The Price of Industrial Expansion
A sheriff’s auction reveals the crushing debt behind the rise of Seattle’s coal industry in the 1870s.
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.
By virtue of an execution issued out of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of Washington Territory, holding terms at Seattle in King County, on the 9th day of March, 1878, in the case wherein Dexter Horton and Arthur A. Denny are plaintiffs, and the Talbot Coal Company is defendant, I am commanded to take into execution the real property of said defendants to satisfy a judgment for the sum of eight hundred and thirty-four dollars and sixty cents in silver coin, with interest at one and one-half percent per month. Now, therefore, no personal property having been found, by virtue of said execution I have levied upon the following described real property, to-wit: 320 acres in Township 23 North, Range 5 East. I will sell the same on Monday, the 22nd day of April, 1878, at the hour of 10 o'clock a.m., at the Court House door in Seattle, in said County of King, at public auction, to the highest bidder, for cash in silver coin, or so much thereof as will satisfy said judgment, interest, costs, and increased costs.
“I have levied upon the following described real property... at the Court House door in Seattle, in said county of King, at public auction, to the highest bidder, for cash in silver coin.”
This notice captures the precarious nature of Seattle’s early industrial development, where massive land holdings could be seized by powerful figures like Arthur A. Denny to settle relatively modest debts. Today, Seattle remains a city defined by the volatility of land ownership, where the names of original platters like Denny still dominate the local real estate lexicon.
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