The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 493

PETER J. ESCHBACH.

It is a trite saying that there is always room at the top, but many there are
who do not seem to comprehend this or who do not possess the enterprise and
initiative which enable them to reach an advance position in business circles.
Peter J. Eschbach, however, turning his attention to contract work at the age of
thirty-eight years, has become one of the foremost representatives of this line
of business in the northwest. He is now a member of the Nettleton, Bruce &
Eschbach Company, which has had some of the most important contracts for
railroad and tunnel building and for the building of water power plants., The
story of his life is the story of earnest endeavor, leading to substantial
success and prosperity.

Mr. Eschbach was born in Minnesota, December 17, 1862, a son of John P. and
Barbara Eschbach, the former a farmer by occupation, and both now deceased. The
son acquired a public school education and through the periods of vacation
worked in the fields. becoming thoroughly familiar with all the phases of farm
life. In 1884 his father removed with the family to the Yakima valley settling
in the Ahtanum, where his remaining days were passed. With the work of the old
homestead Mr. Eschbach of this review was closely associated until he reached
the age of twenty-eight years. He then purchased a farm for himself in the
Naches and gave his attention to its further development and improvement until
he reached the age of thirty-eight, when he started in the contracting business
on his own account. He has since conducted business interests of this character
to the amount of millions of dollars and the firm with which he is connected now
has an investment of more than three hundred thousand dollars in equipment. The
officers of the Nettleton, Bruce & Eschbach Company are: Peter J. Eschbach,
president; Clark M. Nettleton, of Seattle, secretary and treasurer; and J. M.
Bruce, of Seattle, vice-president. The company has its main office in Seattle,
with a branch office at Yakima. This company succeeded to the business of the
Eschbach-Bruce Company in 1912 and they in turn were successors of the firm of
Case & Eschbach, which was organized in 1902 by N. H. Case, who became secretary
of the firm, and Peter J. Eschbach, president. These two gentlemen were
residents of Yakima. They organized their business to engage in railway contract
work and began the building of the North Coast Railway. During the construction
of this line. J. M. Bruce and C. M. Nettleton bought the interest of N. H. Case
and the firm was reorganized as the Eschbach-Bruce Company, which built
eighty-seven miles of the grade. The Eschbach-Bruce Company, in which Mr.
Eschbach was associated with J. M. Bruce and C. M. Nettleton built the line
through the Palouse canon, the heaviest grading on the entire road. They were
eighteen months in building seven and a half miles of the road and the contract
price was over eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the seven and a half
miles. In the conduct of the work they established fourteen camps in that
district and there were five tunnels in a mile and half. They employed on an
average fifteen hundred men for fourteen months. Later the Nettleton, Bruce &
Eschbach Company built the Cedar River dam for Seattle at a cost of more than a
million dollars. This dam is more than one hundred and eighty feet wide on the
bottom and rises to a height of one hundred and ninety feet. The width at the
top is twenty feet and the length is four hundred and fifty feet. It is of solid
masonry, a spillway built through solid rock on one end, with an outlet tunnel
seven hundred and fifty feet long lined with reinforced concrete. The water is
then piped five and a half miles and is used for power, while the reservoir is
used for storage. They employed an average of two hundred and fifty men on this
job. At the same time the company put in a four hundred thousand dollar sewer at
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada„ and also had the contract for a steam shovel job on
the Canadian Pacific Railroad at Revelstoke, for which they received two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. They were awarded the contract for twenty-five miles
of railway grading on the Canadian Northern on Vancouver island and they have
executed many other important contracts of a most extensive nature. They are now
building a railroad which is the Grace Harbor branch of the Oregon Western Line,
in connection with which they are putting in seven bridges. One of these has
four spans and another eight spans, with eight miles of grading. The bridges
extend from two to eight spans. The company is now driving eight tunnels for the
Naches-Selah Irrigation District, one tunnel having been just completed. These
tunnels will be from seven hundred to nineteen hundred feet in length. They also
will be lined with concrete and there will be two and a half miles of canal.
Such contracts indicate the nature of the business accorded the Nettleton, Bruce
& Eschbach Company, ranking with the foremost contractors on the Pacific coast,
and all this has been accomplished by Mr. Eschbach since he reached the age of
thirty-eight years. He has since done many million dollars worth of business
and has also been active in the development of several hundred acres of land,
building his own ditch through the property. He had a great number of teams and
he not only put through that project but was also given a contract to help build
the Wapato ditch by Robert Strahorn, who later promoted the North Coast Railway.
Mr. Eschbach then went ahead with the railroad work, interesting, Mr. Case,
another farmer, in the project. Later Mr. Nettleton and Mr. Bruce purchased Mr.
Case's interest in the business, the former being a financier, while Mr. Bruce
is a contractor. Thus was formed the present firm, of which Mr. Eschbach is the
active directing head, managing the actual work of the company.

In 1891 Mr. Eschbach was married to Miss Elizabeth Brecht, of Minnesota, and
they became parents of two daughters and a son: Alida, who died at the age of
nine years; Cyril, twenty-two years of age, who is manager of his father's
ranch; and Florence.

The family are communicants of St. Joseph's Catholic church and Mr. Eschbach is
identified with the Knights of Columbus. He also belongs to the Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks and has membership in the Commercial Club. In politics
he is a republican, but it is a self-evident fact that he has not been an active
participant in political work owing to the extent and importance of his mammoth
contracting interests. Since entering the contracting field his labors have been
a most important element in the development and improvement of the state. He has
been connected with some of the most important building projects in the field of
railway operation and the value of his labors can scarcely be overestimated. He
undertook this work with the thoroughness that has ever characterized him in all
that he has done and steadily progressing, he ranks with the foremost
contractors of Washington.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.