The Hidden Dens of 1870s Seattle
A citizen appeal from 1872 exposes how unchecked public gambling was eroding the moral and financial fabric of the developing waterfront town.
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.
Editor Dispatch—I wish through your columns to call the attention of the public to the prevalence and extent of gambling in our midst. In nearly all the large towns on this coast, gambling is strictly prohibited and can only be carried on privately, by the utmost circumspection. Here there is hardly a place of public resort where it is not openly carried on, attracting hither a horde of vampires whose sole business and study is, by any and every means, to entice and fleece the unwary. Scores of honest, hard-working men, who occasionally come here for rest and recreation, are regularly fleeced by these sharpers of their hard-earned money. Men having families dependent upon them frequently spend their last dollar in these places, and what is still worse, school-boys attracted by curiosity find their way into these dens and are enticed or permitted to 'just try their luck' with whatever small pocket money they may have. When that was lost, they have even been accommodated with a small loan by the gentlemanly proprietor, to enable them to become more fully initiated into a career that is more than likely to lead to a prison or the gallows. Such a state of things is simply inexcusable. The remedy is plain. Let all who have the interest of our present and future at heart openly condemn such practices and unite in enforcing the penalties of our legislative enactments against them, and, above all, let our City Fathers forbid them by Ordinance under the heaviest penalties; gambling, if not suppressed entirely, will be compelled to darkness and secrecy.
“Scores of honest, hard-working men... are regularly fleeced by these sharpers of their hard-earned money.”
In 1872, H.A. Atkins penned a moral panic letter that mirrors modern anxieties about the 'gamification' of daily life and predatory business practices. While the location of these 19th-century 'dens' has long since been paved over by the expansion of Pioneer Square and downtown, the struggle to balance civic character against the 'horde of vampires' seeking profit at the expense of vulnerable residents remains a central theme in Seattle politics.
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