Railroad, post civil war. The rail empire wanted a terminus and one was proposed in Port Townsend at the NE tip of the Olympic peninsula. Opening of Puget sound, protected end of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Quick and super easy shipping port for global trade. Great location for ships to head to Vancouver BC or Bellingham to also pick up timber.
Seattle was founded by a pack of settlers in 185x who wanted to exploit vast tracts of timber and brought women folk with them. A schism of opposing logging families platted the town to their own purposes, at opposition to each other. There were seven hills, just like Rome, and great dreams of unbridled power. Toss in some of the excess migration from Oregon Trail, CA gold rush, and having Hudson Bay outpost on the Columbia thrown out and having to relocate above the 49th parallel. It was pretty much a nowhere town of drunk loggers, hookers, some fishing interest, and had a developable protected bay. But it took the trans continental railways to spark a boom. Three options arose, Port Townsend - tip of access to the Pacific, Tacoma - very nice harbor and lots of lumber to export, but to the 30 miles south of Seattle. Seattle - a protected bay but steep hills, except not in the lahar flow plain of Mt Rainier, which Tacoma is. Insert bribes and standard political shenanigans. Railroads chose the most “lucrative” option. As for the buses sliding down icy hills… The original builders, once the wooden city burnt down in 1887 or so, built a really spectacular urban transport light rail system. Inter-Uban serviced a 90 mile corridor. Cable cars to surmount said hills on the very rare occasions that a very cold/snow event would take place. Most of the streets are actually laid out in harmony with topography, but for the steep inclines to actually summit and access the fairly flat area above. GM buses killed that. Cars and poor civic engineering put the nails in the coffin. Since freezing weather is very rare (mild climate and lots of large bodies of water surrounding) the most challenging driving environment is wet roads or when the sun comes out. Change over from wet to sunny or reverse is mayhem on the roads. Toss in the once or twice a decade snow shower, and there is no way people have a clue how to drive. Akin to a snow event in ATL. Except, there are mountain passes that need to be negotiated just 45 miles east on i-90. Nobody knows how to drive those either. Turns into semi-truck pinball game when snowing. Clay inter urinas et faeces nascimur > On Jan 6, 2021, at 12:12 PM, Mitch Haley via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > wrote: > > On 2021-01-06 16:07, Clay Monroe via Mercedes wrote: >> Given the options, I choose local climates where water does not >> freeze, ever. Where my wardrobe consists of tennis shorts, guayabera, >> a hat at a rakish angle, and light footwear. My current location has >> made this crystal clear to my mind. > > Whose idea was Seattle? > I can remember watching videos on Youtube of cars/buses/fire equipment > sliding backwards down hills in Seattle, impacting whatever might happen to > be parked along the curb... > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
