The Day Seattle Woke Up: A Traveler’s Rave Review of the 'Metropolitan' Future
In July 1870, a San Francisco correspondent returns from a voyage down the coast and is stunned by the rapid transformation of his hometown into a booming commercial hub.
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.
FROM OUR TRAVELING CORRESPONDENT.
From San Francisco to Seattle.
SEATTLE, July 24, 1870.
Ed. Ledger:— Monday, July 16th, we left San Francisco on the steamer Dakota bound for Victoria and the Sound. The scene at the wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company... was the usual one of bustle and confusion. Boxes, bales, packages, and baggage in apparently inexplicable disorder, everybody jostling and crowding, and hurrying to get his or her business concluded and baggage and freight loaded before the hour of falling; the officers giving orders in loud and commanding tones, and the poor Chinamen working like beavers, with truck and by hand, lugging the promiscuous mass on board.
The steamer was to sail at 12 M., but did not get away until an hour later. The day was a bright and sunny one... and as we stepped on board where we found many familiar faces and kindly greetings... we felt that the voyage was to be a prosperous one and full of pleasant reminiscences.
At last we got under way, and as we came out of the harbor, through the Golden Gate... we found no fog... But as we came farther out... we found the sea quite rough, and a strong head wind. This continued for about forty-eight hours... and as the ship was... 'light,' that is to say with but a small cargo on board... many of the passengers were quite sick.
But after passing Cape Mendocino the sea became much calmer... and we reached Esquimalt at half-past two P.M., where we discharged freight and passengers, and left at midnight, arriving at Seattle at 12:30 P.M., the next day. Glad to again reach home after our extended journey.
The Dakota is a fine ship... The people should see to it that this line receive such a support as to insure its continuance. It is a big thing for Puget Sound that we have direct steam communication with San Francisco, and we should not allow our selfishness to so far control us as to pave the ways for a discontinuance of this very convenient means of communication and travel.
When we came on board the Dakota, at San Francisco, we were pleased to see the smiling countenance of Otis Freeman, Esq., agent of the Steamship Company for Puget Sound... It is my conviction that Mr. Freeman is the right man in the right place.
Upon our arrival in Seattle—our home—the place to which, in all our wanderings, our hearts turned with longing—our 'Mecca,' our shrine of worship—we were more than proud of the progress and improvement shown by our people. We had told strangers that our pleasant little hillside city was growing, and that its future promised to be brilliant. But we had not expected that the day had already dawned, that the brilliancy of its future greatness had already cast the slanting rays of its rising sun athwart the horizon.
But these truths came to us with more than common force when we gazed at the city, from the deck of the steamer, and saw the many new edifices of our growing, metropolitan proportions. Our convictions were fortified than ever, when after landing, we saw the particular improvements going on. The United States Hotel, the Pratt block; the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad trestle work across the bay; the grading of the streets; the numerous fine residences going up on every hand; the increased activity in business circles on the streets; and better than all else, the improved confidence of our business men in real estate.
Seattle has been entering its 'loose-leaf' year [likely OCR error for 'lost-lever' or similar idiom of growth], for there is recognition of existence, and now, almost before the world is ready to award that even, we are fast springing to a commanding position. Capital, lumber, and commercial enterprise is now, and will be more largely, seeking our locality, and ere long we will be dictating terms, and taking our proper position as one of the business centers of the world, instead of suppliantly entreating for mere existence.
All hail to thee, Seattle! The day-star of thy prosperity has arisen. Already its generous beams have begun to inaugurate, and ere long will the splendor of noonday fall upon thee, and thou shalt reign Queen of Commerce.
This 1870 account captures Seattle at a pivotal inflection point: just two years before the Great Fire of 1889 would destroy the wooden city and force its brick-and-stone rebirth. The correspondent’s awe at the 'new edifices' and 'grading of streets' mirrors the modern narrative of Seattle as a place of relentless, sometimes chaotic, growth driven by infrastructure (then railroads/steamships, now tech/high-speed rail) and real estate speculation.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.