COURTESY OF LAWTON GOWEY

For nearly three years, West Seattle-bound trolleys were routed over the first of the West Seattle bascule bridges: the "North Bridge." The "Shoe Fly" (the curving contraption on the right) carried the streetcars to the level of the bridge. The contemporary photo was taken from the 1991 swing bridge that replaced the north bascule after the old bridge was knocked from service when a freighter rammed it in 1978. The "High Bridge" on the right was completed in 1984.

	PAUL DORPAT

Many years later, in his book "Digressions of a Native Son," Emmett Watson recalled the Shoe Fly and the rest of the trestle. "The way you got to First Avenue from West Seattle was by thumb or streetcar, those rattley old orange things. They clanked and swayed over an incredible old wooden trestle, high above Spokane Street, weaving and shaking until you had to close your eyes to keep from getting a headache."

When it was completed in 1924 the bascule bridge was for auto traffic only. The municipal streetcars continued to use a swing bridge that crossed the West Waterway a few hundred feet south of the new steel teeter-totter bridge. However, after it was determined that the pilings for the swing bridge were honeycombed with bore holes compliments of teredo worms, Mayor Bertha Landes closed it down, and the trolley service to West Seattle was cut off. For the few weeks needed to build the Shoe Fly, trolley riders were required to walk across the bascule bridge to board streetcars on the opposite side.

The Shoe Fly arrangement lasted until the twin West Seattle Bascule Bridge opened Sept. 30, 1930. Thereafter, westbound trolleys used one bridge, eastbound trolleys, the other. But the thrill was gone.