F.A. Nadeau Favors Belt Line Over City Track Control
As Seattle rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1889, railroad managers and city officials butted heads over who would control the lifeblood of the growing port: the tracks on Railroad Avenue.
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.
Manager F. A. Nadeau, of the Puget Sound Shore, yesterday said when questioned as to the plans of the council in regard to placing the tracks of the several railroads on Railroad Avenue: 'I am ready and willing to fall in line with the public wishes and do not wish to stand in the way of anything that is conducive to the public good. I think the avenue ought to run clear around the city, but I think it ought not to interfere with the Columbia & Puget Sound railroad. I think the plan of the city's assuming control of the tracks is impractical. The better way would be to have a terminal company or a belt line company to receive and deliver all the cars that come into this city, and then the cars and trains would be handled without detriment to the interests of any company.' Nadeau argued that if the city took charge, the mayor would have to be a railroad man and the chief of police a train dispatcher. 'The police then would have to be armed with a star, revolver, and switch key.' J. R. McDonald, president of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, said his company would be satisfied to see Railroad Avenue widened and the railroad tracks placed thereon. Manager McNeill, of the Oregon Improvement Company, which managed the coal bunkers, said he did not wish to appear as an obstructionist, but noted his company had eight or nine tracks and handled as many as sixty cars a day. He thought the company should be interfered with as little as possible.
“If the city takes charge of the railroad tracks, then the mayor will have to be a railroad man and the chief of police a train dispatcher.”
This 1889 standoff over public vs. private infrastructure on the waterfront mirrors modern Seattle’s ongoing struggles with rail corridors, port ownership, and the challenge of balancing industrial logistics with civic control of public space.
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