The Battle for Moltke Street
A legal dispute over a public right-of-way reveals early tensions between private property development and public access to Lake Union.
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.
In the case of T. H. Campbell vs. Sanman et al, Justice Cahn has rendered the following decision: The defendants are charged with erecting and maintaining a public nuisance by constructing a house or building in a public highway, in front of lots 7 and 8, in block 106, in D. T. Denny's first addition to the city of Seattle. It appears that the defendants have within the past few days commenced to erect a frame building. It is claimed that this space is a public highway and that this building, covering as it does all but about 20 feet of that space, is a public nuisance. According to the plat of D. T. Denny's first addition to the town of Seattle, it was evidently intended that a street called Moltke street, 60 feet wide, should run north by the east line of these lots to the shore of Lake Union. This lake is navigable, and it was clearly the intention of Mr. Denny to give to the public free access by this street to its waters for all time. Justice Cahn ruled that the evidence is sufficient to establish the existence of a public highway and that the defendants are held to answer at the District Court.
“It was clearly the intention of Mr. Denny to give to the public free access by this street to its waters for all time.”
Conflicts over 'paper streets' and public access to Seattle's waterfronts have remained a constant in local civic life, from the early days of private land platted by pioneers like D. T. Denny to modern struggles over street-end access to Lake Union and the Puget Sound.
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