Pike-Hillclimb-ca1877-WEB

This detail “pulled” from the above Peterson & Bros view, shows both the east end of the Pike Coal Wharf and the incline, on the right, which climbs the bluff to Front Street (First Ave.) with the narrow-gauged rr-track that ran on Pike and the future Westlake to the south end of Lake Union, where the little engine-that-could, named the Ant, moved the coal-filled cars from barges to the tracks and the last of a complicated run that began in the coal fields on the east side of Lake Washington. This system continued until 1878 when the new coal railroad, The Seattle and Walla Walla, reached Coal Creek, Newcastle and Renton directly around the south end of Lake Washington from the new coal wharf and bunkers at the waterfront foot of King Street.

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