Smallpox Outbreak Hits Seattle Lodging Houses
City health officers scramble to contain a sudden spike in cases as the disease spreads through the southern district.
The story, cleaned up
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Five new cases of smallpox were taken to the hospital yesterday, two to the suspect hospital and two lodging houses put under quarantine. The health officer has expected this development ever since two Great Northern laborers were found in the streets with the disease. Billy Southerland, proprietor of the Commercial saloon, corner of Commercial and Main streets, was taken sick at his residence 1303 Yesler avenue. The Babcock house on Washington street, corner of Commercial street, is now under quarantine with about twenty-four inmates. James Collins, a laborer, has been stopping in the California lodging house, corner of Main and South Sixth street, and is now quarantined. Health Officer Eames remarked that if anyone saw how people live and sleep in the southern part of town, they would wonder there was not more smallpox.
“If any one would go down into some of the lodging houses in the southern part of town and see how the people live and sleep, they would wonder there was not more smallpox.”
This report highlights the precarious living conditions in 1893 Seattle, where densely packed lodging houses served as vectors for disease. The tension between public health and the conditions of migrant labor remains a recurring theme in urban civic discourse.
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