This City of Ours

THIS CITY OF OURS By J. WILLIS SAYRE For the illustrations used in this book the author expresses grateful acknowledgment to Mrs. Vivian M. Carkeek, Charles A. Thorndike and R. M. Kinnear. Copyright, 1936 by J. W. SAYRE rot &?+ *$$&&*? *• I^JJMJWW' 1 - *- \£*- ; * M: . * *>. f* j*^* */ ^ *** - • CHIEF SEATTLE Leader of his people both in peace and war, always a friend to the whites; as an orator, the Daniel Webster of his race. Note this excerpt, seldom surpassed in beauty of thought and diction, from his address to Governor Stevens: Why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant — but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend with friend cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. Let the White Man be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead — I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1. BELIEVE IT OR NOT! 1 2. THE ROMANCE OF THE WATERFRONT . 5 3. HOW OUR RAILROADS GREW 11 4. FROM HORSE CARS TO MOTOR BUSES . 16 5. HOW SEATTLE USED TO SEE—AND KEEP WARM 21 6. INDOOR ENTERTAINMENTS 26 7. PLAYING FOOTBALL IN PIONEER PLACE . 29 8. STRANGE "IFS" IN SEATTLE'S HISTORY . 34 9. HISTORICAL POINTS IN FIRST AVENUE . 41 10. HISTORICAL POINTS IN SECOND AVENUE . 49 11. HISTORICAL POINTS IN THIRD AVENUE . 55 12. HOW SOME OF OUR LOCATIONS WERE NAMED 61 13. OUT OF THE ORDINARY 68 14. WILD LIFE ONCE SEEN HERE .... 76 15. SOME "FIRSTS" WORTH NOTING ... 78 16. AMUSING INCIDENTS IN SEATTLE'S HISTORY 84 17. THE GROWTH OF COMMERCE, INDUSTRIES, BUSINESS - . : 91 18. SEATTLE'S EARLY EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 95 19. SEATTLE'S SIX GOLD RUSHES 104 20. METHODS OF COMMUNICATION Ill 21. FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS 116 22. STREETS AND ROADS 127 23. PUBLIC BUILDINGS, HOSPITALS, INSTITUTIONS 135 24. CELEBRATIONS AND EXPOSITIONS .... 141 25. MORE ABOUT THE SEATTLE SPIRIT ... 149 26. SEATTLE'S WATER SUPPLY 151 27. NOTED VISITORS TO SEATTLE 156 28. ' THE SEATTLE FIRE 163 29. SOME SEATTLE SIDELIGHTS 166 30. SEATTLE'S GROWTH BY YEARS 175 APPENDIX ••^^••^•P THE CHINOOKJARGON; SOME COMMON ERRORS 189 861.307 CHAPTER 1 Believe It or Not! Seattle's history is a story as full of drama and action as anything you ever saw upon a motion picture screen; a story of amazing- accomplishments, of heroism, strange happenings, amusing incidents, sacrifice and love for fellow men. This is not a world city just by accident. The best sort of genuine Americanism put it where it is today, only eighty- four years after its founding. You will read, in these pages, of many odd things about your city you never knew before. And here are some of them: This postoffice address used to be Seattle, Thurston County, Oregon. At one time the whole of Alki Point had just one resi dent. Elliott Bay originally contained three islands. The first sermon ever preached in King County was delivered in a restaurant. Seattle has been visited by a gale so strong that it blew seven railway cars off a trestle into the bay, has had a snow fall six and a third feet deep, has seen a winter temperature of four degrees below zero and a summer heat of 114 degrees in the shade. One energetic superintendent of schools in early days was at the same time the justice of the peace, clerk of the 1 THIS CITY OF OURS court and a notary public and practiced medicine and sold real estate. Pioneers still here can remember when it required a full week to make the round trip between Seattle and Snohomish. Brass checks were accepted as money everywhere in the village in early days. Elliott Bay has been so full of ice that steamboats could not get in to their wharves. Seattle once missed being completely burned up by not more than eight seconds. Seattle's fire department once rushed to a fire but forgot to take along the fire engine. A whole train of railroad cars lies in Lake Washington just off Madison Park. One of the prettiest parks in Seattle is named after the worst enemy Seattle ever had. For a time, when Seattle was a city of 50,000 inhabitants, it didn't have a single high school. An oldtime sailing vessel lies intact under one of Seattle's paved streets. With all the growth of this city, the courthouse today is less than 200 feet from where it was seventy-six years ago. Seattle has been completely out of debt three times. Stanford once played a big football game at West Seattle. Flying fish have been seen in Elliott Bay. Lake Union has been completely frozen over three times. Strawberries and green peas have ripened in the open air in Seattle gardens on Thanksgiving Day. Layers of salt once covered all the downtown streets. BELIEVE IT OR NOT! The wharves were so crowded with vessels half a century ago that on one occasion a big Sound steamboat had to lie out in the harbor and send her passengers ashore in small boats. In the public schools, at one time, the eighth grade was the lowest and the first grade the highest. Elliott Bay, one winter, was so thoroughly covered with snow that the seagulls walked on it as on dry land. Seattle at one time forbade any travel between here and Tacoma. The University Cadets have seen active military service. Portlanders at one time traveled to San Francisco by way of Seattle. AAA A ten-month-old baby once turned an immense supply of electrical power into Seattle by the pressure of its hand. Steamboats once ran from Seattle to Auburn. At one time you had to ride on two car lines and two steamboats to get from Seattle to the north shore of Green Lake. Seattle teas seen a night parade of more than 400 illu minated bicycles. For many years Seattle was on an island. Trains once backed all the way from Seattle to Tacoma. The fire that burned all of Seattle's business section in 1889 was started by a bucket of water. AAA All of these curious things are explained in the following pages. ELLIOTT BAY IN 1882 This picture gives you an idea of the immensity of the harbor in pioneer days. More than half of the water area of the original bay has been converted into dry land. The street you see in the foreground is Second Avenue, taken from near the Stewart Street corner. CHAPTER 2 The Romance of the Waterfront What has made Seattle the wonderful city that it is today? Its waterfront, beyond doubt. Seattle's marine com merce always has been and always will be the backbone of this seaport's prosperity. The harbor is excellent. The very site of the future city was chosen, after a careful sounding of all the adjacent salt water, because it faced upon a good, safe anchorage for ships. Take a walk along the waterfront today; you will see mammoth passenger and freight ships arriving from and leaving for Alaska, California, the Orient, the Eastern coast, South America, Honolulu, the South Seas and Europe. AAA How did the harbor front look eighty years ago ? It was more than twice its present size. The original beach came up, in many places, to our present First Avenue. The foot of James Street is just about the original shore line. Farther to the south was a marshy island; the high tides came up to Washington Street and pioneers crossed Washing ton Street, at First Avenue South, on a little bridge. South of the island the bay curved in to the foot of Beacon Hill and swept in a great circle miles toward South Seattle and around to the original mouth of the Duwamish, then dotted with three islands. All of this southern portion of the original bay now is filled in, with paved streets and build ings where the salt water once covered everything. All along our waterfront the thick forest grew to the water's edge. The first laborious work of the settlers was to fell these trees for shipment, on sailing barks, as piles for San Francisco wharves. THIS CITY OF OURS The first waterfront improvement was Yesler's Wharf, built at the foot of Yesler Way so that the sailing vessels might load lumber from Yesler's Mill, constructed at that point in 1853, and coal, and unload general merchandise for the villagers. The trade, at the start, was almost wholly with San Francisco. What persons ordered in those days seems quaint enough to us now. In one of the early shipments from California stores were six dozen "hickory" shirts, twelve window sashes, ISO gallons of molasses, twelve grindstones, material for calico A FAMOUS PIONEER SIDE-WHEELER The famous Elisa Anderson, with her steam calliope, will never be forgotten by Puget Sound pioneers. Built in Portland in 1859, the Anderson covered many routes in both directions from Seattle for nearly forty years — her bones are bleaching today on the Alaskan Coast. Essaying a trip to the gold fields, she was condemned in the north in 1897. THE ROMANCE OF THE WATERFRONT dresses and some axe handles. These items give an interest ing insight into the lives of the earliest pioneers.

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