Vying for economic supremacy on the Palouse, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific Railroad laid rail, invested capital, speculated, and built a remarkable infrastructure that included the Columbia and Palouse Railroad and the competing Spokane & Palouse Railway. Their intense rivalry played a critical role in eastern Washington and northwest Idaho's agricultural and population growth. Based on internal railroad correspondence and documents, and contemporary publications and newspapers, Wheat Country Railroad offers the most comprehensive and detailed study ever compiled of the area's late 19th and early 20th century railroading.