The Senator and the Invisible Mountain
A visiting U.S. Senator’s high-profile welcome to Seattle is punctured by the realization that local landmark Mount Rainier is nowhere to be seen behind the heavy, industrial smog of the 1880s.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Senator John Sherman of Ohio, accompanied by former Chicago Mayor Carter H. Harrison, arrived in Seattle on August 16, 1887. The city turned out in force to greet the distinguished party at the hotel, where the First Regiment Band serenaded the visitors.
Addressing the crowd, Senator Sherman expressed his admiration for the city's growth, though he noted his disappointment in failing to see the famous mountain. Senator Sherman was followed by other speakers who joked about the elusive peak. One gentleman admitted he had labored under some doubts as to the existence of Mount Rainier. 'They told us there was a mountain called Rainier,' he remarked, 'but no mountain could be seen. Today at Tacoma, a man said there was no such mountain as Rainier here, but close at hand was Mount Tacoma. All hands looked, but no one could see the mountain at all.'
The speakers attributed the invisibility to the thick, persistent smog blanketing the Sound, suggesting that the smoke was a sign of the territory’s intense industrial activity. Despite the obscured view, the dignitaries praised the region's vast resources and the 'influx of capital and immigration' driving the rapid development of the Pacific Northwest.
“All hands looked, but no one could see the mountain at all.”
In 1887, Seattleites wore the city's thick industrial smoke as a badge of prosperity and progress. Today, while we have traded coal-fired mills for high-density development, the 'elusive mountain' remains a potent symbol, often obscured not by smoke, but by the rapidly rising skyline of a booming modern metropolis.
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