Bloomsday and some more rail history

The first Sunday in May was this past weekend which meant it was time for Bloomsday in Spokane, the annual race and fun run (and walk) held each year since 1977. Or almost every year as it was canceled the past two years due to the pandemic. But people were back this year and a little over 29,000 people participated this year, a reasonable sized crowd even if it was the smallest number of participants since 1983.

As I was out of town on Sunday I participated in the virtual Bloomsday which means I could pick my own date and route as long as it was at least 7.46 miles long. The official course primarily sticks to arterials which are not fun to walk along so I chose a route that combined mostly trails and residential streets, but also incorporated parts of the official course so that I could include Doomsday Hill.

My starting point was Olmstead Brothers Green. I followed the Centennial Trail west which includes this segment of trail along the former Great Northern right-of-way which I mentioned in my last post. Great Northern used this section from 1902 to 1973.

I continued along the Centennial Trail all the way to the TJ Meenach bridge. This is a view from West Summit Blvd. looking northeast toward North Pettet Drive, also known as 'Doomsday Hill,' which leads down to the bridge. The southern stretch of Pettet Drive, just to the right of this photo, is on top of the right-of-way of the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern built in 1888, then used by the Great Northern from 1892 to 1902. This photo shows how the north part of Pettet Drive, between the red arrows, quickly drops down the hill toward the river, much faster than the old railroad did. The yellow arrows point out the old railroad grade which is still clearly visible 120 years after being abandoned.

This view shows the T J Meenach bridge over the Spokane river which is what Pettet Drive drops down to meet. My route took me to the middle of the bridge where I turned around and headed back up the hill. Yellow arrows show the old railroad grade of the Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern. The solid yellow line is the approximate location of a bridge that went across the gulch where North T J Meenach Drive is located today. Just to the left of this photo is where the SLS&E bridge over the Spokane River was, about 1,300 feet downstream from today's T J Meenach Bridge. 

From the south end of Pettet Drive, the official Bloomsday course heads to Lindeke Street which it follows down to Broadway. I instead used A Street, Dean Avenue and Cochran Street so I could follow old trolley tracks. Most of Spokane's electric trolley tracks were removed over time and there is hardly any trace along the arterials that once had tracks. But if you look along residential streets that were once trolley routes you can still find tracks where there hasn't been a need for a major road repaving in the past century. This picture is looking down Dean Avenue to the east.

This photo is at the corner of Dean and Cochran. This particular trolley line was owned by Washington Water Power and was one of their two lines that provided service Natatorium Park along the Spokane River. I'm not sure exactly what year this line was built. From here I zig-zagged back down toward Kendall Yards and roughly followed the old Great Northern route toward Riverfront Park.

I included the clock tower from the old Great Northern depot on my route. It's also incorporated in this year's Bloomsday T-shirt design. This was my other turnaround point. From here I headed back to Olmstead Brothers Green.

Lots of shooting stars are now out all over the place.