page_title: Thomas Burke (railroad builder)
section_title: Railwayman
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Burke (railroad builder) / Railwayman
caption_attribution_description: English: The Burke Building, Seattle Washington, 1900, and at left part of the Hotel Stevens. These buildings were razed for the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building. Item 65330, Miscellaneous Prints (Record Series 9910-01), Seattle Municipal Archives.
context_page_description: Thomas Burke was an American lawyer, railroad builder, and judge who made his career in Seattle, Washington. He served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Washington Territory from 1888 to 1889. He was the main representative of railroad magnate James J. Hill in Seattle. Burke Avenue, The Burke-Gilman Trail and the Burke Museum are named in his honor.
  Burke frequently organized subscription drives to raise money for Seattle projects, to the point that he often described himself as a "professional beggar." His would often be the first name on the petition, pledging the first dollar—or, later, the first thousand dollars.
context_section_description: Two years before Burke's arrival in Seattle, the Northern Pacific Railway had chosen nearby Tacoma as its western terminus. Many thought that this would condemn Seattle to, at best, a secondary role on Puget Sound. Burke would rise to prominence as a leader in Seattle's effort to avoid that fate.
  Seattle's first attempt to build its way into the national rail network—the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad—never got out of King County, although it did make a decent profit for its investors when Henry Villard bought it out in 1883 during his brief tenure at the head of Northern Pacific. However, Villard's successors operate the line intermittently at best, leaving the city little benefit from its support for the venture. 
  Burke raised money to send Daniel Hunt Gilman back east to seek investment for another railroad, the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (SLS&E). (Others involved in the founding of the railroad included David Denny, Thomas T. Minor, and George Kinnear.) In the event, Burke ended up accompanying Gilman on the trip. It became clear that any eastern investment would be dependent upon at least 10% of the investment coming from Seattle-area locals. The investment was found, and Burke became a railway attorney.
  The building of the SLS&E was a combination of hard-headed business and frontier disregard for law. On at least one occasion, Burke convinced the Snohomish County sheriff to head off to the wilderness with all of his deputies to prevent a representative of a rival railway scheme from serving a writ that would have prevented the construction of a bridge across the Snohomish River. Exploits like this helped to bring him to the attention of James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railway.
  Along with Judge Cornelius H. Hanford, Burke convinced the Seattle City Council to establish the 120-foot (37 m) Railroad Avenue (now Alaskan Way) along the downtown waterfront. The SLS&E got first choice of a right-of-way.
  The Northern Pacific eventually gained control of SLS&E by purchasing a majority of its stock. By this time, Seattle had established itself well enough as a city that Northern Pacific chose actually to operate the line (though the city did not get a major passenger terminal until 1905).
  Burke was a partner with Bostonian Frank Osgood and Seattle pioneer David Denny in the city's first horse-drawn streetcars (1884); only five years later, the three built one of the country's first electric streetcar lines.
  James J. Hill hired Burke in 1890 as the local counsel for the Great Northern, virtually guaranteeing Seattle's role as that line's western terminus. However, city engineer R. H. Thomson opposed adding yet another railroad to the crowded waterfront. When the Great Northern ran its first train to Seattle June 20, 1893, the end of the line was at Smith Cove in Interbay, a bit north of downtown. Eventually, Hill, Burke, and the city engineer's office reached a mutually satisfactory solution to the problem: the Great Northern Tunnel, a railway tunnel under downtown Seattle, built 1903–1906.
  Burke died on December 4, 1925.  He is buried at the Burke family monument at Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park.
caption: The Burke Building, downtown Seattle, built 1890, photographed 1900. On the site of today's Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.