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You can
discover the history of the Lynnwood trolley by strolling back through
time along the Interurban Trail. Look to the north as you stand near the
intersection of 196th Street SW and Alderwood Mall Blvd. Envision tracks
stretching through a tunnel of giant old-growth evergreens and follow the
tracks all the way back to the year 1910.
Owned and operated by Seattle-Everett Traction, hourly trolley service
between Everett and Seattle began on May 2, 1910 at 5:20 a.m. The Morrice
family, homesteaders on acreage where the Alderwood Mall is now located,
could walk to the near-by Forest Park station and board a trolley for a
comfortable 45-minute journey to Seattle instead of hitching the horses
up to the wagon for a two-day trip.
During the heyday of the interurban railway, the premier builder
of heavy wooden interurban cars was the Niles Car & Manufacturing Co. of
Niles (Cleveland), Ohio. These cars, with their graceful arch windows
and beautiful woodwork, were the finest examples of the carbuilders' art.
In 1910 Seattle-Everett Traction took delivery of six of these cars, numbered
50-55.
Forest Park seemed an appropriate name for the new station located
two and a half miles south of Martha Lake amid 6,000 acres of old-growth
fir, cedar and hemlock owned by the Puget Mill Company. But by 1917, only
a few tall stumps stood as silent witnesses to the days when the Forest
Park Station had been the center of a dense forest. Soon the logged-off
land grew only alder trees and the company filed the plat of "Alderwood
Manor," creating a 720-acre development of 5-acre poultry farms.
Near the Forest Park Station on the west side of the tracks, 10 acres
were divided into small urban lots, forming a "town center" to serve the
surrounding agricultural community. The station was renamed "Alderwood
Manor" as well, and by 1922, the population had grown from 22 to nearly
1,500. Additional stations were built to serve the rapidly growing area.
The Cedar Valley station was south of Alderwood Manor and to the north,
Intermanor and Manordale were between there and the Martha Lake station.
A brick Tudor general store served the growing community of Alderwood
Manor as a post office. Mail now came in on the trains from Seattle instead
of being routed through Edmonds. The Washington Co-op Poultry plant was
built just south of the station and at night freight trains delivered supplies,
eggs, fruit and other products for markets in Seattle and beyond.
Although Highway 99 was paved all the way to Everett in 1927, many
people could not afford cars and still depended on the trolley for transportation
to Seattle or Everett. The Nile cars purchased in 1910 were very luxurious
and much more comfortable than the early autos. But by 1939, the era of
the interurban had given way to the age of the automobile.
In 1960 Interstate 5 was constructed along the route of the old Interurban
right-of-way through Lynnwood. Although times, transportation modes and
life styles have changed, old timers and commuters alike sometimes wish
for a return to the days when people could travel from Lynnwood to Seattle
by trolley. |
