Seattle streetcar system map, 1896

Seattle had a dozen different competing streetcar companies in the late 19th century.  This map depicts the system shortly before the streetcar companies were consolidated under the Seattle Electric banner.  Also depicted in this map is the city's cable car system, which survived until World War II.  Like San Francisco, Seattle has lots of hills which are too steep for even an electric streetcar to climb, meaning that three of the cable car lines depicted here were never electrified.  Unlike San Francisco, the city chose to eliminate both its streetcar and cable car lines in the early 1940s and replace them with buses due to cost concerns.

This map also may look slightly unusual to a modern Seattle denizen, due to the presence of strangely named streets, and the lack of a connection between Lake Washington and Puget Sound.  As for the streets, Seattle's street naming pattern was applied retroactively to the outlying suburbs as the city expanded, such that most of them would be renamed by 1908.  Regarding Lake Washington, the Lake Washington Ship Canal would not be opened until 1917.

- Printed on satin finish 80# cover stock - 220 GSM in Nashville, Tennessee.
- Image will be printed with a border for framing.
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