City Engineers Map New Path to American Lake
A new diagonal extension of 15th Street aims to bypass dangerous gulches and ridges, creating a direct route for travelers.
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City Engineer Davis is now at work surveying the extension of Fifteenth street from Sprague west to Regent's park. Engineer Thompson of the Bowes Irwin company has laid out a street for this projected thoroughfare on a diagonal line cutting a little south of the straight line westward and thus missing all the big gulches and ridges. It will make a straight grade from Sprague to Orchard street, which is the country road leading south to American lake and which is admitted to be the best road to the lake there is. Plans for the new street were shown the street committee yesterday. Mr. Thompson showed that with Fifteenth street extended in this manner there would be a fine street open to American lake by a new and short route and that all grades would be eliminated.
“With Fifteenth street extended in this manner there would be a fine street open to American lake by a new and short route.”
Infrastructure projects in early 20th-century Tacoma were often defined by navigating the city's complex topography. The challenge of connecting urban centers like Sprague to regional destinations like American Lake remains a staple of civic planning discussions to this day.
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