The Cold Reality of Seattle’s Waterfront
While the city prepared for festive holidays, thirty Chinese laborers arrived from Port Blakely, unceremoniously discharged and packed onto a steamer like freight.
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.
About thirty Chinamen came over from Port Blakely on the Success yesterday, having been discharged at that place. They brought their baggage with them, and a large number of pigs, which were handled about the same as other packages of the same size. It is estimated that there are fully 600 Chinamen in this city at present; they are crowded so closely in the buildings on Washington street that the wonder is they do not suffocate.
“They brought their baggage with them, and a large number of pigs, which were handled about the same as other packages of the same size.”
This 1877 report captures the precarious existence of Chinese laborers in early Seattle, relegated to overcrowded housing in the Pioneer Square area. Today, that same neighborhood—once a site of systemic exclusion—remains a flashpoint for conversations about the displacement of marginalized communities and the city's ongoing housing affordability crisis.
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