Seattle Promoters Pitch a Land Boom in 1888
Developers were promising that Seattle would become the 'Mistress of the Pacific,' enticing investors with visions of massive industry, steel mills, and skyrocketing real estate values.
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.
Plant your crop in season; the harvest time approacheth for all those to reap who have sown in lots, blocks and acres in the fruitful soil of the new metropolis—Seattle! Brother Jonathan wandered westward 403 years seeking the chosen spot to plant the seed of empire in Seattle. All far-seeing people admit that on the east side waters of Puget Sound, at Seattle, will arise the Queen City of the Pacific, if not the chief commercial city of America. The advance guard of the great tide coming to Seattle began to arrive in force since January 1888. Portland's delegation came by wholesale; three agricultural implement, three grocery and commission, and one wooden and willow ware, $500,000 strong. Chicago sends a branch of the great pork packing house of Armour Brothers and a grocery jobbing house. The Standard Oil Company have secured a foothold in the center of population on the Pacific. Michigan is represented in the grocery and dry goods line, as well as by a strong saw mill delegation. Walla Walla has located her colony—a flouring mill, grain elevator, commission, factories and merchants—$300,000 strong. Little Rock sends another flouring mill and grain commission delegation. Maine sends a wool and grain representation. San Francisco representatives have secured front seats at $1,000,000 value. The East will equal in value that of California. St. Paul and Minneapolis representatives are in full force securing seats, and New York's representatives furnished $5,000,000 more towards building the best paying transcontinental line in America, the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern.
“All far-seeing people admit that on the east side waters of Puget Sound, at Seattle, will arise the Queen City of the Pacific.”
This 1888 promotional copy highlights the exact same 'get-in-now' real estate fever that characterizes modern Seattle. Just as developers in 1888 were hyping the 'new metropolis' to outside capital and industry giants, current developers use the same rhetoric to justify density and rapid, often speculative, urban expansion.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.