The Battle for Seattle’s First Meatpacking Plant
A local firm threatens to move to Tacoma unless the Seattle City Council changes ordinances to allow a large-scale packing house.
The erection of a packing house in Seattle or Tacoma has been decided on by Bruhn & Co., and it depends upon a change in the ordinances whether the industry shall be established in this city. The packing house is intended, according to C. H. Frye, to have a capacity of fifty cattle and hogs a day. The building will be three stories high and have ground dimensions of 130x150 feet. The total cost, including machinery and ice plant, will be $30,000. From eighty-five to 100 men will be employed in the building alone, which will involve an expenditure of $50 to $75 daily. Mr. Frye, however, is still in doubt as to the location and says: 'We are a Seattle firm and as our principal business is here, we naturally want to locate here. But we must secure a location south of town within the city limits. It will be necessary for the city council to pass an ordinance allowing us this privilege. In Tacoma they have such an ordinance, and we have the ground there also. We did not buy it for a definite location, but because we got it very cheap. A location ten miles from Seattle would actually cost us much more for freight than to ship the whole way from Tacoma.'
“We are a Seattle firm and as our principal business is here, we naturally want to locate here. But we must secure a location south of town within the city limits.”
This story highlights the early 20th-century industrial competition between Seattle and Tacoma, a rivalry that defined the region's economic growth. Today, the debate over industrial zoning and the 'freight cost' of locating within city limits remains a central tension in Seattle's urban planning and land-use policy.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.