The Waterfront War: Railroads Clash Over Seattle Tide Flats
A long-standing right-of-way dispute between the Great Northern and the Oregon Improvement Company turns physical as crews rip up tracks at the foot of Washington Street.
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 right-of-way contest along the waterfront between the Great Northern road and the Oregon Improvement Company, better known as the crossings fight, has had another chapter added to its history by the resumption of active hostilities and the tearing up of the track of the Great Northern railroad where it crosses the line of the Northern Pacific and Columbia & Puget Sound on Railroad Avenue, at the foot of Washington Street. The attack had been carefully planned the day before, and when Superintendent L. K. Smith, of the narrow gauge road, appeared at break of day with sixteen men armed with the necessary implements of warfare for demolishing tracks, they found a clear field. By the time W. Craig, the road master of the Great Northern, arrived, the crossings looked as if a small-sized cyclone had screwed its way along the track for a distance of about 50 feet, ripping up planking, rails, and frogs. The Great Northern was shorn of four of its crossings. C. J. Smith, general manager of the Oregon Improvement Company, stated that the Great Northern had been trespassers on their property for over a year, and as it seemed impossible to bring them to terms, the Northern Pacific and Columbia & Puget Sound roads considered it advisable to place the tracks in their original condition to protect their rights.
“It was might against right, and he supposed the courts would settle the questions.”
This 1895 conflict over the Seattle waterfront highlights the city's long history of industrial power struggles over tide lands. Today, the area near Washington Street and the waterfront is a bustling hub of tourism and transit, a far cry from the era when railroad barons literally tore up each other's infrastructure to assert dominance over the city's geography.
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