Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad

[7] When the Northern Pacific Railway chose nearby Tacoma as its western terminus (1873), many thought that this would condemn Seattle to, at best, a secondary role on Puget Sound.

[4][9] Its founding trustees were Arthur Denny, John Collins, Franklin Mathias, Angus Mackintosh, Henry Yesler, James McNaught, J. J. McGilvra, J. M. Colman, and Dexter Horton.

He staked US$20,000 of his own money—a fortune in those days, especially during the slow recovery from the Panic of 1873—on the condition that other Seattle businessmen would loan the enterprise at least twice that sum.

[3] The most difficult part of building the line was the trestle ran south from the King Street Coal Wharf, carrying trains through the tide flats that would later be filled to form Seattle's Industrial District.

The resulting trestle was short-lived, though: shipworms attacked the pilings, and this portion of the line had to be replaced by the successor Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad less than five years after it was initially built.

[21][18] Like its predecessor, the C&PSRR continued to lay track in the coal-rich terrain of Western Washington, mainly extending lines south and east from Renton via Black Diamond to Franklin (December 1884), but also extending service a short distance from Newcastle to nearby Coal Creek in December 1881.

Additional short lines out of Black Diamond would eventually go to Denny (renamed Bruce in 1897) and 1.65 miles (2.66 km) to Kummer; the latter opened no later than June 30, 1903); about halfway between Renton and Black Diamond, a line was extended from Maple Valley to Taylor (a company town owned by the Denny Clay Company[22]) around May 1893.

At Maple Valley, it connected to a line owned by the Milwaukee Road, the Chicago, & Puget Sound Railway Company.

[6] "[S]ervice was unpredictable and sometimes absent altogether," charges were high, and no break bulk cargo was allowed (an individual merchant had to ship and receive by the carload).

In 1909, following up on a 1906 agreement,[28] the Milwaukee Road was extended similar trackage rights from the south to what had been granted to the Puget Sound Shore Railroad.