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Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

The Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha at Snoqualmie Pass, featured in a 1920 railroad poster for the railway.

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Title page of a 1911 promotional brochure, "Across the Continent," by Isabelle Carpenter Kendall, for the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway.

Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway

Photograph of the wreck of the CMPS Railway on May 30, 1911, near Marengo, Washington.  Note the man standing on top of an overturned passenger car and the crane in the background on the right.


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Puget pattern, distributed by Stearnes Co. of Chicago.

As a subsidiary of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway (CMPS) handled the construction of the Pacific Coast extension of the railroad from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest.  The planning of this extension began in 1901 and continued until 1906, when the construction actually started.  On March 29, 1909, the construction workers put down the last rails of the railroad at Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, just in time for the railway to carry passengers from eastern Washington to Seattle for the opening of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which ran from June thru mid October.

In advertisements from 1912, the CMPS emphasized the great opportunities that awaited both farmers and investors in the Northwestern United States. The copy stated this new land would allow farmers to pay for their land in just two crops and that the investor would make large and quick profits.

That same year, the CMPS was folded into its parent company, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. However, it is interesting to note that passenger service must have continued for several more years under the CMPS banner since Carr China did not come into existence until 1916.

Several other companies were known manufacturers of this pattern, including Maddock, Warwick and Shenango.

 

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