The Great Cattle Stampede on Wharf Street
Eight head of prize beef from Puget Sound ignored the slaughterhouse route and raided a grain store instead.
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 steamer Annie Stewart brought over eight head of fine beef cattle from Puget Sound yesterday for Messrs. Goodacre & Dooley, and they were landed in due course; but instead of taking the usual route to the slaughter-house, they proceeded at a furious gate along Wharf Street, and on approaching Mr. Lenevue's grain and feed store made a bold dash for the establishment and carried it by storm. They soon, however, departed without doing much damage or consuming more than a ton of barley.
While modern urban planning strictly separates livestock from commercial districts, 1870s Seattle was a muddy, chaotic frontier town where animals roamed freely along the waterfront. This incident highlights the lack of infrastructure and regulation in early Seattle's port area, where 'cargo' could easily become a nuisance to local businesses.
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