The Great Seattle Saw-Mill Gamble
When the city's leading industry, the Yesler Mill, was placed into a grand lottery to boost the local economy and resolve debt, it sparked a frontier frenzy of ticket-buying.
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.
Under the authority of an act of the Legislature, approved Nov. 12, 1875, a grand lottery was organized for Washington Territory. The capital prize was $100,000, and the total value of prizes reached a significant sum, with 5,575 prizes in all. The grand prize itself was the Seattle Saw-Mill and all associated mill property, then owned by H. L. Yesler. The County Commissioners of King County appointed T. S. Booth, Capt. Geo. D. Hill, and John Collins as trustees into whose hands the property was deeded in trust for the prize holders. The second and third prizes included the Hovey & Barker corner, opposite the Seattle Bank, and the Pacific Brewery property. Tickets were sold at $5.00 each, with eleven tickets for $50.00. Henry Yesler, as manager, invited the public to participate to secure the future of these major industrial assets.
“The Seattle Saw-Mill and Mill Property, owned by H. L. Yesler, will be the grand prize of $100,000.”
In the 1870s, Seattle’s economic survival was so tied to Henry Yesler’s mill that the entire operation was gambled away in a state-sanctioned lottery. Today, the city’s economic fate is similarly concentrated in the hands of massive tech anchors, proving that Seattle’s reliance on singular, all-encompassing industries has been a recurring theme since the pioneer era.
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