The Dream of a Lake Washington Canal Takes Root
Prominent businessmen incorporate the Washington Improvement Company to link the lakes, eyeing a future of farm-rich expansion and city growth.
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 directors of the Washington Improvement Company held a meeting at the offices of Day & Ronald last evening and were sworn in by J. C. Haines, Esq. The following officers were elected: President, Thos. Burke, Esq.; Vice President, B. F. Day; Secretary, W. H. Whittlesey; Treasurer, D. T. Denny; Attorney, J. F. Ronald. A subscription list was prepared, and in less than a minute, nearly ten thousand dollars was subscribed by the directors alone. A committee was appointed to canvas the town for subscriptions to stock. An officer of the company said, 'We have received sufficient assurances to justify us in stating that within ten days we will have surveyors on the portage, surveying and driving stakes for the canal that is to connect the two lakes.' The cutting of this canal will reclaim land enough to make homes and thrifty farms for a thousand families. Let our people, by cutting this canal, open up the land in King County, now unproductive, so as to give these people homes within our borders, and thereby assist in making King the banner county of Washington, and Seattle the Queen City of the West.
“Let our people, by cutting this canal, open up the land... so as to give these people homes within our borders.”
This 1883 vision of a 'Queen City' infrastructure project reflects the era's obsession with land reclamation and industrial growth. Today's Montlake Cut remains a vital, if contentious, vein through the city, mirroring the tension between speculative development and civic planning that Seattle still wrestles with.
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