The Great Beef Price Drop of 1893
Wholesale cuts fall to record lows, making meat affordable for the city's working poor during the lean winter.
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Perhaps the meat market has attracted more attention locally than all others put together. The cut inaugurated by the wholesale beef dealers has been taken up by retailers, and never in the history of Seattle could beef be bought so cheaply by consumers. Several markets have cut down their prices, but do not deliver goods to consumers at the low figures. As a general thing only rough meats are sold at cut prices, but some markets have reduced the price of the best steaks to 8 and 10 cents per pound, while boiling pieces, shoulder cuts, etc., go from 2 to 4 cents per pound. How long these prices will be in force it is impossible to tell, but meantime poor people can obtain meat cheaper than ever before.
“Never in the history of Seattle could beef be bought so cheaply by consumers.”
In 1893, Seattle's cost of living was a matter of life and death, with the city's poor relying on these deep market fluctuations. Today, Seattleites face the opposite problem: inflation and the skyrocketing cost of groceries, making the struggle for basic sustenance a persistent, though evolved, civic burden.
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