Great Northern Right-of-Way Case Resumes
Railroad giants clash over terminal access, threatening to destroy the city’s existing shipping infrastructure.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The trial of the Great Northern condemnation case, continued from last Thursday, was resumed yesterday before Judge Lichtenberg. The day was occupied by witnesses for the defense explaining, through the aid of topographical maps, the extent of damage they considered would be done the tracks of the Northern Pacific and the Columbia & Puget Sound if the Great Northern secured the right-of-way it was seeking. According to the drawings exhibited, the tracks of the defendant companies run in a curve on Railroad avenue between Jackson and Washington streets. If the tracks of the Seattle & Montana were put through as proposed, they would cut the tracks already there twice at acute angles within a distance of 750 feet. A suggestion offered by Judge Burke on behalf of the petitioner was that the two companies already in possession move their tracks over to the east side of Railroad avenue in order to make room for the Seattle & Montana. V. G. Bogue, a civil engineer, gave a decided opinion against the feasibility of the Seattle & Montana’s plan, noting that it would effectively destroy the usefulness of the existing tracks.
“If the tracks of the Seattle & Montana were put through as proposed, they would cut the tracks already there twice at acute angles.”
Railroad Avenue is now the familiar Alaska Way. The century-old struggle over who controls the waterfront—private rail monopolies or the public interest—remains a core tension in Seattle’s development.
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