The 1888 Rental Crisis in Puyallup
As the timber industry boomed and population surged, local workers found themselves in a housing crunch that sounds all too familiar today.
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.
A movement is on foot to build about 40 houses for rent. A model builder across from the depot is calling for some movement in this direction. There is not an empty building of any description in town. This scarcity of houses is not due alone to the hop picking time, as the demand is ahead of that.
“There is not an empty building of any description in town.”
It is striking to read a dispatch from 1888 describing a town where 'not an empty building of any description' could be found. Just like in modern Seattle, the pressure of a booming local economy—driven then by timber and hops rather than tech—pushed housing availability to a breaking point, forcing civic leaders to scramble for new construction.
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