Highland Park Improvement Club’s new streetside art revives streetcar memories

| Highland Park | West Seattle news | WS culture/arts

(Seattle Municipal Archives photo of what’s described as the Highland Park-Burien line’s Hillside Station – possibly in Riverview – 1915)

What is currently a busy bridge-detour route now, with thousands of cars passing each day, held trolley tracks a century ago, and Highland Park Improvement Club is honoring that with its newest streetside sandwich-board art. The four boards, installed this afternoon along SW Holden east of 12th SW, say this to westbound drivers/riders/passersby:

Those traveling eastbound will see H-P-I-C.

And yes, the boards are secured:

The artists also put together the display we showed you back in August.

The streetcars that traveled nearby were part of the Highland Park-Lake Burien Railroad, in service from 1912-1929.

Trickycoolj October 18, 2020 (11:39 pm)

Great History Link article! Kind of funny that a mudslide on 9th (now HP Way) stopped service for a while… sounds familiar. Hopefully our detour off the island won’t experience the same fate.

Craig October 19, 2020 (6:13 am)

There will be mud…Mike Bergman’s video on the line is another great resource on the Highland Park and Lake Burien Railway. This is a fascinating piece of local history. https://vimeo.com/220239894 HPIC thanks for a dreamy reminder of our tireless predecessors. There is a amazing shot of workers clearing the slide off the tracks not long after the line opened. (I’ll try to post it here)

KayK October 19, 2020 (10:30 am)

In fact that hill has had many slides over the years and as mentioned remains unstable to date. Noticed that City Light just added a guy wire pole to help hold the power lines up.