Snohomish County's Boom and Growing Pains
As the region experiences rapid growth and infrastructure expansion, residents face a critical need for modern sanitation.
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.
Sixteen miles east of Snohomish is the new town of Sultan, which has grown from nothing in three or four years. In the auditor's office, county business has doubled in the past year. Personal property assessment is over $1,100,000, and real estate assessments exceed $9,000,000. The town of Snohomish completed a $50,000 city water works project in June, but what the city really needs is a thorough cleaning up of the filth accumulated during the past twenty years near the hotels, and an efficient sewerage system. Money is not very plentiful, but times are especially brisk. With the completion of the vast amount of work now under way in the vicinity, there will be much money for one to spend this fall.
“What the city really needs is a thorough cleaning up of the filth accumulated during the past twenty years near the hotels, etc., and an efficient sewerage system.”
This report highlights the common 19th-century struggle between rapid real estate speculation and the actual infrastructure required to keep a city healthy, a struggle that defined early Seattle-area development.
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