Seattle Angles for the Army's Puget Sound Rendezvous
As Congress takes up an army bill to concentrate troops at a handful of big Western posts, Washington's senators press Seattle's claim to the Puget Sound depot — while Oregon fights to keep its own fort alive.
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.
Washington City, Jan. 17. — The army bill was taken up in the Senate. Black explained the comprehensive plan for concentrating troops at large posts in the West: the establishment of two large posts, one at Fort Spokane and one on Puget Sound, to serve as a rendezvous for the far Northwest, to cost ultimately several millions. This would require the gradual abandonment of Forts Walla Walla, Sherman and Old Fort Spokane.
Mitchell of Oregon protested against the change and said he had assurances that the Walla Walla fort would be retained. A spirited debate followed as to the Northwestern forts. In the course of it Squire said it was being urged that Seattle should be the point for the great rendezvous for Puget Sound. Manderson urged the necessity of army centers along the Canadian border. The British government had already established extensive rendezvous on the Pacific coast, and it behooves the United States to make active preparation in the Sound region.
“…it was being urged that Seattle should be the point for the great rendezvous for Puget Sound.”
In 1895 Seattle had no army post at all; it would take five more years of lobbying before Fort Lawton opened on Magnolia Bluff. The same choreography — a city's boosters, its senators, and a federal installation that promises payroll and prestige — still runs through Puget Sound politics today, from Naval Station Everett to the periodic base-closure scares at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
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