The Million-Dollar Ticket: How Seattle Bet Its Future on a Lottery
In 1876, the city’s most prominent businessman launched a massive lottery to fund a mountain road, offering a steam sawmill valued at $100,000 as the grand prize.
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.
A Grand Distribution! A Chance to Win $100,000 for the small outlay of $5.
Washington Territory Lottery. Legalized by an Act of the Legislature, in aid of a great road from the city of Seattle through the Cascade mountains via Snoqualmie Pass to Walla Walla; approved by His Excellency Governor Ferry, Nov. 12th, 1875.
60,000 Tickets and 5,575 Prizes. Tickets $5 each, or 11 for $50.
First Prize: Yesler's Steam Saw Mill and Mill property in the City of Seattle, valued at $100,000. (The rents from the mill and mill property equal $700 coin per month.) Second Prize: Hovey & Barker's Corner, valued at $14,000. Third Prize: Pacific Brewery Property, valued at $5,000.
Together with 1,011 lots in various parts of the city of Seattle and additions thereto, valued from $50 to $1,500 each. Also, 61 Prizes in farming lands in King County and $25,000 in Gold Coin.
The drawing will take place at the Pavilion, in the City of Seattle, Washington Territory, and will be made by blind-folded children from two glass wheels. The contents of the wheel can be seen by all present.
Opinions of the Local Press: The Seattle Intelligencer notes that Mr. Yesler is "one of the pioneers of this city, a large property owner, and is known as a gentleman of sterling integrity." The Dispatch commends the scheme as authorized by law and endorsed by public sentiment. The Seattle Tribune highlights the grand prize: "the piece of ground on which the saw mill stands... valued at $100,000." The Portland Oregonian calls it "the last sensation in Seattle," noting that more than three tons of paper were required for printing circulars.
This 1876 lottery reveals a time when civic infrastructure was funded by speculative gambling rather than taxation. H.L. Yesler, the man who built Seattle's first mill and arguably its first economy, bet his own industrial empire on the success of the Snoqualmie Pass road—a gamble that mirrors modern debates about public-private partnerships for housing and transit.
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