the line soon became a part of james j. hill and thomas burke's plan to connect the growing city of seattle to the canadian main line railways. the franchise for the line was transferred to hill's great northern in june 1890. an icc listing june 30, 1891 shows the fairhaven and southern as an operating subsidiary of the great northern, with of track; the seattle and montana was an operating subsidiary of the great northern throughout its existence. these were part of a through route for between seattle and vancouver, british columbia. tracks were rapidly extended from fairhaven north to blaine, with the entire project completed between august 16 and october 25, 1890. by december 6, 1890, the coal branch extended from sedro to cokedale (now a ghost town), where a good supply of coal could be obtained.