The Dream of a Seattle Ship Canal
Proposals to link Lake Washington, Lake Union, and the Puget Sound via canals promised to unlock vast timber and coal riches, but the path forward remains a tangled mess of congressional bills and engineering hurdles.
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.
Back of Seattle there are, speaking quantitatively, enormous quantities of coal and timber, said to be the best on the coast, that aid in the development of the future city. Seattle is on the east side of Elliott Bay. Lake Union is one and a half miles long and three quarters of a mile wide, and its surface is eight feet above high-water mark on Elliott Bay. Lake Washington is 25 miles long, from two to five miles wide, and its surface is eighteen feet above high-water mark. By widening and deepening the outlet at Lake Union, and the cutting of a canal between Lakes Union and Washington, vessels of 3000 tons burden may enter from Puget Sound into these two lakes. Two years ago, a company was organized under the corporate name of 'The Washington Improvement Company,' composed of many of the wealthiest citizens of Seattle. The explicit object was to open these lakes to commerce, and to be reimbursed by tolls and by acquiring the title to certain lands now under water, which would be reclaimed by the lowering of the surface of Lake Washington. A bill is now pending before Congress. The probable cost of these works is variously estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.
“Sooner or later the improvements will be made, and for Seattle, it may be added, the sooner the better.”
The ambitious vision of the 'Washington Improvement Company' to link Seattle's lakes for industrial transport set the stage for the massive engineering projects that eventually created the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1917. Today, these waterways are primarily recreational and residential, illustrating the dramatic shift from an extractive resource economy to a modern urban waterfront.
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