A Tent City Emerges in Seattle
A desperate housing shortage and the high cost of living have forced hundreds of residents into tent encampments.
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.
Not less than 300 persons have been tenting it all winter in and about this city. A few tents can be found near the bay north of Pike street, including one used as a store on Front street. The great number, however, can be found back in the outskirts of the city, in little clumps of two or three tents up to a dozen or twenty. Among the occupants of these tents are Chinese and whites, street laborers and transient campers, families, etc. Such a condition of affairs never before was seen in this vicinity, and can only be accounted for by the continued rush of immigrants and the high rate of house rents, with scarcity of houses. It is an extraordinary condition of affairs, and one which with the rapid growth of the city may possibly never be seen again. Such sights are more or less common about new towns, but not so about towns of twenty-five or thirty years of age.
“Such a condition of affairs never before was seen in this vicinity, and can only be accounted for by the continued rush of immigrants and the high rate of house rents.”
This 1884 account of a 'tent city' due to housing shortages and rising rents highlights that Seattle’s struggle to accommodate growth has deep historical roots. The casual displacement of people from the city core to the periphery mirror persistent civic debates about land use and who is permitted to inhabit the city.
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