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Now & Then Paul Dorpat

Regrade On The Ridge

The original print for this winter scene comes from the collection of Lawton Gowey. When he was still living and managing the finances for Seattle City Light, Gowey was one of the region's most avid and scholarly rail fans. He was a collector not only of photographs of trolleys and their routes but also a student of their development. Consequently, it is mildly rare to find a photograph in the Gowey collection that does not include some trolley rails.

Still, a track may be found in this Mount Baker ridge view that looks north up 31st Avenue South. It appears entering the avenue on Judkins Street from the right. These, however, are not trolley rails but temporary narrow-gauge track laid to help regrade the intersection. The plank paving on 31st appears to be nearly new, and on the far side of the intersection, Tallua and Hamlet Wright's big home has been sliced away. The piles of rocks at right will probably be used as facing for what is here a temporary wall of dirt.

The Gowey print is dated 12/22/1909. In the following year's federal census, Hamlet Wright is listed as a 48-year-old gold miner, who, with his 40-year-old spouse, Kelluak (also called Tallua), has no children but one live-in servant, an Irish immigrant named Grace Sullivan. By 1915, when a trolley at last reaches the neighborhood along 31st Avenue, Hamlet is no longer counted. His wife continued to pay the taxes on the great view property while living in the Outlook Hotel at the Pike Place Market.

"Washington Then and Now," the new book by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard, can be purchased through www.washingtonthenandnow.com ($45) or through Tartu Publications at P.O. Box 85208, Seattle, WA 98145.

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