The 1888 Land Grab: Seattle’s First Lottery-Style Housing Development
Before modern zoning and master plans, developers in the boom-era Northwest used gimmicks like house-lot raffles to sell undeveloped land on the city’s fringes.
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.
Jackson and Rainier Streets Addition is one of the largest, best located and most desirable tracts ever placed upon the market, consisting of 60 choice residence lots. We are offering an unprecedented deal: five elegantly finished, modern design cottages, ranging in value from $500 to $1,000 each, to be given away with the property. Every purchaser secures a lot, and five out of the whole number secure houses with the lots. The uniform price of lots is $275 each. This is the greatest building enterprise ever inaugurated in Seattle, affording to each purchaser the full value of the original investment, and a small fortune in every twelve of the whole number. The drawings for lots and houses will take place on October 1st, 1888, at the office of Messrs. Kittinger, under the supervision of three prominent citizens. Jackson and Rainier Streets Addition is connected with the business center of Seattle by the Jackson Street Cable Railway. The road starts at the corner of Jackson and Second streets and runs up Jackson street to Lake Washington, passing within a few hundred feet of the Addition.
“The building of houses will create homes for ten families, and will enhance the value of all remaining lots.”
This 1888 advertisement highlights the frenetic, speculative nature of Seattle's early growth. The 'raffle' model of housing, while aggressive, underscores a recurring struggle in the city: using lottery-like mechanisms or speculative development to push residents into increasingly distant transit-connected neighborhoods.
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