Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

18 Part OneProsecuted under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Northern Securities Company wasordered dissolved by the federal court; the decision was later upheld by the U.S. SupremeCourt. However, during this period, Hill, while excluding Edward Henry Harriman’s UnionPacific from the Northern Securities deal, agreed with Harriman to respect the monopoly ofeach in the Pacific Northwest: Union Pacific would not enter Washington, and Hill’s lineswould not enter Oregon. Hill’s virtual monopoly in Washington led to the Pacific CoastLumber Manufacturers’ Association charging the GN with restraint of trade before theInterstate Commerce Commission in 1907. Not all was harmonious among the businesselite—many businesses considered freight and wharfage rates to be discriminatorilyexorbitant. Occasionally they would ally against the railroad companies, seeking to havethem regulated through state railroad commissions. Such a commission was not legislatedin Washington until a GN partisan, Albert E. Mead, was elected governor in 1904. Meadthen appointed a compliant commission subservient to railroad interests.Seeding of the Municipal Ownership MovementSeattle’s hills impeded commercial and industrial development. And as the 1889fire demonstrated, the city needed a permanent and dependable water supply. Reginald H.Thomson, who served as city engineer from 1892 to 1911, tackled both of these issues.Thomson preferred municipal ownership of utilities. He also planned to connect thedowntown with sections of the city that its hills segregated. Downtown Seattle neededlinkage with outlying areas: Interbay, Ballard, and the Lake Union basin to the north; RainierValley to the southeast; and the tideland to the south. Thomson opposed the erection of anypermanent structures in the way of these planned linkages and successfully prevented thecity council from granting a franchise to the GN when that would have blocked First AvenueSouth and closed streets leading south between First and Fifth avenues. He convinced Hillto tunnel under that section instead.Harry Chadwick, publisher of the weekly Argus, viewed Thomson, however, assubservient to Hill, charging that he gave Hill tunnel rights without specifying a route; thathe helped Hill oppose the NP’s earlier attempts to enter the city; and that he obstructedthe NP’s efforts to gain unrestricted access to its own docks. Chadwick also charged thatThomson was instrumental in the city council’s granting of franchises in exchange forunfulfilled promises to build a decent depot and that he hampered the council in its effortsto establish a union depot. Even the chamber of commerce complained about the GN’smiserable depot facility, an “embarrassment” to a city of almost one hundred thousand. Notuntil 1906 would the city finally get its long-sought union depot, the King Street Station,which was rivaled five years later by E. H. Harriman’s Union Station, barely one city blockaway.Thomson constructed Westlake Avenue to connect the downtown with the LakeUnion basin, cut Dearborn Avenue through the north end of Beacon Hill to link the downtownwith Rainier Valley, and laid out Magnolia Way to connect the downtown with Interbayand Ballard. The downtown itself underwent continual regrading, though not withouteditorial outcry. Harry Chadwick complained regularly about the contractors’ prolonged