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Sightseeing prompted building the Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern railroad


The Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern railroad started with sightseeing

Everyone knows that the Burke Gilman trail was originally a rail line. Most people assume that the line was designed to serve the sawmills that lined the shores of Lake Washington in the 1880s.


Consequently, you might be surprised to learn from the Kenmore Heritage Society website that the line was originally conceived as a passenger train. The primitive woodland trails connecting Seattle with Kenmore made travel difficult, so the idea for the rail line was to provide Sunday excursion trains full of sightseers wishing to see the countryside from Seattle through Kenmore to Snoqualmie Falls. Who knew?


You can learn about this and many other interesting historical parts of Kenmore’s fascinating past at the new virtual Historylink tour. You can make each history tour a walking tour by downloading the app.


How to download the historylink tour app to your mobile device:

  • On an Apple device, visit this website in Safari. Select the ‘Share’ icon from the Safari footer, and then select the ‘Add to Home’ option. Follow the directions to save HistoryLink Tours as an app to your home screen.

  • On an Android device, visit this website in the Chrome browser. Select Chrome’s ‘Menu’ button in the top right corner, and then select the ‘Add to Home screen’ option. Follow the directions to save HistoryLink Tours as an app to your home screen.

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