The Boys of Seattle’s Waterfront: A Victorian-Era Public Nuisance
In June 1878, Seattle’s civic leaders were up in arms over a group of boys bathing in the nude near the coal bunkers, marking an early clash between rustic freedom and a modernizing, ‘respectable’ city.
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.
During the past week, a number of large and small boys have been in the habit of bathing in the vicinity of the old Seattle coal bunkers, remaining there nearly all day and racing up and down the beach in a nude state, to the no small annoyance and disgust of families living in that neighborhood. Considering that some of the most respectable people in the city dwell near the beach in that locality, it is certainly incumbent upon our police to see that this nuisance is abated at once.
“A number of large and small boys have been in the habit of bathing... racing up and down the beach in a nude state, to the no small annoyance and disgust of families.”
This 1878 complaint about public behavior on the waterfront echoes the enduring tension between the city’s industrial, freewheeling past and the sensibilities of its evolving residential neighborhoods. Today, the location near the old coal bunkers has been transformed into the highly gentrified and tourist-heavy landscape of the Seattle waterfront, yet the debate over who has a right to occupy public spaces remains a central theme in local politics.
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