Harrington & Smith Secure Waterfront Legacy
A landmark property transfer on Commercial Street marks the largest private real estate sale in the Territory's history.
The biggest real estate sale between private individuals ever made in Washington Territory has occurred in a battle between Harrington & Smith and Dexter Horton of this city. It consisted of the sale of 54 feet frontage on Commercial Street by 157 feet, and a lot 80 feet wide, carrying with it the riparian rights. In other words, Mr. Horton sold to Harrington & Smith the property, including the wharf on which they have carried on business for several years. The price paid was a fabulous one, the exact figure of which we are not permitted to state, but sufficient to say it was a greater sum than ever before paid by private parties for real estate in Washington Territory. Messrs. Harrington & Smith have already let a contract for the widening of their wharf to double its present width and the building thereon of large warehouses. The north side of their shop will be taken out and widened and the store expanded.
“The price paid was a fabulous one... a greater sum than ever before paid by private parties for real estate in Washington Territory.”
This sale occurred near what is now Pioneer Square, a site foundational to Seattle's maritime and commercial identity. The shift from individual wooden wharves to consolidated corporate ownership set the stage for the massive regrades and waterfront development that would soon redefine the city's geography.
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