West Seattle Junction Association

This guide to the West Seattle Junction in Seattle starts in 1906, when the independent town of West Seattle built and ran its own streetcar line up from the ferry docks, becoming one of the first towns anywhere to own its rails outright. It follows the crossing of California Avenue and Alaska Street, where those tracks once met and gave the Junction its name, and asks how a town that succeeded so well at drawing shoppers lost its own city hall within a year. The guide also traces the neighborhood's long-running July tradition of shutting its streets to cars for Summer Fest, a habit that has held since 1982.