Seattle's Frontier Expansion
A report on the rapid growth, construction, and economic development of Seattle in 1883.
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.
Seattle continues to hold the foremost position among the places struggling to become the commercial center of the Northwest. During the year, she has added to her population, recorded 2,199 lots of real estate valued at $1,100,000, and has been erecting 300 residences, 60 business houses, and various public buildings, churches, mills, and factories at an outlay of $1,000,000. She is now erecting a magnificent public school edifice at a cost of $25,000, and a palatial hotel, the Occidental, upon which $140,000 will be expended. The city, now containing a population of 7,000 people, has reached the summit of the harbor-sloping hills and is now extending its limits ambitiously toward the beautiful shores of Lake Washington. Walking over the three miles of railing, lightly timbered pine lands to the lake, I found parties of men digging and burning out the great stumps of the forest trees upon lots a mile from the city which they said were selling from $500 to $1,000 each.
“The city, now containing a population of 7,000 people, has reached the summit of the harbor-sloping hills and is now extending its limits ambitiously toward the beautiful shores of Lake Washington.”
This 1883 account captures Seattle at the exact moment it began its transformation from a logging town into a city, with property speculation driving growth toward Lake Washington—a trend that continues to shape our urban density battles today.
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