Free admission should make museum appreciation easier

On Saturday, lots of museums and cultural institutions nationwide, including more than a half-dozen in this area, will be open, for free, to salute Smithsonian magazine's Museum Day.

Free admission cards are required, and available online at www.smithsonianmagazine.com/museumday/articles/card.php. And so is a list of Northwest participants. Among them are the downtown Seattle Art Museum and its Capitol Hill Asian Art Museum, and even the Experience Music Project near Seattle Center.

Community calendar

Special Olympics Washington benefit

Saturday: Law-enforcement officers across the state will put away their handcuffs and badges for a few hours, and don aprons and menus to serve burgers and other gastronomic fare at Red Robin restaurants to raise money for Special Olympics Washington, which provides athletic programs for children and adults with disabilities. For the "Tip-A-Cop" fundraiser, all tips from diners — from noon to 8 p.m. — will go to the program. (Restaurant locations are listed online at www.redrobin.com.)

Helping exhibits

The Northwest African-American Museum being established in Seattle is seeking historical photographs, diaries, letters and other artifacts for exhibits in its new space, the renovated Colman School, scheduled to open in March. The museum is most interested in letters from the late 19th century or the early 20th century, written by African Americans in Washington. Information is online at naamnw.org/.

To submit an item to Here & Now, e-mail herenow@seattletimes.com or call 206-464-2226.

Sept. 25, 1902: The Seattle-Tacoma Interurban Railway, later named the Puget Sound Electric Railway, inaugurated electric rail service between a terminal in Seattle's Pioneer Square and downtown Tacoma, with a branch line to Renton. Most of the line ran on private, fenced right-of-way with an electrified third rail providing power. But the train was powered on tracks along city streets in Seattle and Tacoma by overhead wires. The typical run took just over an hour and a half. The line was part of a system that also owned the Tacoma City Railway. Competition from cars speeding over paved roads pushed the interurban to bankruptcy by the late 1920s. The line was abandoned in 1928.

Source: Historylink.org