The Soaring Value of Seattle Dirt

Seattle real estate is by no means of slow sale, but is changing hands with only a little less rapidity than in the booming days of last spring and early summer. The last addition put in the market was that of Mrs. Sarah B. Yesler, consisting of sixty lots. Prices were set at $100 for inside lots and $150 for corners. Twelve have been sold during the past two days, and only seven of the original sixty now remain unsold. Eighteen months ago the Brigham place, on the west side of Lake Union, was bought by U. Davies for $2,000; it was recently sold to Lawrence S. Booth for $6,000. Something like a score of years ago, Dr. Maynard presented Rev. D. E. Blaine, Seattle's pioneer clergyman, with eighteen lots at the upper end of Washington, Main, and Jackson streets. The gift was not, in a pecuniary sense, a very generous one at the time, as the lots then were worth not much more than a dollar apiece. Mr. Blaine, however, hung to them tenaciously, paying each year the trifling tax upon them. He has just sold them, the new owners paying $15,000 in gold plus taxes, bringing the purchase price to roughly $18,000—or $1,000 a lot.