Seattle Wagers Half a Million on a Canal — and a Fortune on Mud
Hoping to unlock $2 million in St. Louis money, the city scrambles for a $500,000 subsidy for the Lake Washington waterway — with the dredged earth destined to turn Elliott Bay's tide flats into gold.
Seattle, with her usual amount of pluck, is working hard, with fair prospects of success, to raise a $500,000 subsidy for the Seattle and Lake Washington waterway. This is the outcome of a visit of a number of St. Louis capitalists, some time ago, who expressed themselves ready to put up $2,000,000 into the enterprise conditional that the city raises the half million dollars above mentioned to pay for right of way, locks, etc. Of this amount [a portion] has already been subscribed. The ground taken out of the waterway is to be used in filling up the extensive mud flats at the head of Elliott Bay, which in that event will become quite valuable.
“The ground taken out of the waterway is to be used in filling up the extensive mud flats at the head of Elliott Bay, which in that event will become quite valuable.”
The 'Seattle and Lake Washington waterway' became the Lake Washington Ship Canal, opened in 1917, and the dredged spoils that filled the Elliott Bay tide flats helped form the ground beneath today's SoDo and Interbay. The playbook — public subsidy to unlock private capital, with the earth itself converted into real-estate value — is one Seattle still runs on. Every canal, stadium and waterfront deal since has promised the same alchemy.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.