The Great Northern Wins Right of Way
A court ruling clears the tracks for the Great Northern Railway to proceed with construction, defying attempts to freeze development.
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 Great Northern is now at liberty to proceed with the construction of tracks across the lines of the Northern Pacific and the Columbia & Puget Sound, and work commenced yesterday. A motion on behalf of the Northern Pacific and Columbia & Puget Sound to have the work stayed pending the appeal of the crossing case to the supreme court was denied by Judge Osborn at 6 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Although Judge Osborn expressed some reluctance, he finally denied the motion, holding that if the statute was constitutional, there was but one course to take: to hold strictly to its meaning and deny the motion. He was strengthened in this opinion by the decision of the supreme court in the case of the Seattle & Montana vs. O'Meara.
“It would be unjust and against public interest to hinder the construction of great public works until an appeal to the supreme court was decided.”
Early Seattle was shaped by the legal and physical muscle of transcontinental railroads laying tracks over existing local infrastructure. Today’s battles over regional transit and light rail expansion through established neighborhoods echo these same tensions between corporate development and civic stability.
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