Olympia's Electric Road Begins With a Land Drive
The Olympia Electric Light Power Company wants land donations for a streetcar line, while engineers prepare to grade Main Street from 26th to 29th.
Representatives of the Olympia Electric Light Power company will call on all citizens for donations of land, who feel that the operation of an electric road will benefit them. The company is anxious to reach a final settlement and any desiring to contribute are requested to forward their names. The donations need not necessarily be on the line of the road.
T. A. Shock of Portland, the construction engineer of the Thomson, Houston company, and C. Miller of Fairhaven, who will be the foreman of the work, are now in the city engaged in preparing profiles of the road, and are getting things in readiness for the grading of Main street, from 26th to 29th, the contract for which will be let at once.
Work of construction will not be longer delayed than the middle of the coming week. The council has not yet indicated where the company's track is to be laid. It is understood that the coal oil road will continue to operate its cars often enough to retain its franchise, and will then sell out as soon as possible.
“The company is anxious to reach a final settlement and any desiring to contribute are requested to forward their names.”
Olympia's electric road was sold as progress, with landowners asked to donate right-of-way and the city holding the franchise cards. Modern transit debates still turn on the same questions: who pays for the route, who captures the rising land values, and who gets to ride.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.