In just a few years of prosperity, between 1886 and 1891, a wave of railroad construction broke across the sparsely populated inland plain of the Pacific Northwest. Racing to secure strategic routes and sources of traffic, the railway promoters built an extensive and bewildering network of competing lines. Continuing the saga he started in To the Columbia Gateway: The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884 , author Peter J. Lewty describes the relationships between rival railroad companies and traces the expansion of the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railway systems in the interior Northwest between 1885 and 1893. Recreating the prevailing atmosphere of optimism and excitement, he chronicles the construction of the Pacific extension of the Great Northern Railway and provides a lively portrait of railway operations on the last frontier of American settlement. Extensively documented and fast moving, Across the Columbia Plain is required reading for railroad enthusiasts and Northwest historians. "[ Across the Columbia Plain ] assembles and presents, in very readable fashion, the complicated story of these two railroads." -- Minnesota History "A fine book that should appeal to scholars interested in the railroad expansion and those studying Pacific Northwest economic development." -- Columbia Magazine of Western History "Anyone interested in [Pacific Northwest history] will find that the book covers the early railroad era very well." -- National Railway Journal "Lewty conveys the sense of excitement and triumph the extension of the railroad provided for many of these new towns." -- Railroad History "Of special merit is its clarification of intertwined engineering and finance problems, but Lewty doesn't neglect tribulations of working stiffs." --Murray Morgan, Tacoma News Tribune In just a few years of prosperity, between 1886 and 1891, a wave of railroad construction broke across the sparsely populated inland plain of the Pacific Northwest. Racing to secure strategic routes and sources of traffic, the railway promoters built an extensive and bewildering network of competing lines. Continuing the saga he commenced in To the Columbia Gateway: The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884 (WSU Press, 1987), Peter Lewty describes the region's dramatic railroad boom in the years 1885 to 1893. Recreating the prevailing atmosphere of optimism and excitement, he traces the expansion of the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific systems in the interior Northwest, chronicles the construction of the Pacific extension of the Great Northern Railway, and presents a multi-faceted portrait of railway operations on the last frontier of American settlement. Peter J. Lewty, a retired mining engineer who was trained in England as a railway mechanical engineer during the last years of steam locomotives, resides in Powassan, Ontario. He is the author of the 1987 WSU Press book, To the Columbia Gateway: The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884.