Seattle's First Real Street Paving
A specimen half-block is laid on Commercial Street as a test to end the era of plank roads and mud.
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.
The next step in public improvement which is likely to occupy the attention of the city is the permanent paving of the streets, and with a view to testing the use of brick for the purpose, a specimen half-block is being laid on Commercial between Yesler avenue and Washington street. In planking the streets it has been the practice to spike the planks to stringers laid in the dirt, but the first step in laying a brick pavement is to make a solid foundation. This consists of a gravel concrete nine inches deep, put down in two layers so that it may be rammed firmer. When this is thoroughly set, two inches of sand is spread on it and the vitrified bricks made of sewer pipe clay are laid edgewise on top of it. Hot tar is then poured into the interstices and sand is spread over it. In the course of two weeks the sand is worked into the tar by the traffic and the surface is swept clean. The work on Commercial street is being done for the abutting property owners on the west side. It will be several inches above the level of the rest of the street, as the planking has been below the established grade.
“A square in the center of Pioneer place was paved with a composition of asphalt and rock, but it has gone out of sight beneath the primeval mud.”
Long before the concrete jungles of modern Seattle, the city struggled to keep streets from sinking into the 'primeval mud.' This attempt to move beyond cheap, rotting wooden planks for the street surface mirrors current debates about the city’s long-term infrastructure investments and the constant cost of maintaining a growing urban core.
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