The Seattle Dream Home of 1872
A real estate listing offers a glimpse of modest, mid-19th-century frontier living near the original Seattle townsite.
The June 20, 1872, Puget Sound Dispatch carries a classified notice headed "For Sale! A Dream Home." The price given is $1,500.
The notice is fragmentary in the OCR, but it includes references to a two-story property and a "Home Block." No fuller description, location, or contact information can be reliably recovered from the page.
“Live within your means is a good principle to keep in sight in all matters of Domestic Economy.”
In 1872, $1,500 could buy a two-story home in the heart of Seattle. Today, that same amount wouldn't cover the monthly interest on a down payment for a teardown in the same city, highlighting the extreme transformation of Seattle’s housing market from a frontier outpost to a global tech hub.
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