Solving the 'Ram's Horn' Snarl
A council committee moves to eliminate a crooked railroad right-of-way that has long hindered harbor development on the Seattle waterfront.
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.
An important meeting at city hall yesterday resulted in a plan to settle the 'ram's horn' snarl. The 'ram's horn' is the name for the crooked right-of-way of the Oregon Improvement Company that has long disrupted the layout of Railroad Avenue. Property owners along the east side of the avenue agreed to donate a 30-foot strip to widen the road, provided the railroad abandons the current curved track between Yesler Avenue and Union Street. This plan also supports changing the direction of future docks to form an acute angle with the shore, which would allow them to function as 'ocean docks' and drastically increase the city's wharfage capacity.
“This will leave only a little bend between Union and Pike, and north of Pike street the company owns three blocks.”
The 'Ram's Horn' was a famous piece of infrastructure planning chaos that impeded Seattle's growth during the late 19th century. The effort to fix it highlights the city's perpetual, and ongoing, struggle to align private railroad interests with the public necessity of a functional, accessible waterfront.
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