In this image, a portrait of William H. Boyes appears above a test track he demonstrated in 1911 in the tide flats of Seattle. Boyes sold shares in his Pacific Railway Company for the proposed monorail electric system operating passenger and freight trains between Elliott Bay in Seattle and Commencement Bay in Tacoma. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on May 2, 1911, but construction was never completed. Boyes was discovered not to be the inventor as he claimed, was incapable of constructing the monorail, and was forced to repay his stockholders.
Handwritten on recto: Wm H. Boyes, Inventor. Copyright 1919.
Caption information source: The Seattle Daily Times, April 5, 1910, page 10; October 20, 1911, page 3 Caption information source: http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/History.html
ID Number: SHS16810
Date: 1911
Physical Description: 1 photographic postcard: b&w ; 3.5 x 5.5 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
