[Pacific Northwest - Transportation]

Snohomish Valley Railway Bond Certificate, 1905, Matted and Framed Under Glass

[Snohomish]: Snohomish Valley Railway Company, 1905. First Edition. Framed under glass. Document printed in green and black. Framed under glass with green matting matching the certificate. Exposed area of bond measures 9.75 x 13.75 inches; frame measures 13 x 16.75 inches. Bond certificate in amount $1,000 in a total funding of $2.5 million. Stamped with the company seal, 1905. Printed signature of company secretary E. Lloyd Colburn. Printed by the Security Bank Note Company, Philadelphia. Certificate and frame, Fine. Item #5357

Efforts to create the railroad were abandoned after the Great Northern announced it would build a line eastward from Everett through Snohomish, thus obviating the homegrown need to get goods and produce to market. That said, a con man named Charley Meeker passed himself off as a financier, and continued to sell bonds in the capital centers of Europe, including Antwerp, Paris, London, Berlin. Knowing full well he was selling bonds in a ghost company, he jilted investors, who continued to send inquiries to Snohomish until at least 1937.

Of the three vignettes featured at the top of the bond, one depicts the Snohomish Bicycle Club tree. In the late 1890s the trunk of the old-growth cedar was hollowed out by the Snohomish Bicycle Club. It was located about two miles south of the town of Snohomish. (The tree suffered the indignity for 30 years before falling in 1928.) The central vignette shows an electric train; the other a domestic Snohomish scene with a bucolic expanse in the background. In sum, a triumph of lithography highlighting the burgeoning infrastructure in Western Washington and the charm of Snohomish. Another bond was issued in 1908 with certificates lacking all the flourish seen here.

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Price: $75.00