The First Census of a Boomtown: Seattle’s Population Swells to Nearly 4,000
A newly published directory reveals the explosive growth of the Pacific Northwest's frontier city, detailing a population surge driven by logging camps and coal mines, while highlighting the stark racial demographics of 1876.
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.
GROWTH OF SEATTLE.
We have received from the publishers, Northrup & Ward, the first annual directory of the city of Seattle, the first named gentleman having done its typography, while the latter has been entrusted with its compilation. It gives the names of 1,041 heads of families or adult persons actively engaged in business within the city limits, while 272 business establishments are announced through its agency.
We are quite confident that the following figures, which were doubtless correct when the canvass was made three months ago, are now below the actual population of Seattle:
Total number of white adults in the city: 2,114 Girls under 10 years of age: 295 Boys under 10 years of age: 330 Girls over 10 and under 21: [illegible/missing] Boys 10 to 21: [illegible/missing] Total white minors: 956 Average floating population: 300 Total white population: 3,400 Chinamen: 250 Resident Indians: 50 Total population: 3,790
Since the above was taken, many logging camps have shut-down for the winter and some hands have been discharged from the coal mines, many of whom are laboring about the wharves or repairing the streets; hence we believe the average floating population [is even higher].
This 1876 census snapshot captures Seattle at a critical inflection point: just before the great fires and the railroad boom that would turn it into a metropolis. The data reveals a city heavily reliant on extractive industries (logging, coal) with a transient 'floating' workforce, and starkly documents the racial hierarchy of the era, where Chinese immigrants constituted a significant minority (nearly 7% of the population) despite facing increasing exclusionary pressures.
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