Division point of the Northern Pacific Railway, it was dominated physically and economically by the huge red buildings of the expansive railroad yard. The fact that Auburn is situated almost equidistant from Seattle and Tacoma, in the fertile White River Valley between the Cascades and Puget Sound, made it one of the earliest important railroad centers.
In this pleasant valley, in 1887, Dr. Levi W. Ballard, one of the first settlers, platted the town of Slaughter, to honor Lieutenant W. A. Slaughter, who was killed near the townsite during the Indian Wars. It became a settlement, with one or two stores, a shingle mill, and scattered hop farms. With the coming of the Northern Pacific Railway, the town boomed, and Slaughter’s citizens became name-conscious. It was embarrassing to have the hotel runner board the trains and cry: “This way to the Slaughter House.” By special act of the state legislature in 1893, the name was changed to Auburn, from Oliver Goldsmith’s opening line in “The Deserted Village”: “Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.”
The town was made the terminal of the Northern Pacific line in 1913, and the breaking-down of freight trains for north and south “drags” resulted in the installation of 50 miles of trackage and an impressive pay roll.
