Old streetcar maps often do a very poor job of actually showing how the routes ran – often just drawing an otherwise unmarked red line down the middle of roads on a standard cartographic map without any explanation of stops, loops or route names (see left for an example). Finding accurate information about the actual routing of individual lines can be a long and thankless process, so when long-time Transit Maps correspondent Karl Otterstrom tweeted not only a timetable, but a full turn-by-turn listing of streetcar routes in Spokane in 1912, I knew that I had the chance to make something awesome – a comprehensive map that showed every route in its entirety, untangling the old network and removing a lot of the mystery about how streetcars in Spokane actually worked.
Without further ado, here’s the map in my spiffy new zoomable map format. View the map in the window below – you can zoom in and out, pan around, and also go full screen. Or, you can also click here to experience the map in a full browser window. Read on underneath the map for a comprehensive overview of the design process.
Background
1912 is definitely my favourite period for streetcars in Spokane – the absolute apogee of electric rail transit in that city. The two remaining streetcar companies – the Washington Water Power Co. (WWP) and the Spokane Traction Division (STD) of the Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad Co. (S&IERR) – had expanded the city lines to almost their maximum extent, and electric interurban lines ran as far afield as Medical Lake, Cheney, Coeur d’Alene, Colfax, and Moscow, Idaho – see my research map of these interurban routes here. By 1922, declining revenues would force the two companies to merge into the Spokane United Railways (SUP) and the rapid descent into obsolescence began.
Routes, routes and more routes!
But in 1912, there were a staggering 25 separate city lines in Spokane – the WWP ran 13 (11 running through downtown along with two short shuttle routes), and the STD had 12, all of which ran around a downtown loop bounded by Wall Street, Riverside Avenue, Washington Street and Sprague Avenue. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be practical to show every single route in the cramped downtown area without some massive distortion of the central part of the map, so I had to think of a different solution.
It didn’t take me long to decide that I needed to bundle similar routes together into colour-coded “trunk lines”, much like the current New York subway map does. This was pretty easy for the STD lines, as they simply went around the loop and exited downtown along one of four roads. One colour for each of these “exit roads” would do the trick – giving four trunk lines, each serving a their own distinct sector of the city.
The WWP lines took a little longer to decipher, as most of them were through-running, entering downtown on one road and exiting on another, but I came up with a system that noted how each line passed the network’s “zero point” at the intersection of Riverside Avenue and Howard Street. This gave me a manageable five WWP trunk lines plus the two separate shuttle routes. Because of the through-running nature of the WWP network, their trunk lines spread out across the whole city without quite the same sense of order as the STD lines.
I used a palette of related colours for each company’s trunk lines – cool, watery blues for the WWP (because water, right?) and warm reds, oranges and yellows for the STD – which quickly tell all the competing lines apart at a glance. This cool/warm balance also helps the map work better for colour-blind users.
It should be noted here that streetcars in Spokane never used lettered or numerical designations for lines, only large signs or blinds that named the line (“Altamont”), final destination (“Natatorium Park”) or sometimes even both. The use of lettered and numbered bullets to denote routes on this map is therefore entirely my own invention, but I think it works well.
The grid
Once I had my trunk lines and colours locked in, I set about laying out the map using the turn-by-turn descriptions of the routes and street maps of Spokane from 1906, 1910, 1912 and 1922 to cross-check information. Spokane is an extremely regular city with streets and avenues crossing at right angles almost everywhere, so I drew up an underlying “perfect grid”, where all the major roads continue across the map as if they were always perfectly straight (in reality, a lot of them get nudged out of alignment by being platted at different times or because of geography). This straightens out and simplifies some of the streetcar lines, notably on Sinto Avenue east of Washington Street, and on Cleveland Avenue west of Post Street.
After this, it was simply a matter of plotting each route out, following the turn-by-turn directions and adjusting things slightly if it didn’t look right. The directions only had one error that I could see, putting the southern end of the WWP’s Indiana–Stafford’s Addition line at Cannon and Sixteenth, when every map I had put it at Chestnut and Sixteenth instead. Roads that the streetcars travel along are labelled where it was practicable to do so and still keep the map looking aesthetically pleasing. Shorter sections where a line jogs across or down one or two blocks aren’t always named, but I think enough information is given to get a really good idea of exactly where all the lines ran.
Typography
While the mapping style is decidedly modern, I still wanted to pay homage to the period of time that the map represents. Trade Gothic Condensed for labelling and Champion Heavyweight for the map’s title evoke an early 20th century American typographical style while still remaining clean and legible. I had to do a lot of work to find the right balance for the size of the labels – early versions had type that was far too small to be useful.
Other notes
It’s definitely important to note that the Spokane of 1912 is not the same as today’s modern city, and I’ve tried to be as faithful as possible to that older place with this map. Quite a few street names are different – the original Front Avenue compared to today’s Spokane Falls Boulevard is the most noticeable example, but there are others that can be found across the map as well.
Researching the parks shown on the map was interesting, as quite a few of the parks in Spokane today had not been founded at this point in time – the famous Olmsted report [PDF link] on parks and other city improvements had been submitted, but not implemented, by 1912. On the other hand, Riverside Park was much larger than it is now, as the cemetery wouldn’t be carved out of it until 1914 – it was actually illegal to have a burial place within city limits in 1912.
The locations of both company’s car barns and shops are noted on the map, as is the location of their downtown interurban terminals: the grand three-storey S&IERR electric interurban terminal, and the less impressive WWP passenger depot on Post Street. Interurban stations within the area of the map are also shown, though these trains often stopped at pretty much every corner downtown to allow passengers to board and alight.
The map’s reference grid simply divides the map into a 10 by 10 grid in order to locate the end points of each line in the legend. I know that Spokane uses Division Street and Sprague Avenue to divide the city into its quadrants, but I couldn’t make those axes divide the canvas into equal parts without making the map itself horribly off-centre.
The legend is something I’m really happy with – it looks great and is filled with as much information as I could glean from 1912 timetables – headways for the city lines (10 minutes on some lines, and even less on some sections where multiple routes ran together), and the numbers of trains per day for the interurban lines. The only line with less information than I’d like is the odd little S&IERR Vera Division, which provided local service from Sprague Avenue eastwards through the towns of Opportunity, Vera and Flora to the picnic grounds at Liberty Lake. The only timetable I’ve ever seen for it is from 1927, long past these halcyon days and with a fraction of the service.
Conclusion
This was a deeply satisfying map to make, and I’m really happy with the result: an attractive, modern-looking map that still evokes the now long-distant era when streetcars dominated Spokane. I especially want to give thanks to Karl Otterstrom, without whom this map simply wouldn’t have been made. As always, comments and corrections are most welcome. Prints of this map are available in the Transit Maps print store.
Wow! I can’t believe I finally found a map of the transit systems that once served Spokane! It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to view your work and say “Yep. I’m getting this!” 😁 This looks amazing and looking forward to geeking out over my printed copy! And thank YOU for all your effort put into creating something like this! From your post, I get the sense that we share a fascination (and sense of loss- it’s heartbreaking to consider what Spokane would be like today if even just one or two of these lines were kept in place 🥲) for the interesting and mysterious mostly forgotten infrastructure of Spokane. Also, transit maps are just such cool things too.
Beyond cool.
Excellent job of route preservation. I’ve been trying to research another route, with little success. Seems no one is discussing an incomplete line through Indian Canyon. I hiked this line as a kid, having grown up on the edge of Indian Canyon. We thought it might be a trolley line but I have found no reference to it. It seems to begin near the seventh and Lindeke street switch location and winds around the contours just north of Indian Canyon Golf Course. It once crossed the Canyon Drive and appeared to require a trestle to cross Indian Canyon creek. While the area appears to have been prepared for trestle construction, there is no indication that it was ever built. The graded rail bed continues west toward the original platted Quarry Addition, where the Spokane Indians once lived. It then curves toward Greenwood Drive apparently trying to intersect or join Elliott Drive on the southwest side of Greenwood Cemetery. The graded rail bed ends before reaching Greenwood Drive. After that, it was a cleared trail down to Elliott Drive. My theory is that this line was meant to serve Indian Canyon park and the proposed Quarry Addition, but was never completed. The trestle was never built. This may be due to the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 followed by the economic failure of the trolley system in 1936. I so far have no proof of any of this except that approximately 3 miles of unused graded right of way does exist in this area and I can’t find any record of it. If anyone knows anything, any information you could post here would be appreciated.
Wayne, the answer to that question is surprisingly easy – it’s the remnants of a proposed Spokane & Inland Empire RR interurban line from Spokane to Seven Mile Bridge (with a spur to the hydro dam at Nine Mile Bridge), and thence on to Miles and the Spokane Indian Reservation via Davenport. Surveying began in 1906 and land purchases for much of the right of way were made (and some preliminary grading and construction work done, by what you’re saying), but the project was abandoned by 1910 with no rail ever laid. It can be seen on this great map of the “Spokane Country”, along with another proposed extension to Squaw Bay on Lake Pend Oreille that was also never built.
Thanks for your reply, Cameron. Whatever that road was, it was assuredly defunct before completion. I’ve seen that Spokane Country map before and found it to be unhelpful in this case as it lacks the necessary details. Those apparently post-printing, hand-drawn red lines are suspicious, at best. Plus, this map doesn’t show other well known details such as the actual route of the SP&S where it branches off the Great Northern near Fort Wright. My ancient photocopy of a 1912 plat map does a better job. Until I can see it on a map with a scale of 7.5 minutes or better, I can’t really accept this explanation. Searches of the Spokesman Review archives have turned up nothing. Spokane parks documents don’t mention anything. The “Spokane’s Street Railways” book by Mutschler, Parent, and Siegert mentions nothing. Not knowing who marked up the map or when, leaves me with many questions. While being an interurban line is not out of the question, the gaping hole in documentation is disturbing to me. I can only continue the search for sources at this point. If I can come up with additional evidence, I will post it here.
Better details of the proposed route that I describe are in Clive Carter’s “Inland Empire Electric Line” book, which covers the history of the S&IE in far more detail than “Spokane’s Street Railways”. From the book:
“Building of an electric line down the Spokane River toward Nine Mile Bridge will commence…” announced Jay Graves on August 30, 1906. Surveys were underway on both sides of the river and land purchases made… The proposed route followed the S&IE high-tension power line between Spokane and the Nine Mile Dam as far as the Seven Mile Bridge. At that point it crossed the Spokane River to the south bank and extended to Mondovi and Davenport.
From that description, it’s clear to me that the map depicts this route fairly accurately, if not in full detail. (Side note: the red lines are overprinted as a spot color on the printed map. The terrible compression algorithm used to save the file as a JPG has smeared a lot of detail, making it look like it might be hand drawn.) However, it can be discerned that the line leaves the city close to that 7th and Lindeke junction you mention and winds up to cross the Spokane River to the east bank near Fort Wright – which generally matches your description of the graded road bed. With absolutely no evidence of any other planned or proposed rail line through this area, Occam’s Razor should be applied – i.e., the simplest explanation is the best one. With the limited available right of way through this area, the idea that there was another unknown planned route here almost beggars belief.
I just this morning came across your excellent map. Thank you for all the effort you put into it. I live across the street from the Hutton home at 17th and Crestline. Word has it that the street car turned around at this intersection, which would explain the small park and the way the street wraps around it. Your map suggests that the street car line extended further towards Ray St. Can you solve this mystery? Thank you!
My source for the routing as it stood in 1912 is first-hand and contemporaneous: a turn-by-turn route listing from the Polk Guide to Spokane, which reads:
RIVERVIEW: South on Wall to Sprague av, east to Washington, south to Second av, east to Sherman, south to Ninth av., east to Hatch, south to Southeast Boulevard, southeast to Sixteenth av, east to Pittsburg, south to Seventeeth av, east to Ray.
The excellent book “Spokane’s Street Railways” by Chas V. Mutschler, et. al. has this to say: “The city lines of the S&IE included several lines built to serve the South Hill. During 1908 and 1909 two were built. One ran on 17th to Ray, where it terminated.” So it seems that the end of the line was always Ray from the beginning. Looking at the jog in the road at 17th and Crestline, I’d say that that’s just subdivisions being platted at different times and the roads not aligning (we have lots of these in Portland as well!). 17th is out of alignment in a 1906 map of Spokane, the streetcar line just smoothed the transition so the cars could move between them. I’d also say that the parklet there is way too small for the turning radius required by streetcars.