The Wood Yard That Taught the City How to Care
In the winter of 1892, a group of Seattle residents turned a South Seattle timber tract into a 'work camp' to provide dignity and bread for the unemployed.
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.
Seattle has a very practical charity in operation, the work camp in the southern part of the city. More than a month ago, H. A. Deering, who has charge of the Union Mission, proposed to secure a neighboring tract of woodland and set unemployed men at work cutting firewood, the sale of which would pay for their board and lodging. Gifts of tools and money were received to purchase equipment. W. D. Wood, who manages a tract belonging to W. S. Ladd of Portland, gave permission to cut the trees if the men cleared the land as they went. Work began three weeks ago. Fifteen men are busy cutting, sawing, splitting, and cording up the wood. They take only live trees. The clear hard heartwood is sold at $3 a cord, and kindling is sold for 25 cents a bundle. A nearby carpenter shop has been converted into a lodging house with rows of bunks and a dining table. The food is plain but abundant. Deering says, 'We have proved the plan is a success. We have had hundreds of applications from men ready and anxious to work. We don't pay big wages, but we furnish the tools and pay by the cord, allowing men to earn from 75 cents to $1.50 a day. Many a man is mighty glad to earn as much as that in these hard times. This is a chance for the people of Seattle to give employment to men, and yet not give money away.'
“We have had hundreds of applications from men ready and anxious to work... we furnish the tools and allow the men to earn from 75 cents to $1.50 a day.”
In 1892, Seattle sought a 'practical charity' solution for unemployment through labor and self-sufficiency, a precursor to the modern debates over job programs and social safety nets. Today, the tension between charitable survival and systemic economic reform remains central to Seattle's housing and homelessness discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.