History of Chambers Bay (Part 3)

Via Chambers Creek Foundation Newsletter.

Railways Bring Big Changes

Perhaps nothing changed our Chambers Creek area — and many other areas across the United States and beyond—like the onset of rail transportation. For Chambers Creek, that impactful first railroad company was the Tacoma-Steilacoom Railroad, and it came to town in the early 1890s, just shortly after Washington became a state.

The rail line essentially was a steam-powered streetcar that ran 12 miles along either side of Chambers Creek Canyon from Tacoma to Steilacoom (pop. 250), where city folk would recreate in Steilacoom’s hotels and shops. The cars eventually moved from steam power to electricity, then horses, before becoming obsolete by 1916. The reason for its demise: competition.

Between 1890 and 1892, Tacoma Railway and Power constructed two railroad tracks on the Chambers Bay shoreline, one on the north and one on the south. The track on the north edge of the bay was never used and was dismantled in 1916, but the south line was modified and used for the Tacoma-Steilacoom line. Remnants of the northern railroad roadbed remain in the project area and extend approximately 1,600 feet on the north side of Chambers Bay and are 10 feet wide. Some of those tracks serviced the Everett Pulp and Paper Mill, while others serviced gravel mines for which two piers were built to transport the product by water.

In 1914, the Northern Pacific Railroad constructed its shoreline tracks alongside Puget Sound—tracks still in use today. The old station in the town of Steilacoom is located next to the Anderson/Ketron/McNeil Island Ferry Terminal.

These railways and the many others sprouting up throughout the region before and after this time set the stage for commerce to boom in the Chambers Creek area, and beyond.