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Seattle Tidbits
Seattle is situated between Lake Washington's fresh and Puget Sound's salter on a narrow strip of land. The community was developed around water and on hills. There are two mountain ranges beyond the waters. To the east there are the Cascades and to the west there are the Olympics. Seattle has a mild marine climate that encourages abundant natural resources and prolific vegetation.
In 1851, white pioneers arrived in the Seattle region and established a settlement first known as New York. It wasn't long before they relocated to what is currently known as the historic Pioneer Square District, located a short distance across Elliott Bay. The reason they relocated was because there was a protected deep water harbor available. Soon the settlement was renamed Seattle, in honor of a Duwamish Indian tribe leader known as Sealth who had become friends with these early pioneers.
A man named Henry Yesler owned a lumber mill on what is currently known as Yesler Way. This lumber mill was the primary economic support for the small settlement. Although the mill supported the building efforts of many new settlements all around the Puget Sound area, a considerable amount of the production from the mill went to the booming community of San Francisco. The development of Seattle was briefly interrupted in 1856 with the onset of the Indian war. However, in 1869, Seattle was incorporated by the Territorial legislature, and the time, had a population of over 2,000 people.
In spite of coal being discovered close to Lake Washington, and the consequent growth of another extractive industry whose product also found its way to San Francisco, the 1870's were relatively quiet. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company located the western terminus of its transcontinental railroad in Tacoma during the early 1870's. In spite of the disappointment of local leaders, the community of Seattle managed to forge a connection with Northern Pacific shortly after it was completed in 1883, and the population of the community increased dramatically during the 1880's. Although wholesale trading, fishing, shipping, and shipbuilding, were also contributors to the population growth and economic expansion in the community, coal and lumber were the main industries. It has been estimated that Seattle was gaining as many as 1,000 new residents each month during the first half of 1889. During the month of March alone, there were 500 buildings being built, the majority of which were constructed of wood. Also in 1889, a devastating fire burned all of the structures on 116 acres in the center of the business district. However, this fire only slower the explosive growth in the community but didn't stop it. The property damage was into the millions of dollars, although nobody died in the fire.
Actually, there were some unexpected benefits of the fire. It provided the opportunity for some significant municipal improvements that included a professional fire department, regraded and widened streets, a municipal water works, and reconstructed wharves. All of the new structures in the burned district were required to be built of steel or brick, and it was by choice on a more imposing and grander scale.
In spite of the arrival of the Great Northern Transcontinental Railroad in 1893, during the 1890's, Seattle fell on somewhat hard times. Although Seattle felt the effects of a business depression, much the same as the rest of the country, the discovery of gold in 1897 in Alaska as well as the Yukon Territory in Canada next to the Klondike River, made Seattle into a booming community. The community exploited its already established shipping lines as well as its closeness to the Klondike to become the primary outfitting point for prospectors. The link became so strong that Alaska was long considered to be the personal property of Seattle and the residents of Seattle.
Seattle continually experienced significant growth in the early 1900's, primarily as the result of the rewards of advertising. Two more transcontinental railroads, known as the Milwaukee Railroad and the Union Pacific and systems, arrived in Seattle and reinforced the position of the community as a shipping and trade center, especially with the North Pacific and Asia.
The population of Seattle became ever increasingly more diversified. Scandinavians came to work in fishing and lumbering, African Americans to Japanese operated hotels and truck gardens, African Americans worked as railroad waiters and porters and Scandinavians worked in Lumbering and fishing. There were considerable communities of Filipinos, Jews, Chinese, and Italians. During this period, the International District became the home of many different Asian ethnic groups.
In 1909, Seattle sponsored an international fair and had a population that approached 240,000 people. The event celebrated the cultural and economic links Seattle that it had forged next to what is currently called the Northern Pacific Rim. In 1914, the L.C. Smith building, which was 42-stories tall, was completed. This was the symbol of metropolitan aspirations and booster spirit in Seattle and was the tallest building in the American West for over 40 years.
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