PETER CALLAGHAN; The News Tribune

Sometime around 5 p.m. on Monday, where the railroad tracks cross Pacific Avenue near the new Tacoma Art Museum, a lot of history will pass by.

Given the construction and disruptions that have become commonplace at this spot, you might not even notice. But if you're around, look for an engine and the handful of freight cars slowly rolling down the hill. The train will have just slid past the century-old warehouses that are now the University of Washington Tacoma campus. Its crew will have a quick peek at Union Station to the south and downtown to the north. They'll then slide under Interstate 705 toward the Foss Waterway and the Moon Yard.

A minute or so is all it will take. And then the last train to use the state's most historic stretch of track will itself be history. For the first time since 1873, the right of way that brought the first train to Puget Sound will be silent - the result of a $2.2 million deal between Sound Transit and Burlington Northern-Sante Fe.

Building a second transcontinental railroad, this one across the northern tier of the nation, was a dream of President Abraham Lincoln. It was during the Civil War that he signed the legislation calling for its construction. But the Northern Pacific Railroad took halting steps across the country.

The Prairie Line was part of a line that stretched only to Kalama on the Columbia River. From there passengers and freight would travel by ferry to Portland, where the Oregon short line connected the region to the Union Pacific's transcontinental line.

Still, winning the western terminus in a competition with Seattle and other Puget Sound towns was a big deal. It was July 1873 when the railroad's agents sent telegrams to the towns in the competition, each reading: "We have located the terminus on Commencement Bay."

The locals celebrated - even if the terminus was farther up the bay from their settlement now known as Old Town. When the decision was made, construction crews already were moving north from Kalama.

But the railroad was running out of time and money. A recession had forced work to stop on construction of the actual transcontinental line in North Dakota. And the federal charter would expire by year's end if the NP hadn't reached tidewater.

"Two routes were available for bringing the line into town, one with a gentle grade that would run eastward to the Puyallup and follow the river into town, or a shorter one with a steeper grade that would come through today's South Tacoma and Nalley Valley," wrote Murray Morgan in his history of Tacoma, "Puget's Sound."

"They chose the shorter one to save time."

The formal completion came on Dec. 16, 1873.

"By four o'clock the spike was firm, the speeches were over, and Tacoma was the western end of the transcontinental," Murray wrote. "But the track led only down to Kalama, after which there was a fifteen-hundred-mile gap in the line to Bismarck."

It wasn't until September 1883 that a reorganized and refinanced Northern Pacific completed its transcontinental line with a ceremony in western Montana. And it wasn't until 1888 that the tunnel through Stampede Pass gave Puget Sound an all-rail route east.

"The arrival of the railroad is the pivotal event in the history of the state of Washington," said David Nicandri, director of the Washington State Historical Society.

The spot where the tracks cross Pacific and drop to the waterway is a "pretty important place," said Michael Sullivan, who along with Nicandri will speak at a ceremony Tuesday at the UWT marking the closure.

"That's where Lincoln's dream was fulfilled," said Sullivan, who

refers to the Northern Pacific as "Lincoln's Lewis and Clark Expedition."

"Lewis and Clark's mission was to claim territory; Lincoln's was to populate it."

Local railroad historian Jim Fredrickson said the line across Pacific Avenue was the main line until 1914, when Northern Pacific built a new route around Point Defiance to avoid the steep climb through downtown. The Great Northern Railroad continued to use the old line until 1943, when protests by the city and those stuck waiting for long trains on Pacific led it to shift to the Point Defiance route, Frederick said. It has continued as a route for a few trains that service businesses in South Tacoma, Lakewood and for the military at Fort Lewis.

Gus Melonas, a spokesman for BNSF, said the railroad agreed to stop using 2.1 miles of the line so that Sound Transit could avoid costly safety improvements needed to allow its light rail trains to intersect with freight trains. The railroad will continue to serve customers on the uphill side of the closed right of way by doubling back from Nisqually, Melonas said.

So 130 years of living history will end Monday. Trains that have become part of the local color of UWT will disappear.

Let's hope Monday's final train arriving at Tacoma via the Prairie Line will have a better fate than the first. In "Tacoma: Its History and its Builders," Herbert Hunt wrote: "The first train that came into Tacoma was, of course, a construction train and (Nicholas) Lawson was its conductor ... When he brought the first train in, pushing the rude kitchen, dining and sleeping cars ahead of the engine, something went wrong at the foot of 11th Street and most of the train was heaped in a serious wreck."

The thousands that followed have had a much easier time.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@mail.tribnet.com

How to get involved

• To commemorate the closure of the Prairie Line, the University of Washington Tacoma will sponsor a lecture Tuesday featuring historic preservation consultant Michael Sullivan and state History Museum director David Nicandri. It will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Keystone Auditorium, 1900 Commerce St. Admission is free.

News Tribune Staff

The final train passed through downtown Tacoma shortly after 5 p.m. Monday on the Prairie Line, the route of the first Northern Pacific train to reach Puget Sound in 1873.

Small clusters of people gathered along the 2.1-mile line between M Street and the Foss Waterway to watch the historic passage.

The line is being taken out of service after 130 years as part of a deal between Sound Transit and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Sound Transit will avoid costly safety enhancements where its tracks intersect with the Prairie Line at Pacific Avenue and South 17th Street.

The final train made a slow passage down the hill carrying four empty freight cars. The last train carrying freight climbed the hill about 4:15 p.m. with animal feed, pumice and military equipment, said BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas.

To commemorate the closure of the Prairie Line, the University of Washington Tacoma will sponsor a lecture today featuring historic preservation consultant Michael Sullivan and state History Museum director David Nicandri. It will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Keystone Auditorium, 1900 Commerce St. Admission is free.