Follow the route of the original Seattle-Everett Interurban railway you will find there is little physical evidence left of the early 20th century regional mass transit system.
Until a few months ago, drivers along Aurora Ave. N. in Shoreline could still catch a glimpse of the abutment at 155th Street that was installed in 1928 when the North Trunk Road was widened and renamed Highway 99. The concrete abutment, which once supported the rail line’s Pershing Bridge, has been replaced by a new bridge across 155th Street for pedestrians and bicyclists using the Interurban Trail.
History detectives on the trail of the Interurban will find some of what they’re looking for at the Shoreline Historical Museum. A permanent exhibit, “Shore to Shore and Line to Line: Linking a Community” outlines the evolution of transportation in and around Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and how it shaped those communities.
The exhibit demonstrates that moving people and products around this area has never been an entirely seamless process. Local Indian tribes took to canoes when travel by foot through dense forests and wetlands was too difficult. When white settlers arrived, they arrived by ship, small boats that came to be known as the “Mosquito Fleet.”
Water travel was eventually replaced by trains when the Great Northern and Seattle, Lakeshore &Eastern railroads arrived. The introduction of the Interurban trolleys in 1910 brought an even more efficient method of travel to the small communities between Everett and Seattle. With the introduction of the automobile and the construction and improvement of roads, eventually the Interurban succumbed to progress, shutting down operations for good in 1939.
“Shore to Shore” immerses visitors in this story, using photos, artifacts and the sounds of telegraphs, train whistles and the waters of Puget Sound. Partial reproductions of the Great Northern depot at Richmond Beach, Thorsen’s service station at 135th and Aurora and the Interurban’s Ronald Station are also represented.
The bold of heart can venture outside of the museum for walk east on 175th Street to where the Ronald station once stood. Museum director Vicki Stiles places the station across the street from the city of Shoreline’s main administration building, between the historic brick road and Midvale Ave. The station “was on the west side of the tracks, with its backside against the brick road, and its front side against the tracks,” said Stiles.
While you’re there, take a moment to imagine the station as it once was, along with the trolley “turnout,” where each car waited for the car passing in the opposite direction. “Whichever trolley got there first waited for the one going in the opposite direction to pass,” Stiles said. “That’s how they avoided crashes on the one-track system.”
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