The Blueprint to Bury Seattle’s Railroads and Sell the Tide Flats
The Dearborn interests pitch a grand scheme to replace ram’s-horn tracks with parallel underground lines, raise street grades, and turn the southern tide flats into a manufacturing and freight hub.
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 problem as to the best terminal facilities for the Queen City of the Northwest still remains unsolved. Various plans have been advanced, but some objection is made to all. The latest practical suggestion on this all-important question comes from Messrs. Dearborn. These gentlemen, who have extensive property holdings throughout the city, have given thought to the matter. They have prepared the accompanying drawings of their plan, which is now being generally discussed. The gentlemen have been in conference with a large number of citizens, who express the belief that a generally satisfactory means to end a vexed problem is found in the ideas outlined on the blue print which has been sent to interested parties.
The idea of the Messrs. Dearborn is that to provide for future requirements all ram’s horn railroad tracks should be abandoned, and tracks should run parallel and under the streets. By slightly raising the grade of streets extending westerly over Railroad Avenue to Seattle harbor, and southerly across the tide flats, they would cross above all railroads, and freight could be delivered in the basements of business houses without obstructing street traffic. Loaded cars could also be elevated to any floor, thereby doubling the present and future capacity of that locality and reducing the time and expense of traffic to a minimum. By grading down Beacon Hill ridge to fill the valley to the east and the tide flats to the west, practical and easy grades would be established. This would have a tendency to draw the manufacturing, wholesale, railroad and general business and residence center in that direction.
In their outline the gentlemen point out ways and means that appear to make their plan feasible. They estimate that the improvement would be of incalculable benefit to the southern sections of the city. They cite as an instance that they are now selling lots in McNaught’s Third Addition, lots which would be worth five times the sum if the flats were filled and streets graded. The Messrs. have received considerable encouragement and invite more from railroad officials, manufacturers, capitalists and others, with a view to procuring their cooperation to advance what is one of the most important and far-reaching public improvements that could be undertaken in the city.
Put your faith in the Queen City.
“Put your faith in the Queen City.”
The Dearborn plan was never just about tracks: it was a way to convert public grades and tide flats into private land value, much as Seattle’s later regrades and South End rezonings did. The tension between a “public improvement” and the property owners who benefit most remains familiar in every Seattle transportation and land-use fight.
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