A Former Superior Court Judge Says the Streetcar Tracks Ate His Front Yard
John C. Stallcup wants $6,000 from Tacoma, arguing the city let the Pacific Traction Company double-track Cliff Avenue past his two South Fifth Street lots without so much as asking — and left private land doing the work of a public 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.
Claiming that two lots at South Fifth and Cliff avenue had been ruined by the construction of street car tracks in front of them, John C. Stallcup this morning filed suit for $10,000 against the Pacific Traction company. The suit was dismissed by Judge Easterday, and an amended complaint asking for $6,000 damages was filed against the city of Tacoma.
Mr. Stallcup claims in the amended complaint that the city granted the Traction company permission to construct a double track line along Cliff avenue and in front of his lots, without asking his permission.
He alleges that the lots, which were on a level with the avenue before the re-grade was made, are greatly disfigured at present and that the two tracks take up so much of the right of way that private property is being used as a public street.
Mr. Stallcup is a prominent attorney of the city, and was formerly judge of the superior court of Pierce county.
“He alleges that the two tracks take up so much of the right of way that private property is being used as a public street.”
Tacoma is still arguing the same case, with better lawyers: when the city hands a transit franchise to a private or public operator, who pays for the driveway that disappears, the grade that drops three feet, the parking that becomes a track? The regrade that stranded Stallcup's lots a century ago has its descendants in every Sound Transit alignment fight along the corridor today.
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