The Wires That Grew With Seattle

Seattle, now a city of magnificent stone blocks and elegant residences, was but a village twelve or fourteen years ago. The numerous hills south, east and north, now dotted with handsome homes, were then clothed in the bright evergreen vesture of the primeval forest. While yet but a speck on the margin of the great inland sea, its background of fringing firs attracted the attention of far-sighted San Francisco capitalists. The promoters of the destiny of the great Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company foresaw, with prophetic vision, that not many years hence the little emerald-set village of Seattle — surrounded by untold wealth in its timber products, and the natural outlet to what they believed would prove mines of fabulous worth — would be a magnificent city of the Northwest.

Time has shown that these far-sighted businessmen made no mistake. They sent their representatives to the Sound, and after a short stay the work of establishing a branch of the San Francisco office was finished. For the first time the jingle of the telephone bells sounded in the Northwest, and told of another step forward of the young but growing city. The company soon had the business portion of the city connected and also several telephones in private residences.

Soon the natural resources of the surrounding country attracted Eastern and foreign capital to Seattle, and as a result saw mills, factories and other institutions sprang into existence. The village expanded in two years from a town of 3,000 inhabitants to a city of 25,000. The strong tide of immigration which floated thousands of people from the crowded cities of the East toward the magnificently endowed land of the West gave Seattle her quota. As the city became more populous the Sunset Telephone Company widened its range of work, adding hundreds of new subscribers to the already large list. The great forests soon began, through the medium of the hundreds of mills up and down the Sound, to give to the world of their vast abundance of timber wealth. As a consequence new villages and cities grew up, and in a few years many of these have become centres of wealth and culture second only to Seattle. Then the railroad companies, seeing the future of the Sound country, pushed their roads through mountain and forest that the rich resources might have an outlet to the East.

The Sunset Telephone Company kept pace with every move that was made. Today Seattle has telephonic intercourse with hundreds of points in the state of Washington, east to west, north to south, and connections with many points in Oregon, Idaho and even into British Columbia. The company has the finest long-distance service in the world. A new system is now being arranged that will place Seattle ahead of all the Atlantic cities in the way of telephonic service. North of Seattle, as far as Snohomish City, is a copper metallic circuit, and thence to the Washington line and into British Columbia an iron wire has been strung.

The headquarters of the Sunset Company in Seattle are in the Korn block, where a complete beehive of industry exists. In the general operating room at least a dozen employes are kept busy from morning to night connecting and disconnecting the hundreds of telephones. In the long-distance room are separate, practically sound-proof booths for the use of those who desire to talk with distant points. A characteristic of the enterprise of the Sunset Company was shown when the great fire of 1889 swept the plant out of existence. Within ten days temporary wires were up and subscribers receiving the service in tents and other temporary quarters.