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| While both this weeks' "then" and "now" were photographed from near the north end of the northbound lane of the Ballard Bridge, they were not recorded from precisely the same spot. Before the timber approaches to the opening bascule section of the bridge were removed in 1940, the smaller truss shown here in 1939 supported the span where the Ballard Bridge crossed Northwest 46th Street. |
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In line with 15th Avenue Northwest, the Ballard Bridge was completed in December 1917, five months too late to show off at the July 4th dedication of the Lake Washington Ship Canal that year. The big ships that were expected to enjoy the fresh-water harbor of Salmon Bay, Lake Union and Lake Washington preferred the fast service of bascule (teeter-totter) bridges to the slower swing bridges. Ships, not surface traffic, still have the right-of-way at the bridges. Eventually, five bascule bridges were built across the waterway. First was the Great Northern on the Puget Sound side of Ballard's Chittenden Locks, next the Fremont Bridge in June 1917 (just in time for the dedication), followed by the Ballard Bridge later that year, the University Bridge in 1919 and finally the Montlake Bridge in 1925.
This view records a moment in the life of the Ballard Bridge that was painful to many Ballardians. Their bridge had been closed off so Seattle Municipal Railways utility cars 413 and 414 could pry up the trolley tracks on the bridge. Twenty-one years earlier the deck of the bridge hosted an entourage of streetcars and enthusiasts celebrating the opening of the municipal trolley to Ballard. The group paused on the deck for a photograph. Not so here in a Seattle Engineering Department negative dated May 31, 1939. On that day, The Seattle Times reported, hundreds of automobiles pulled over to the shoulder of East Marginal Way south of downtown for the first public glimpse of Boeing's "huge" Stratoliner. Although still under construction, three of these passenger planes were moved from No. 2 Plant, The Times explained, "to make room for a new assembly line for Army bombers inside the plant." For the next seven years No. 2 Plant was the center of Seattle's wartime economy as the construction site of the B-17 Flying Fortress.
Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.
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