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Topic: Roads & Rails

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Street Railways in Seattle

Road travel in and around Seattle was difficult and dangerous before 1884, when the first horse-drawn streetcar line was established downtown. The first cable car line was introduced in 1887, and elec...

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Sunset Highway

One of Washington's first cross-state highways, the Sunset Highway provided the first automobile route over the Cascade Mountains, a range that divides the state from north to south. When it opened in...

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Tacoma Trolleys, 1890-1930

Sound Transit's mass transportation system has some of its roots in Tacoma's trolley systems of the 1890s. The Tacoma and Steilacoom Railway Company started in 1890. The company used steam engines to ...

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The Driver's License: A Seattle Reminiscence by Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand

In this reminiscence, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011) relates the story of how she learned to drive in Seattle. The year was 1936, just 36 years after the first auto arrived in Seattle in 19...

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The Mullan Road: A Real Northwest Passage

In the spring of 1859, after five years of study and survey, the U.S. War Department appropriated funds for the construction of a military wagon road between Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory a...

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The Railroad at Cedar Falls: Dorothy Graybael Scott's Story

This account of life at a Cedar Falls railroad camp (in east King County) was originally recorded on June 15, 1993 as a part of the Cedar River Watershed Oral History Project. Dorothy Graybael Scott m...

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The Railroads of Jefferson and Clallam Counties

The first Europeans to see the Olympic Peninsula were stunned by the thick conifer forests that stretched from shore to as far as the eye could see. Nearly 100 years later, thousands of Americans and ...

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The Seattle Waterfront Streetcar -- The Steep Grade from Idea to Reality by George Benson

This speech on the history of the Seattle Waterfront Streetcar was given in 1992 by the streetcar's advocate and founder, George Benson, who was then president of the Seattle City Council. He presente...

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Thomson, Reginald Heber (1856-1949)

Reginald Heber Thomson probably did more to change the face of Seattle than any one individual. During his exemplary career as city engineer and beyond, he leveled hills, straightened and dredged wate...

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Trackless Trolleys in Seattle

Trackless trolleys -- electric trolleys that have rubber tires rather than running on rails like streetcars -- have been a distinctive feature of Seattle's transit system since 1940. Seattle became th...

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Transportation Chronology: Moving Washington for a Century -- 100 Years in the History of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT)

This chronology marks the major milestones in the evolution of Washington's transportation system over a century of progress, challenge, and innovation.

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Turning Point 2: Roads, Rails, and Regional Planning

This is the second essay in a special series of essays commissioned by The Seattle Times to examine crucial turning points in the history of Seattle and King County. This segment examines the interpla...

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