Ballard’s Plea for a Deeper Harbor
Before it was a neighborhood, Ballard was the 'shingle capital of the world' and petitioned Congress to dredge its shallow, muddy waterfront.
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 city council of Ballard held a special session to address the future of the city. Mayor A.E. Pretty and the council members received and adopted a committee report to petition Senator Watson C. Squire for an appropriation to dredge and improve Salmon Bay. The memorial argues that Ballard, with 1,000 inhabitants, has become the leading shingle manufacturing city in the world, yet is crippled by a bay so shallow that ships cannot load at the mills. At low tide, the bay is mostly a tide flat, forcing vessels to anchor miles away and load via scows at great expense. The city argues that an improved harbor would allow local mills to double or treble their output, cementing Ballard as the premiere shipping point on the Puget Sound.
“The city of Ballard has the reputation of being the greatest shingle manufacturing city in the world... it could be the most desirable spot on the Sound for the location of warehouses, elevators, coal bunkers, etc., where they could lie in perfect safety.”
Ballard’s early obsession with industrial access eventually culminated in the 1917 opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which permanently altered the ecology of Salmon Bay. Today, the tension between preserving maritime industry and responding to the pressures of urban growth remains a cornerstone of Seattle politics.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.