The Electric Railway Creeps Toward Tumwater
Olympia’s new electric line gets a revised route through town and out to Tumwater, with poles slated to go in tomorrow—if the two companies can agree on where.
A slight change was made this morning in the line of the electric railway. Instead of running along Twenty-sixth Street, the road will continue along Main Street to Twenty-seventh, east on Twenty-seventh to Adams, south on Adams to Twenty-eighth, east on Twenty-eighth to Jefferson, and south on Jefferson around the Tumwater hill to Cleveland Avenue, with a spur to the gate of the Masonic cemetery, and the main line continuing along Cleveland Avenue to Third Street in Tumwater, and down Third Street to the bridge.
The work of planting the poles will be commenced tomorrow, if they can be gotten on the ground by that time. Everything is now in readiness, and the builders only await orders as to location, which will probably be settled tomorrow if an amicable adjustment of affairs is arranged between the two companies.
“The work of planting the poles will be commenced tomorrow, if they can be gotten on the ground by that time.”
This 1892 route announcement shows Olympia and Tumwater already wrestling over how transit should connect the two towns—and over which streets would bear the wires. The specific corners named here are still legible in the modern street grid, even as the electric railway itself has vanished.
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