By March 1902, Central Seattle Railway Company starts running street cars from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill. The brief history of this company before it was purchased by the Seattle Electric Company in January 1903 is murky.
On February 28, 1900, the City of Seattle awarded a street car franchise to J. M. Frink, E. P. Tremper, George F. Meacham, and W. H. White. The franchise gave them the right to lay tracks and operate a streetcar line from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill.
It is possible that there was a relationship between the group led by Frink and Stone & Webster, who were in the process of buying out and merging all the independent streetcar lines in Seattle. It was a foregone conclusion that the Seattle City Council was about to grant the Seattle Electric Company, a Stone & Webster subsidiary, a blanket city-wide franchise for streetcar lines. This meant that the Capitol Hill street car line would not exist very long as an independent company before being bought out by the Seattle Electric Company.
In December 1900, President Frink, Tremper, Meacham, and White incorporated the Central Seattle Railway Company, got a $250,000 mortgage, and started to build the streetcar line.
The date the Central Seattle Railway Company completed constructing the streetcar line and started running the four street cars with “Seattle Central Ry. Co.” painted on their sides is unknown but it probably started in late 1901 or early 1902. Although the Central Seattle Railway Company might have agreed to sell to the Seattle Electric Company as early as March 1902, the sale did not become official until January 13, 1903.
Soon after the Seattle Electric Company acquired the streetcar line the route to Capitol Hill was completely changed. From downtown Seattle the line traveled eastbound on Pike and Pine streets to 15th Avenue E and north the Volunteer Park.
The route went north through Pioneer Square before turning eastbound onto S Main Street at Occidental Avenue, to 8th Avenue S, jogged one block north to S Washington Street and continued east to 12th Avenue S, turned north to E Columbia Street, jogged east to 14th Avenue and continued north through Capitol Hill to City Park (renamed Volunteer Park). The route included a counterbalance system apparently completed before the Queen Anne Counterbalance.
