The Spokane International Railway

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This 128-page 6” x 9” softcover book contains over 200 B&W images.
This narrative highlights scores of images from the lens of renowned Spokane International Railway photographer Larry Shawver
and a trip up the Burnt Cabin Creek Railroad and through the Hoodoos.

The last half of the 19th century was typified by tycoons and shrewd railroad barons. A key figure in the development of the Spokane International Railway was James Jerome Hill, or simply Jim Hill. Spokane businessman regarded Hill as a tyrant and considered his Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads unwelcome monopolies in Northeast Washington and Idaho Panhandle. In 1905, Daniel Chase "D.C." Corbin broke the Hill lines' stronghold by forming the Spokane International Railway as a 140-mile rail line from Spokane, Washington to Eastport, Idaho, to interchange traffic from the Canadian border to the Pacific. Today,
the route continues to be profitable under Union Pacific Railroad ownership with commodities shipped to Western markets via the Canadian Pacific Railway. This book shares the story of the Spokane International Railway and traces its international and local connections with every major railroad in the Pacific Northwest.

On page 24, read about an experimental US Post Office, RPO
[Railway Post Office] mail-bag pickup apparatus; and on page 96
find out why the Canadian Pacific has two-tone colored cattle cars.