In the first decade of the twentieth century, small neighborhood food stores — groceries, butcher stores, bakeries, and candy stores -– began to appear along the busiest streets of Queen Anne. These small family businesses opened along streets where Seattle’s electric streetcars ran. Some of these streets were paved; others were dirt or wood planked.
By 1910, when the population of Seattle was approximately 240,000, there were four electric streetcar lines operating along the streets of Queen Anne. They were owned at that time by the Seattle Electric Company, a subsidiary of the Stone & Webster utility cartel.[i] Only the wealthy could afford horse-drawn carriages, and automobiles were a novelty, so most travel around Seattle was by electric streetcar. …Continue reading “Remembering Queen Anne’s Neighborhood Grocery Stores: First in a Series”
