The Cricket Gets Evicted from the Wharf
A minor tugboat war on the waterfront ends with a forced relocation, illustrating how exclusive agreements between shipping rivals shaped the Seattle harbor.
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 little steamer Cricket has stirred up quite a rumpus on the waterfront, and yesterday was forced to leave the Flyer’s wharf where she has been landing. Hereafter she will land at the fire boat’s slip, an arrangement having been made to that effect to suit the harbor master. The real reason for the change of wharf lies in an old agreement between the owners of the Flyer and the owners of the Greyhound. When the latter boat was persuaded by the Flyer to leave the Tacoma run, it was with the express agreement that the Flyer people would never enter into competition with her in any way. The landing of the Cricket, with a cut rate, at the Flyer’s dock, has been taken as competition by the Greyhound people, and the Flyer’s owners recognized the objection as legitimate and notified the Cricket to leave. The new landing place is actually a more convenient one for the Cricket, as the wharf is lower and the float belonging to the city affords an opportunity to land passengers conveniently at low water.
“The little steamer Cricket has stirred up quite a rumpus on the water front.”
Early Seattle infrastructure was defined by private monopolies and 'wharf wars,' where the landing rights at a specific dock were as valuable as the vessels themselves. Today, the city’s waterfront is being re-imagined through the lens of public access as the Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition and seawall project finally prioritize pedestrian space over the cutthroat private terminal competition of the 1890s.
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