In its early years, this line was sometimes confusingly referred to as another “Irvington Line” after the territory it ran through, before settling on the name of the major thoroughfare it traversed after crossing the river from the West Side.

The line originally ran across the first Burnside Bridge and north up Union Avenue [MLK, Jr. Avenue] to Broadway, where it turned east. At NE 19th Avenue, it turned south to NE Halsey, and then east to a terminus at NE 22nd Avenue... or perhaps only to 21st? Maps and contemporaneous articles can’t quite agree on the location of this outer terminus.

On December 1, 1906, the downtown loop changed from its original route of Burnside, 5th, Washington and 1st to use 2nd instead of 1st.

Starting in July 1908, the line was extended from Broadway and NE 19th to NE 22nd and then north: first to NE Thompson Street and then to NE Knott street by December 1909.

A similar extension along NE 24th was proposed in July 1909, with the original idea being to form a loop using 24th, Knott and 22nd. Construction began in September 1909, with a need to get the extension to at least the corner of Broadway and 24th before President Taft visited Portland in early October 1909 to lay a cornerstone at the church being built there [this church is now Steeplejack Brewing]. Residents on NE 19th and Halsey bitterly protested the removal of their section of line in favor of this new extension. Once the main line was extended north up 22nd, this little branch to Broadway and 24th was used by short-turn tripper cars.

The Alameda Land Company then induced PRL&P to run further north to NE 24th and Fremont, the southern gateway to their new Alameda Park addition. The line up NE 22nd was extended from Knott to Fremont and then east to NE 24th. The extension was opened on schedule, with cars first running on February 3, 1910.

Almost immediately, work began on pushing the line up the hill to NE 29th and Mason, right in the heart of Alameda Park, again at the expense of the real estate company. This extension overran its construction deadline considerably: originally promised for July 1910, it seems to have opened in late November/early December 1910, with service initially being offered by a shuttle car that met the Broadway cars at NE 24th and Fremont. Regularly scheduled Broadway cars began running all the way through to the new (and final) terminus in February 1911.

Dates vary somewhat on the completion of the Broadway line’s one-way loop on the east side. One article seemingly gives a definitive date of November 26, 1910, but another article from December 4, 1910 indicates that construction on 24th was still ongoing. Early December seems a safe bet. Cars ran north on 24th and south on 22nd.

On July 9, 1911, the downtown loop was completely changed: cars now went south off Burnside at 3rd down to Alder and back up on 2nd. When the Broadway line was rerouted over the new Steel Bridge on September 8, 1912, this loop was extended northwards to the new bridge. Cars returned to 3rd to head north over the bridge via Flanders street.

Though the Broadway Bridge opened on April 22, 1913, it wasn’t until September 2, 1913 that the western leg of the Broadway line was rerouted over the new bridge and then south on Broadway to SW Jefferson. Unusually, the line didn’t use a downtown loop, but simply returned back the way it came. An attempt to loop the line around the Broadway Theater in 1937 on SW Salmon, SW 6th and SW Main was strongly opposed and came to nothing.

Prior to the Broadway Bridge’s opening, what is now Broadway on the west side was known simply as Seventh Street, slotting into the numbering system in use there. The name changed after the namesake bridge connected the two sides of the river.

The last change in routing came in January 1940, when the line moved from the Broadway Bridge back to the Steel Bridge. This required pavement to be removed from on top of the tracks along N Williams Avenue between Broadway and Holladay Street, but allowed consolidation of trolleybus routes onto the Broadway Bridge. This remained the Broadway line’s route until abandonment at the end of July 1948.

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