The Bold Dream to Remake Seattle's Waterways
In 1880, a group of prominent citizens proposed a canal between Lake Union and Puget Sound to drain Lake Washington, reclaim farmland, and create an industrial powerhouse.
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.
Messrs. E. M. Summers, D. T. Denny, H. B. Bigley, H. H. Whitworth and J. J. McGilvra have filed articles of incorporation for the 'King County Canal and Manufacturing Company,' with a capital stock of $50,000. The objects and purposes of which are to construct a canal from Salmon Bay, on Puget Sound, to Lake Washington, through Lake Union, for the purpose of reclaiming lands, preventing overflows, purifying the lakes by currents of mountain streams, and utilizing the water for navigation and manufacturing purposes. A canal between the two lakes, about three-fourths of a mile in length, will cost not to exceed $8,000; its accruing benefits can be safely estimated at hundreds of thousands. It would reduce the surface of Lake Washington about six feet, thereby reclaiming thousands of acres of the most valuable agricultural lands, and protecting from occasional destructive overflow the vast extent of improved farms upon the bottoms of the White, Black and Duwamish rivers. It would open to steamboat navigation a fine farming country with 20 or 30 miles of water front upon Lake Washington, now comparatively worthless from the difficulty of access to market.
“It would reduce the surface of Lake Washington about six feet, thereby reclaiming thousands of acres of the most valuable agricultural lands.”
This 1880 proposal for a canal between Lake Union and Lake Washington predates the completion of the actual Lake Washington Ship Canal by 36 years. The dream of 'reclaiming' wetlands and controlling the lake's level—which ultimately transformed local ecosystems—remains a central theme in Seattle's ongoing struggle to balance environmental stewardship with industrial growth and infrastructure expansion.
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