The New Tide-Flat Plat Put a Foundry in the Street
Seattle shore owners crowded the county auditor's office to see how a new Elliott Bay plat redrew their waterfront—and some found their improvements sitting on paper streets.
A large number of owners of property fronting on the tide flats visited the county auditor's office yesterday to learn the amount of their appraisement and other facts connected with the new plat just filed. The shore owners were so numerous that they were sent to room 1, which was given over to accommodate them. In the course of the examination of the plats, especially the plat of Elliott Bay, many discoveries were made in reference to the exact location of the new streets, and some of the claimants found that their improvements stood partly or entirely on the proposed streets. An example of this is Moran Bros.' foundry. The deputies in charge of the work request that shore owners be careful to see that their property is correctly described according to the new plat, which does not correspond with the land plat heretofore made.
“Some of the claimants found that their improvements stood partly or entirely on the proposed streets.”
Seattle's 1895 tide-flat plat was part of the long fight over filled shoreline, private improvements, and public streets. The same waterfront is now a stack of piers, stadiums, and redevelopment deals, but the basic question—who owns the fill and whose building sits where—has never gone away.
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