Untangling the 'Ram's Horn' Rail Lines
A committee of aldermen pushes to straighten a confusing rail right-of-way that crippled Seattle's waterfront development.
The story, cleaned up
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The troublesome fight over the 'Ram's Horn' right-of-way is now in a fair way of satisfactory adjustment according to an amended ordinance prepared by the railroad committee of the board of aldermen. The meeting, held at City Hall, involved representatives from the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, Northern Pacific, and Great Northern railroads, alongside local property owners. The 'Ram's Horn' was a series of curves in the railroad tracks near the waterfront, specifically south of Yesler Avenue, which crossed streets and occupied land in a way that hindered growth. The new plan provides for straightening the tracks to move them inside Railroad Avenue, crossing Yesler, Columbia, Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, Union, University, and Pike streets. This project aims to create a continuous thirty-foot right-of-way that avoids track crossings and frees up valuable property for commercial development. While some property owners are still demanding damages, the committee hopes to force a resolution by next Monday.
“The passage of the new ordinance next Monday will give the railroad companies ninety days in which to accept or reject the proposition.”
The 'Ram's Horn' conflict captures the struggle for control over Seattle's industrial waterfront. The legacy of these rail alignments—and the subsequent fights to move them—eventually led to the modern configuration of the city's downtown street grid and the eventual burying or rerouting of freight rail that defined the city's early economic life.
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