The Dam That Shut Down Ballard
Fremont millers raised a timber barrier at Lake Union’s outlet. When Ballard’s mills lost their water, the fight went to court—after some talked of tearing it out by hand.
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 dispute between the Fremont Milling Company and the Ballard mill firms over the blocking of the Lake Union outlet with a dam by the former company culminated yesterday in the procuring from Judge Osborn by the Stimson Mill Company, the West Coast Manufacturing & Investment Company, and the East Cedar Lumber Company of an injunction restraining the Fremont Milling Company from maintaining the dam.
The dam has been built at the outlet from Lake Union to maintain the level of water in the lake and is composed of solid timbers. It has had the effect of stopping the flow of water into Salmon Bay and thus cutting off the supply of the Ballard mills, so that they have had to shut down.
The result has been great indignation at Ballard against the Fremont Milling Company, and the more hot-headed people have even talked of going in a body to Fremont and tearing out the dam. The Ballard mill companies have, however, preferred to proceed in a legal manner and secure an injunction against the maintenance of the dam.
The restraining order, which was issued yesterday afternoon, is directed to the Fremont Milling Company, Isaac Barlingame and others, and orders them to appear before Judge Langley at 2:30 this afternoon to show cause why a mandatory injunction and an injunction perpetual should not be issued restraining them from maintaining in and across the creek forming the outlet of Lake Union, sometimes called Shilshole Creek, piles, docks, dam, and gates cutting off and impeding the water flow of Lake Union and the watershed thereof through the creek, and to the injury of the plaintiffs. The defendants are in the meantime restrained from stopping the flow of the waters of the creek.
“The more hot-headed people have even talked of going in a body to Fremont and tearing out the dam.”
The timber dam is long gone, replaced by the Fremont Cut and the Ballard Locks, but the fight over who controls Lake Union’s water—and who pays when one industry’s choices cut off another’s supply—still feels contemporary. Seattle’s modern water and industrial corridors were built through exactly this kind of local conflict.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.