Seattle-Tacoma Highway opens on October 18, 1928.
On October 18, 1928, a new freeway opens between Seattle and Tacoma. The 24-mile road runs southeast of Seattle along the East Marginal Way and over the new Duwamish River Bridge. It then heads south through Riverton and past Angle Lake before turning west at Milton and continuing to Tacoma. The new motorway is a significant improvement on the two existing roads that were commonly used for travel between the two cities in the 1920s. It will become part of the Pacific Highway, later US Route 99, which runs from Vancouver, British Columbia to San Diego, California and will serve as the main thoroughfare on the west coast before being surpassed by Interstate 5 in the 1960s.
Local roads
In the early years of the 20th century, a largely unpaved road network connected Seattle and Tacoma. Overland traffic between the two cities, which began in 1902, was the best way to get between them. The trip took either an hour and 40 minutes (with multiple stops) or an hour and 10 minutes on the limited route. This worked well for a while until the automobile began to obsolete both the horse and overland transportation.
An early section of the Pacific Highway, usually known locally as the West Valley Road, was completed between Seattle and Tacoma in late 1915. However, the journey was no faster than the limit. In the mid-1920s, the explosive growth of the automobile required the construction of better roads. A new freeway between Seattle and Tacoma had been considered for several years, and after some discussion of moving it a little further east, the final route was chosen by the State Highway Department in 1924. Grading for the new street began later that year and it was completed in the spring of 1927.
The 1927 Legislature approved funds to pave a 20-foot-wide concrete road from Seattle to the newly completed Puyallup River Bridge (now) [2021] Puyallup Avenue Bridge) on the outskirts of Tacoma, and funding included funding a new bridge for the Duwamish River freeway to the west of the preserved bridge on East Marginal Way. (Legislators also increased the speed limit on the state highway from 30 to 40 mph, which was just as exciting as the announcement of the new freeway.) A second 20 foot lane was to be built next to the first road that had been completed and the entire project had a price of $ 3,065,000 ($ 46 million in 2021).
The West Valley Road and the High Line
In 1927, West Valley Road followed a 33.4 mile route south from Seattle along East Marginal Way to what is now Interurban Boulevard, then through Tukwila and south on West Valley Road to Sumner before heading west to Tacoma. Although this was viewed as the main road between the two cities, a second route had gained considerable following by the early 1920s, so there was talk of making it the main road for a while. Known as the High Line, this route was much shorter at 24 miles. But it was a more difficult journey with more hills and curves than the West Valley Road. Also, only part of the High Line was paved, and part of that paving was brick.
In 1927 the Southern High Line left Seattle and crossed the Duwamish River on the 14th Avenue Bridge in South Park before connecting with what is now Des Moines Memorial Drive. In the early 1920s, 1,432 American elms were planted along the nearly ten-mile drive from the Seattle city limits to the Kent-Des Moines Highway as a living memorial to the dead of World War I. This street section was later renamed accordingly. The memorial drive ended at Des Moines, and from there the last 13 miles to Tacoma were gravel. The road followed what is now Marine View Drive S through Redondo and turned west on Dash Point Road before turning south again for a dramatic end to the approach to Tacoma. Here the High Line fell down the great hill at Julia’s Gulch, a dangerous, winding traverse but with sweeping views of the Tacoma Flats below.
New and improved
The grading had been completed first at the southern end of the new freeway, and the works had more time to settle, so that part of the Redondo-Tacoma road was paved first. The work was largely completed in November 1927, and the southern section of the motorway was opened to traffic in December 1927. Work on the northern section was completed in October 1928, and the freeway was inaugurated by a retinue of Seattle and Tacoma officials that afternoon on October 18. They first met at the northern junction of the Interstate and West Valley Road, about a mile south of Boeing Field, to cut the ceremonial ribbon that opened the new route, and then drove to Angle Lake for dedicatory speeches.
The freeway helped speed the end of the Seattle-Tacoma highway, which closed in late 1928. The adjacent concrete road was opened to traffic in the early 1930s, making it a four-lane highway and making it easier for motorists to enjoy the new speed limit of 40 mph.
Swell:
“Thursday Ceremonies on the New Highway,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 14, 1928, p. 17; “One Side of the New Highway to Tacoma Needs Paving,” The Seattle Daily Times, Mar. 27, 1927, pp. 16-14; “New Tacoma Highway Unit Pavement Laid,” ibid. November 17, 1927, p. 16; CPI Inflation Calculator, website accessed March 9, 2021 (https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm); The Historic Pacific Highway in Washington: Tacoma to Seattle website, accessed March 10, 2021 (http://www.pacific-hwy.net/tacoma.htm); “Remembrance Trees,” SoCoCulture website, accessed March 10, 2021 (http://sococulture.org/remembrance-trees/).