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Monte Cristo Railway Company

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In the decade of the 1890s, Monte Cristo became the center of a mining boom. It attracted thousands of miners, businessmen, laborers and settlers into the rugged Cascade Mountains of eastern Snohomish County, yet its fate would be determined not by their efforts but by the difficult climate, unknown geology, and decisions made by financiers a continent away.

With an offer of mining shares and a guarantee of exclusive shipping if the Everett syndicate built a railroad to Monte Cristo, the John MacDonald, Frederick and Steve Wilmans traveled east in 1891. After a positive mineral inspection by mining expert Alton Dickerman, the New Yorkers not only accepted the offer but bought a controlling two-thirds interest in the best properties and more stock the following year. The Monte Cristo, Pride of the Mountains, and Rainy mining companies were created, along with the United Concentration Company to erect a plant to process the ore into concentrates to reduce shipping costs. The Wilmans brothers retained their holdings on Wilmans Peak and organized the Golden Cord and Wilmans mining companies.

Adding mines to the original plans for Everett meant creation of a smelter to turn the concentrates into bullion. Thus the Puget Sound Reduction Company was created. Linking the parts, the syndicate formed the Everett & Monte Cristo Railway Company, purchasing the partially constructed Snohomish, Skykomish, and Spokane Railway (called the "3S" ) line between Snohomish and Lowell, and then constructing their own grade from Hartford Junction near Lake Stevens to Monte Cristo via Granite Falls, Robe Canyon on the South Fork Stillaguamish River and the mines at Silverton. After weather and flood delays, the line finally reached its destination in September 1893. Between Snohomish and Hartford, the company leased trackage rights from the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway.

Attracted by news of Rockefeller money backing the gold and silver strike at Monte Cristo, thousands of people flocked into the area seeking their own claims, while others took up homesteads in the lower valleys, cut timber, built shingle and saw mills, and established support businesses. Thousands more were needed as construction labor on the railroads (the Great Northern Railway was completed from St. Paul, Minnesota to Everett and then Seattle in 1893) and hundreds in the mines.

This stimulus helped propel Everett into overwhelming dominance over the rest of Snohomish County. Yet at the same time the national economy was falling into severe depression, the Panic of 1893. This crisis lasted until the 1897 Klondike gold rush. With banks failing, demand for goods collapsing, and credit markets drying up, the Everett syndicate found itself unable to raise enough funds to keep its projects alive.

In Monte Cristo two separate townsite plats were filed in the spring of 1893. These and a shortage of level land led to the creation of upper and lower towns, separated by the railroad yards in the flat near the junction of Glacier and 76 creeks. Dumas Street formed the backbone of the upper neighborhood, with commercial businesses, mining infrastructure, the school, a church, the post office, and view property. Below the tracks were more saloons, railroad and worker housing, social halls, and additional businesses. Among those was the real-estate office of Frederick Trump, grandfather of future tycoon Donald Trump.

It was not until 1894 that the mining infrastructure was ready to start regular shipments to the smelter. By then the Everett corporations were bankrupt and could not meet their bond obligations. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Rockefeller sent out his trusted advisor, Frederick T. Gates, to investigate and restore financial order. Over the next several years Gates completely reorganized the companies involved, forcing out Hewitt, Colby and Hoyt in favor of loyal Rockefeller men.

From 1895 to 1897 production grew steadily from the mines, primarily the Pride of the Mountains, Pride of the Woods, and Mystery adits (mine entrances) on Mystery Hill through lower Glacier Basin and into the slope of Foggy Peak. Ore was shipped via aerial tramways a half-mile from the Mystery and a mile from the Pride of the Mountains to the terminal bunker a quarter of a mile above the concentrator. Here it was crushed (safely away from the vulnerable milling machinery), then hauled along a covered ground tramway to the top level of the five-story concentrator building. After further crushing and screening, the valuable concentrates were loaded onto Everett & Monte Cristo boxcars for shipment down to the Everett smelter.

Additional ore came from the O&B, developed by Snohomish Eye newspaper publisher Clayton H. Packard, and the Wilmans brothers’ Golden Cord. Located on Toad Mountain west of the townsite, the O&B frequently was in financial straits, which limited its sporadic production. Wilmans ore concentrated poorly, while its main source was the Comet mine, located almost inaccessibly high above the town on Wilmans Peak. The brothers also had other business affairs, which typically kept them away from Monte Cristo and dependent upon finding trustworthy contractors. Both companies utilized aerial tramways and terminal bunkers near the town.

Poor working conditions and substandard pay led to labor unrest in 1895. However losses from initial owner concessions were regained the next year with the imposition of longer shifts and higher boarding costs. Individuals deemed troublesome were replaced, often with Cornish and other immigrants from Rockefeller companies in Michigan. Facing nationwide depression, miners had little bargaining power.

A greater limiting factor for profits was severe Cascade Mountain weather. Beginning annually in November, moisture-filled storms blew in off the Pacific Ocean, dumping feet of rain as clouds encountered the range and rose over it. Early wet snowfalls melted with the higher temperatures and downpours, the combination periodically causing rivers in the narrow canyons to rise swiftly and destroy railroad grades, inundate lower-lying ground, and isolate communities until repairs could be made. On the steep peaks above town avalanches let go, sweeping away tramway towers and occasionally men caught in their paths.

As a result, mine superintendents were forced to reduce sharply their winter operations, resuming again after damage repair in late spring. Keeping the railroad open cost far more than anticipated, aggravated by the syndicate’s decision to locate the grade too close to the river through Robe Canyon. This necessitated construction of six vulnerable tunnels (an uncompleted seventh, upstream from Gold Basin, collapsed during boring), and placed the tracks well within range of flood waters. Tunnels were damaged in 1892, twice in 1896, and disastrously in 1897.

Quality and quantity of ore were the key issues. Unlike deposits in the Rocky Mountains with which the nineteenth-century miners were familiar, those of the Cascades were far younger and the product of ongoing volcanic action of tectonic plates. Thus they assayed well from surface outcrops as Pearsall had seen, but unexpectedly lost quality and dwindled rather than growing richer. The original Independence of 1776 claim quickly was worked out, for example, and in 1896 the deteriorating Pride of the Mountains received new life only when its New Discovery vein was located beneath the original adit. Arsenic was an additional cost, its presence in the ore causing the smelter to levy penalties until 1898, when the company installed a plant to process it.

In November 1897, the worst flood known to date caused massive damage to the railroad, lower townsite, and downstream settlements. With no hope for fresh supplies, Monte Cristo was abandoned, its residents walking down the damaged tracks and remaining bridges to Granite Falls, carrying what they could and asking for shelter. Few returned. Frederick T. Gates took advantage of the disaster, rejecting needed railroad repairs until miners and businessmen agreed to sharply higher freight rates. When they balked, he kept access closed and forced them into bankruptcy. As a result, he gained total control of the major mines at Monte Cristo, forcing out minority stockholders.

In 1899 Gates sold off all of Rockefeller’s Everett holdings to Great Northern Railway president James J. Hill (1838-1916), save for the mining-related companies. Then the following year he began breaking up the railroad. The section from the smelter in north Everett to the city of Snohomish was sold to Hill’s rival, the Northern Pacific Railway, which also had acquired the former Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern. As a part of this deal he rebuilt the remaining Hartford-to-Monte Cristo section with Japanese contract labor crews and reorganized it under the name of the Monte Cristo Railway Company.


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