This flash briefing is all about West Seattle in Washington (WA) State.
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Good Day WS! Thanks for joining us for West Seattle Daily Ep 022 on this Thursday, brought to you by Sea-Town Real Estate. I'm your host, Christian Harris.
Happy Throwback Thursday! If you live in West Seattle for any length of time, you'll inevitable hear people complain about the traffic on the West Seattle Bridge. But did you know that not that long ago, it was way worse! The upper WS Bridge wasn't completed until the mid-80s?
Which is a bit shocking if you think about it, because there is only really 2 ways in and out of West Seattle... at the time it was just a lower two lane WS Bridge and the First Ave S Bridge going into Georgetown.
The residence of WS had been wanting a new bridge option for decades but the city of Seattle didn't want to fund it.
On June 11, 1978 the issue came to a head when the bascule West Seattle Bridge (built in 1924) was struck by the freighter Antonio Chavez, permanently damaging it in the open draw bridge position, making it unusable. losing that span to automobile traffic for the next six years until the new upper WS Bridge was built and completed on July 14, 1984 for $150 million with $60M secure from federal funding.
The ship captain that hit the bridge was apparently had a drinking problem, "retired" 2 weeks after the bridge racing incident and was killed by his wife 2 years later... so crazy.
The history of the WS Bridge is quite interesting. I discussed it and many other cool historical tidbits with Clay Eals, local history buff and past ED of the SW Historic Society on Episode 41 of the Sea-Town Podcast.
https://sea-townpodcast.com/ep-041-clay-eals-executive-director-southwest-historic-society/
Check it out and I'll catch ya'll tomorrow!