In 1898 the Seattle Electric Company was granted a contract to consolidate the city's 22 separate streetcar lines and private street railways. The SEC was an arm of the national Stone & Webster utility cartel, which also controlled the city’s electrical grid and operated the Puget Sound Electric Railway (PSER), an interurban line linking Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett. Due to the rise of the automobile, most of Seattle's street rails had been pulled up by 1941, although as of 2018 the city has begun rebuilding some streetcar lines and light rail routes.

The Seattle Electric Company trolley trip guide pictured here was printed in time for the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition (AYPE), a world's fair held in Seattle June 1-October 16, 1909. The pamphlet includes a guide for reaching the fair on the University of Washington campus, as well as descriptions of city attractions, and a list of the Northwest League's home baseball games.

Caption information source: "Street Railways in Seattle," by Walt Crowley, HistoryLink.org Essay 2707.