As early as 1910, inventors and businessmen believed that a monorail would solve Seattle's downtown traffic problems. The Universal Elevated Railway Company tried to convince the city to build monorails on Fourth and Westlake Avenues, but the city decided to develop a ground-level trolley system instead. About fifty years later, a monorail was built along part of Westlake Avenue to carry people from downtown to the Seattle World's Fair.

This photo shows an artist's idea of what Seattle's Fourth Avenue and Westlake Avenue monorails might look like. The drawing was made for the Universal Elevated Railway Company, sometime around 1920. The artist superimposed his drawing on a photograph of the intersection.

Webster & Stevens number: 67468