The Battle for the Seattle Streets
A fierce legal and corporate rivalry over cable car franchises threatens to tear up Seattle's downtown, while a mysterious entrepreneur promises to modernize the city with electric power.
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.
There is a great deal of rivalry in the Seattle cable car scene. It will accomplish a good many things, and among others, it will provide a lot of excitement at least. The fight concerns the right to lay tracks and operate cars along the streets, which have been laid out on the waterfront. The steamer 'Fleetwood' looks like a 'boathouse' for this struggle. Mr. Bennett is the man in the lead. He claims to represent the National Cable Company, and he has the only right for their cable system. He has a water power shoot nearly completed, which he will use as a motor. He will convey the power by wires to a shed at the top of the hill from which the cable can be controlled. He intends to establish a system of storage batteries with which he will operate the cars, so that not only the steam motor but the cable itself will be discarded. This will take some time, but it is the plan he has proposed to Governor Semple.
“It is remarkable that he succeeds. He claims to represent the National Cable Company, and he has the only right for their cable system.”
This 1888 clash over transit technology, cable systems, and street rights-of-way mirrors the perpetual struggle to modernize Seattle's infrastructure. While the technology has shifted from cables to electric streetcars and, eventually, to our modern light rail, the underlying friction between private enterprise and city infrastructure remains a central theme in Seattle's growth.
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