page_title: Reginald H. Thomson
section_title: Utilities
hierarchical_section_title: Reginald H. Thomson / Seattle city engineer / Utilities
caption_attribution_description: English: Laying pipe for Seattle's Cedar River Pipeline, 1900. Item 7297, Water Department Photographic Negatives (Record Series 8200-13 ), [http://www.seattle.gov/CityArchives/ Seattle Municipal Archives.
context_page_description: Reginald Heber Thomson was a self-taught American civil engineer. He worked in Washington state, mainly in Seattle, where he became city engineer in 1892 and held the position for two decades. Alan J. Stein wrote that Thomson "probably did more than any other individual to change the face of Seattle" and was responsible for "virtually all of Seattle's infrastructure".
  Despite the scope of his work, no major portion of Seattle's infrastructure has ever carried Thomson's name. He was supposed to have been memorialized by the R.H. Thomson Expressway, proposed in 1960 but never built.
  Among his achievements were the railway route through Snoqualmie Pass, the Lake Washington Ship Canal, much of the paving of Seattle's roads and sidewalks, numerous bridges over rivers and valleys, and major improvements to Seattle's sewer system, as well as straightening and deepening the Duwamish River and developing the Cedar River watershed, now one of Seattle's major sources of drinking water. He was also responsible for much of the regrading of Seattle, taking down hills and filling in the mudflats, and played a major role in the creation of Seattle City Light, the Port of Seattle, and the Hiram M.
context_section_description: When Thomson became city engineer, Seattle was still pumping its water supply from Lake Washington to a reservoir on Beacon Hill. Water supply was beginning to limit the city's growth; with great difficulty, Thomson convinced the city to pipe in water from the Cedar River Watershed, 30 miles (48 km) to the southeast of Seattle in the Cascade foothills. A December 24, 1900 test of the system went so well that it went into routine use 18 days later, filling the reservoir in City Park, renamed that same year as Volunteer Park.
  The Cedar River did not supply Seattle only with water: the City Light Cedar Falls hydroelectric plant began operation October 4, 1904; from January 10, 1905, Seattle had electric streetlights, and from September 9 of the same year, the city-owned utility was selling electricity to private customers.
caption: Laying the Cedar River pipeline
exif: {}