The Human Spider of Occidental Square
A sailor scaled a 135-foot flagpole in downtown Seattle to keep the city’s Fourth of July celebrations on schedule.
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.
Last evening, in accordance with the announcement previously given, a young man named Wm. Avie, a sailor, undertook to climb the flagstaff in Occidental Square to reeve the halyards in place of the old ones, which had been carried away some days since. He came on the ground equipped with iron climbers, like those used by telegraph line repairers, and at about 7 o'clock commenced the ascension of the 135-foot pole in the presence of a large crowd of spectators. He climbed very rapidly and succeeded in moving the line and returned to the ground amid the applause of the crowd in 23 minutes from the bottom to the hollow. He was bathed in perspiration and considerably exhausted, but in good spirits over his success. The amount of $24.50 was subscribed to him for the undertaking, although he announced his willingness to do it for $10.
“He climbed very rapidly and succeeded in moving the line and returned to the ground amid the applause of the crowd.”
Occidental Square, once the heart of Seattle's 19th-century commercial district, remains a hub for civic gathering. This story echoes the perpetual 'hustle' of Seattle—where residents have long had to rely on independent grit and subscription-funded labor to keep civic infrastructure running.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.