The idea of building a rail corridor along Seattle 's Central Waterfront goes back at least to Thomas Burke and Daniel Hunt Gilman and the construction of the Seattle , Lake Shore and Eastern Railway in the years before the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 . Railroad Avenue was built as a planked roadway on pilings over the waters of Elliott Bay . South of Downtown , the rail line constituted the one major man-made feature in an area of tideflats
Great Seattle Fire
Great Seattle Fire
Alaskan Way