete with the Northern Pacific Railway and Great Northern Railway lines for transportation between the midwest and the Puget Sound area (in conjunction with the Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company west of Spokane). Express passenger service was soon introduced on the line via the Soo-Spokane Train De Luxe.

The line was reorganized October 1, 1941 following financial difficulties and receivership during the Great Depression, and was renamed the Spokane International Railroad as part of the restructuring agreement until the 1950s.

On October 6, 1958 the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) took control of the line.

Daniel Chase Corbin

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Mining and railroad magnate Daniel Chase Corbin ranks as a major shaper of the growth and prosperity of Spokane, Washington - the economic and geographic center of the Inland Northwest. He settled in Spokane in 1889, already an experienced Western entrepreneur and well positioned to survive the Panic of 1893, which depleted the fortunes of Spokane's earliest tycoons. The bulk of Corbin's wealth was based on his railroads that stitched the Idaho Panhandle and British Columbia Kootenay mines to Spokane.

Over the years, he was substantially involved in other enterprises as diverse as banking, real estate, irrigation, beet sugar production, and coal mining. Corbin often was pointed out as Spokane's richest man as he passed in his buggy, its superb team driven at top speed by a coachman. But unlike many of his wealthy predecessors and contemporaries, Corbin was not a civic leader or benefactor, at least in any obvious way, and, upon his death, his wealth remained with his descendants. His personal and family life was full of enigmas, and his aloof demeanor did not make him popular in the community. Furthermore, his secretiveness about earnings and assets would not be allowed under today's business regulations. Yet Corbin's contribution to his adopted city was massive, his railroads and other ventures enabling such wealth to pour into Spokane that, during his time, it became the hub of the "Inland Empire."

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