Seattle

“ Seattle and civilization in very truth came next. How the city had grown, and what a pleasure there was in its bustle, the roar of traffic, and the throngs of well-dressed, busy men and women in its streets. ”

“ The men who founded the city laid out its streets in almost impossible places, but modern engineering is cutting down the hills and filling up the hollows. There is no end to the enterprise of the people in these respects. Every breath one breathes in Seattle is a city breath. Men from the prairies of Iowa have become city builders in Seattle. Industrial reverses may overtake them, they likely will, and their winters are said to be atrociously foggy and wet, but they are going to make Seattle a place of which all Americans will be proud, one of the great commercial cities of the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ Among the cities of the future upon the Pacific Coast, Seattle and Los Angeles are the two that impress me as affording the wider opportunity and certainty of growth, wealth and controlling influence in trade, in commerce, in politics. If I were a young man just starting out, I should choose one of them, and in and through Seattle I believe there is the larger chance. Or if I were on life’s threshold and, say, twenty-five and vigorous, I would pitch my tent within the confines of the continent of Alaska, and by energy, thrift and foresight, become one of its innumerable future millionaires. ”

“ The ashes were scarcely cold when her enthusiastic citizens began to build anew, better, stronger, and more beautiful than before. A city of brick, stone, and iron has arisen, monumental evidence of the energy, pluck, and perseverance of the people, and of their fervent faith in the future of Seattle. ”

“ Seattle is entitled to her growth, and if the same spirit that has moved her citizens in the past continues, if the mantle of the older men falls on the shoulders of the younger men, Seattle cannot help but thrive. ”

“ Board sidewalks climb the older sections of the town, where fragile frame dwellings cling to the steeps above Lake Union and gaze down upon the towers of tall apartment hotels. And socially, too, Seattle is many-angled. For some it is a city of fashionable shops, theaters, motion picture shows, art gallaries, and modern hotels and restaurants. ”

“ Seattle has every reason to be proud of her school system. In addition to her public schools is the magnificent university, endowed by the state. The city is blessed with a delightfully even climate, grand scenery, with a fine natural harbor, protected from storms, and the largest vessels afloat can come into its docks at all stages of tide. ”

“ Here, then, is a masterful new town seeking new points of advantage over its rivals, piercing canals through to its backyard lakes so that it may eventually be as completely surrounded by docks and shipping as are New York and Boston. It is impossible to think of Seattle ever hesitating. ”

“ This is the route by which cattle and sheep are driven from the great pastures of Eastern Washington to the markets of the Sound and Vancouver's Island.
Seattle is built upon the face of rather a steep slope; is pleasant and cheerful-looking, and contains about twelve hundred inhabitants. The Territorial University is located here, and is a fine structure—so situated that it can be seen for a long distance up and down the Sound. Seattle has a great extent of wharfage, which impresses us with the conviction of its business capacities. ”

“ Occasionally, an airplane drones overhead and swoops down to a landing on the waters of the bay. From unostentatious docks and from piers longer than any in the country, vessels depart for Alaska and the Orient. And the seagulls drift out over the entire city, coming to rest everywhere, even on cornices and the spires of churches. Seattle seems to alter its nature with each change of perspective. Physically, its vistas seem constantly shifting, as its streets move swiftly from one plane to another. Here, one sees automobiles parked on roofs of houses built on the avenue below. ”

“ Along the business front was a mass of sawdust, the accumulation of many years, in which the pedestrians feet sank, and which the tides kept water-soaked, the only attractive feature of the place being some wonderfully large, broad-leaved maple-trees, growing down at the south end of the water-front with their roots in the bay, and which, alas! are no longer to be seen. In truth, there was little in the Seattle of 1890 to remind one of what had been. ”

“ Traveling through Seattle, it’s hard to find an area that has nothing to recommend it. At the top of every hill there is a view of a lake or the ocean, and at the bottom of every hill is a shore. There is no definable nice part of town; though there are certainly relatively wealthy neighborhoods, they are small and interspersed with less well off ones. Though there are poor neighborhoods, there are few slums. ”

“ From these items, putting that and that together, it is safe to say that Seattle is no bubble which a pin-prick will cause to collapse, and that a century hence it will be here with added area, wealth, dignity, and history. ”

“ The Seattle of today is really not so different from the Seattle of the 1960s. It is still filled with single family households, still mostly white with as many Asians as blacks, still liberal, still with about half a million people, still almost entirely without a centralized method of planning. The suburbs have grown, but they are also in essentially the same state as before, if a little more independent. Seattle’s economy is more vibrant now, with Microsoft, and richer, but the largest employer is still Boeing. ”

“ Commercially and industrially, Seattle is one of the foremost cities of the Pacific Coast. It has valuable fisheries and a tributary region rich in timber and in mineral and agricultural resources. The opening of the Alaskan gold fields, for which the city is a popular sailing point, and the development of trade with the Orient, especially with the Philippines since the Spanish-American War, have contributed to the remarkable growth of the city in recent years. ”

“ It is growing in every direction and in every way. Located on a great inland sea, in sight of the mountains and blest with a climate of wonderful evenness, at the end of the great transcontinental railways and where the large vessels are loaded and unloaded for the orient and the coastwise trade, the destiny of this city can hardly be overdrawn. Seattle has absorbed the major energies of the American northwest. ”

“ It is a pleasant journey of 150 miles through the pine forests from Portland to Tacoma. Any one of the splendid steamers of the Union Pacific may be taken for a trip to Victoria. Leaving Tacoma in the morning, we sail over that noble sheet of water, Puget Sound. The hills on either side are darkly green, the Sound widening slowly as we go. Seattle is reached in three hours, a busy town of 35,000 people, full of vim, push, and energy. Twenty million dollars' worth of property went up in flame and smoke in Seattle's great fire of June 6, 1889. ”

“ Seattle also has its poorer districts and its slums and near-slums. In the industrial area of South Seattle, along the flats and the railroad tracks, in the sawmill district along the shore of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and in the streets bordering on the metropolitan district are the habitations of the poor and underprivileged of Seattle. ”

“ One of the most wonderful changes in Seattle is the gigantic regrade work, which in a short time will so change the topography of the city, that residents who left the city ten years ago, would on their return, have hard work in locating old land marks. I understand that to take the United States as a whole, this city is one of the best advertised cities west of Chicago, and one cannot visit any other city without being made aware that the majority of the people know all about Seattle. ”

“ The railway journey from Portland to Seattle is not lacking in interest, as there is varied scenery the entire way.
A week in Seattle revived the impression of three years since, but the city has made wonderful progress meanwhile, not only in growth of population but in important public buildings and in the wealth of private residences, particularly on the heights for which Seattle, like San Francisco, is famous. Mt. Rainier was shrouded in mist and smoke, but Puget Sound and Lakes Washington and Union added unusual features to the landscape setting. ”

“ CHAPTER III. HE Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's steamers leave Tacoma, for Seattle, at four o'clock in the morning, and at six-thirty in the evening, so we were unable to see this portion of the sound until our return trip. Seattle is another of those rushing, pushing, thriving, Western towns, whose energy and dash always surprise Eastern people. The population of the city is 15,000 souls; it has gas-works, water-works, and a street railway, and does more business, and handles more money each year than many an Eastern city of 50,000 or more. ”

“ Across the Sound, and nearly abreast of Seattle, is Port Madison, distant twelve miles, also situated on an inlet, so narrow as to compel our steamer to back out—there being no room for "rounding out." All these ports, like Seattle, are great lumbering establishments, and have each a village of from one to three hundred people depending on the mills for employment. Probably one-half the lumbering business of the Sound concentrates within twenty-five or thirty miles of Seattle. ”

“ There was and still is no main park or particular area of Seattle that stands out above the rest. The whole of the city is filled with small parks, hills, and lakes, and this makes Seattle a very pleasant place to live in and visit. ”

“ The lake extends to the foothills of the Cascade range, whose peaks, perpetually covered with ice and snow, are from five thousand to more than fourteen thousand feet in height. With this majestic mountain range on one hand, and Puget Sound on the other, Seattle has an environment that rivals, in natural beauty, any other city of the world. The boulevards of Seattle are famous, and of these ex-President Taft declared that they formed one of the most magnificent combinations of modern city and mediæval forest. ”

“ The great city of Seattle was no exception. The report of the splendid work it did all through the far Northwest [Pg 123] ought by every right to appear in full. We must be content, however, to extract from the Seattle record a couple of interesting incidents of trailing aliens.
The first suspect was a German who had changed the spelling of his name. Outer appearances were in his favor. He resided in a good part of Seattle, in a good bungalow, and showed all the insignia of the Red Cross, Liberty Loans, etc., in his windows. He was unassuming in his manner and openly talked patriotism. ”

“ Mirrors behind bars are encased in heavily carved wooden frames, and the shop signs of employment agencies and outfitters recall the heroic epoch of lumbering and the gold rush. The harbor was the embryo of Seattle, and to this day the city derives its character from the wharves and its people. Broad Alaskan Way is a long sweep of activity, which subsides but does not entirely cease during the early rush of the morning. ”

“ Seattle, the metropolis of the State of Washington, is situated on Elliott Bay, on the eastern shore of Puget Sound. Its population has doubled in the last five years, caused by the wonderful influx of Alaska gold, as it is the headquarters for outfitting, and controls the trade of Alaska and the Yukon territory, and is also the base of supplies for the Puget Sound navy yard. It has the best navy dry-dock on the Pacific Coast and the largest dry-dock in the United States. ”

“ Seattle will survive, and most probably even prosper, without any sort of central planning at all – it has for the past 150 years. But as more and more land is swallowed by the sprawl of the suburbs, and more and more rivers and aquifers are tapped for the water needed for all those lawns, and the solution to traffic is that we build more and more roads, the Seattle of tomorrow will be a city with a lot more gray and a lot less green. ”

“ Its growth one could scarcely comprehend from the information as the increase of population. Seeing has shown the naked truth. The great kindness to me in the past of friends in Seattle has made me rather a Seattler. But I tremble lest it may not be able to keep pace with its pushing rival. Will the country be able to support two big cities? I have great faith in the country. Three years ago I said there would be a mighty empire along the Pacific slope—that is, a mighty part of the great Nation of the continent. ”

“ The water-plant is owned by the city, and water is supplied by Cedar River and Cedar Lake. From the fall of Cedar River power is obtained to operate the lighting-plant, which is also owned by the municipality. Seattle has a fine street-car system and all modern improvements. Excellent interurban lines radiate into surrounding territory and connect the city with Tacoma and Everett. Seattle was settled in 1852, laid out in 1853, and named in honor of a noted Indian chief. ”

“ Seattle, so named after old Chief Seattle, an Indian who was friendly to the whites, is built on a site where a handful of Indians once had their village, but it was an important place even then in virtue of its being a convenient point where every once in a while thousands of Indians would meet and hold their pow-wows. ”

“ The new city that rose upon the ashes included 465 com- mercial buildings, 60 wharves and warehouses, an improved sewage system, and paved streets. Wooden structures were barred in the business zones. In 1890 the population of Seattle had risen to 42,800. The nineteenth century ended in a vast boom which overrode a number of temporary setbacks. Along the water front extensive ship- yards were built, while from the lumber camps in the forests money came rolling into Seattle for food and supplies, and a wide traffic in raw materials, timber, fish, and minerals, left the city for distant markets. ”